Zen - The Wayless Way

ZEN:
The Wayless Way
Zen Master Ama Samy

Editing, Design and Photos Koteshwar Rao
© AMA SAMY, 2013 All Rights Reserved
Published by:
Bodhizendo
Perumalmalai, Kodaikanal, India—624104.
Email: mail@bodhizendo.org Website: Bodhizendo.org

Editing, Design and Photos by Koteshwar Rao
Printed by
Sudarsan Graphics Chennai
First Indian Edition, 2013.

Price: INR.300/Dedicated in gratitude and affection to
Rev. Donatus Jeyaraj, S.J.

The Four Great Vows
Though the many beings are numberless, I vow to save them all;
Though delusive passions and thoughts rise endlessly, I vow to turn them
around;
Though the Dharma is vast and fathomless, I vow to enter it fully;
Though the Way of the Awakened is unsurpassed,
I vow to walk along all the Way.

Contents
Introduction ix A note on the interlaced texts xi
Part I. An Introduction to Zen Practice

1. Meditative Mindfulness 3
2nd Patriarch Ananda
2. The Wayless Way of Zen 13 48th Patriarch Tongan Daopi

3. Is God Dead? 29 21st Patriarch Vasubandhu
Part II. The World and Zen

4. The Vale of Soul-Making 41
5th Patriarch Dhrakata
5. Self-Compassion and Self-Exertion 53 6th Patriarch Micchaka

6. The Better Angels of Our Nature! 65 17th Patriarch Sanghananti
7. “Religion without God” 81 34th Patriarch Qingyuan
Part III. Awakening- What it is and What it isn’t

8. Koan, Hua-t’ou, and Kensho 99
31st Patriarch Daoxin
9. What Is the ‘I’ of Awakening? 119 20th Patriarch Jayata

10. Awakening from the Nightmare 145 47th Patriarch Wukong
11. Ethics and Buddhism 165 Gates of Paradise and Hell
Part IV. Teishos

12. The Way of Freedom 171
30th Patriarch Jianzhi
13. Awakening to the Formless Self. 187 8th Patriarch Gayashata

14. Where Do You Go After Death? 197 Sun-Face Buddha, Moon-Face Buddha’
Part V. Reminiscence
15. Sister Renee of selfless service, deep faith and enduring beauty 217
27th Patriarch Pranjatara
Bibliography 223
Introduction
The articles collected in this book are some recent writings of mine; most of
which were written for my students. Some focus on a critique of the current zen
practice. The last three are teishoes given in sesshins. These are different
articles, they each stand independent; hence, repetitions could not be avoided.
However, the theme of the articles circles around the self and awakening. They
may be of interest for a far wider audience.
Koteshwar Rao has edited the book, and added the beautiful pictures he himself
photographed in and around Bodhi Zendo. I am grateful to him for his service.
Ama Samy June 2013

A note on the interlaced texts:
The koans interlaced between the articles are taken from Denkoroku, The
Transmission of Light. It is one of the major collection of Japanese Zen
Buddhism. It is the document of the Soto lineage, composed by Keizan Jokin
(1268—1325). The title light refers to enlightenment experience that was
transmitted from heart-mind to heartmind, generation to generation, from
Shakyamuni Buddha through the 28 ancestors in India and 23 ancestors in
China, and finally carried from China to Japan by Eihei Dogen, from Dogen to
Koun Ejo. The Transmission of Light distances itself from sectarian disputes and
reestablishes the primary importance of Awakening. It was Keijan’s attempt to
heal the schisms in Soto Zen after Do- gen and to call his monks to the one thing
essential.
Introduction to Parts I & II:
The first part begins with the chapter on Meditative Mindfulness. It is a simple
clarification of important themes which will be recurring in the rest of the book.
Zen practice is centered on awareness, attentiveness, and mindfulness. It is not
based on theories or doctrines, but on paying attention to what is and what one
experiences in body, mind and environment. It is about embodied, non-
judgmental awareness in the here and now. The what is not only about body
sensations, but it is about all of one’s life and of reality—about one’s emotions,
thoughts, imagination, environment and one’s lifecourse.
Secondly, it deals with understanding of what one is experiencing. It is, as zen
says, drinking water and knowing whether it is cold or warm. For understanding,
one needs concepts and ideas; concepts and ideas are windows through which
one can see and interpret reality.
Thirdly, with understanding follows judgment of what is true and good, and what
is not. When one knows what is good and true, one has the choice of choosing or
not choosing the right, true and wholesome path. As in The Teaching of the
Seven Buddhas and The Three Pure Precepts, it is the call ‘Not to do harm and
always to do good’; it is the call ‘to practice all good Dharma and save the many
beings’.
‘To avoid evil and to do good’ is the first and basic Pre- cept. The more difficult
phase is the practice of discernment between the good and the good; here
mindfulness and attentiveness has to help us to discern the movements and
tendencies of our hearts and minds. What choice, what path, resonates in
harmony with our heart and mind, with the deepest longing of our hearts, what
will lead us to peace, inner freedom, joy and compassion--that will be our unique
vocation and way.
In the fourth level, one has to choose and act accordingly. Without right action,
our lives will end up in vapid day dreams and impotent fantasies. However, our
action has to be rooted in our embodied relationality and dialogue of life.
Finally, all these movements and phases are embraced and grounded in the
groundless ground of Emptiness that is Mystery, the Mystery of the self—this is
who you are. ‘This Mystery that is our ground is the origin, end and the
sustenance of our life and love. Mindfulness practice is finding our home in the
Mystery that is graciousness.’ The rest of the chapters clarify and deepen these
themes.
1. Meditative Mindfulness
Mindfulness practice and meditation are basic to healing and therapy.

Mindfulness-based therapies and practices are most popular in the West; they are
the secularized and watered-down versions of the originally Buddhist rigorous
forms. Mindfulness meditation is basically Buddhist and it is central to its
practice and theory.
Mindfulness in Pali language is sati, in Sanskrit smrti: it means remembrance or
recollection: remembrance as paying attention, being present, being aware, hold-
ing. The Buddhist practice of mindfulness is the basis of vipassana meditation.
Vipassana is ancient Buddhist meditation, but was revived only in the last
century in Burma and in Thailand. There are more than one school of vipassana,
and they are not without controversies. Vipassana is contrasted with samatha,
which is concentration and Samadhi. Vipassana means clear seeing or inquiry—
seeing into the impermanent nature of all reality and of the self. Satipatthana
Sutta is the classic teaching of mindfulness. The teaching of mindfulness in this
sutra as well as in vipassana courses is a bit problematic. For, their mindfulness
practice is portrayed as watching, observing, analyzing and labeling of one’s
sensations, emotions and thoughts; it is self-consciousness taken to extremes,
which is counterproductive.
Mindfulness comprises the three-fold of awareness, attitude and awakening to

the ground of awareness itself. The interpretation of these dimensions is many-
sided and also controversial. Let me present the essentials very briefly.
Mindfulness is first of all awareness: non-judgmental awareness of what is

happening in your body and mind as well as in the environment; it is being
present and paying attention; it is not observation or watching; it is a felt sense,
like drinking water and knowing if it is cold or warm. Some make a good
distinction between embodied self-awareness vs conceptual self-awareness.
Conceptual self-awareness is based in language, is rational, explanatory and
abstract; embodied self-awareness is based in sensing, feeling and acting; it is
spontaneous, open to change, concrete and moment to moment. Mindfulness of
course is embodied self-awareness.
Try this simple exercise: Sit for a few minutes and pay attention to your breath
and body sensations. You can pay attention to your breath sensation, to your
body, to your being seated, the sounds around you and so on, but breath-
awareness is basic. Pay attention to how your breathing feels, in the abdomen
particularly. Your abdomen is moving in and out, just be aware of the sensations.
When you are aware of this, your awareness is not restricted or confined, it is
vast and boundless, and yet it is focused on the breathing sensation and the body.
Mindfulness is being grounded and centred in the body, in the felt sense of the
body as well as what is happening to your mind and in the environment. It is
slowing down, being present, alive and aware. Not being carried away by
fantasies or thoughts, but coming back again and again to the breath and the
body.
Though your attention is centred on the breath, there will be a spaciousness to

awareness, a spaciousness as vast as the sky. In this spaciousness, you can let-be
yourself, giving oneself space for all emotions and thoughts; mindfulness is
befriending and being-with your emotions, needs and thoughts. They are like the
waves on the surface of the ocean, let them come and go, do not tarry with them,
do not cling to them. Do not be afraid. The emotions or thoughts are only
emotions or thoughts, they will not destroy you. There is power in you, and
strength. Do not allow yourself to be carried away or too involved in these
thoughts and fantasies. Particularly thoughts and images of self-put-downs, or
arrogance and the like will capture and drag you down. Sex and power fantasies
and magical mentalities are seductions with no exit. Fantasies often destroy and
mislead us. Of course, there is a place for imagination and fantasy, but not that
anything goes.
Mindfulness involves an attitude of self-acceptance, un - conditional acceptance.

You are all right as you are. You are accepted, you can be yourself. It is a coming
home to self and to the ground of the self. It is to be at peace with oneself; with
one’s destiny and fate, with one’s body, sexuality, mortality and with life and
death. This calls for patience, endurance and courage. Such self-acceptance
involves self-compassion. No mindfulness, no compassion. Further, it is also
finding one’s home in the earth, sensing one’s interrelatedness with all beings.
Being at peace and at home, one can choose one’s way from the centre of
oneself, not merely from the head or fantasies. Paradoxically, mindfulness opens
one to the unexpected, the possible and the novel. Your life will not be fixated
and over-controlled, but flow like a river.
Mindfulness calls one to orient oneself to what is good, true, beautiful and
loving in the course of your life. This is not so much in terms of concepts or
ideas, but in terms of felt sensations and feelings. It is similar to St. Ignatius’s
second set of discernment rules: you go more by what moves your heart than by
ideas (The Spiritual Exercises). Look at and feel your life-choices and
relationships and go by what will give you heart’s peace and inner freedom. It is
a long process of testing and discerning and choosing one’s direction of life
congruent with one’s heart and mind. Such felt sense and peace is not the end as
such. It is what empowers us to carry on with our life and work. It is both to be
at peace and at the same time ceaselessly to strive and struggle. As the poet
prays, ‘Teach us to strive and not to strive’(T.S.Eliot). In learning to live in the
present, one is aware of being rooted in the past and stretching towards the
future, yet one is grounded in the here and now, one learns to pay attention to
what is taking place here and now. Above all, one pays attention to the other, is
present to the other in openness and acceptance, not labeling and categorizing or
being judgmental. Mindfulness is non-judgmental towards the self and towards
the self of the other. It is letting the other be other. At the same time it is the
power to discern wrong as wrong and right as right.
Such mindfulness can be prayer. Mindfulness in formal setting is practiced in

seated posture; when this posture is one of faith, hope and love, it is prayer. It is
non-discursive, contemplative prayer, prayer of being present, learning to let-be
and let-go, surrender and self-acceptance. Usually our prayer is head-centred,
conceptual and imaginative, which is an imposition from without; whereas
mindfulness is a form of flowing from within the body and earth, heart and
mind.
Above all, mindfulness means awakening to the ground of awareness itself, it is

in a sense awareness of awareness. This fundamental awareness is the limit of
the world, it is the ‘clearing’ for the appearing of the world; there is no world
apart from this awareness. It is further the groundless ground of the world,
beyond space and time, with no inside or outside. This is our coming home to
the primordial source and ground of reality; it is the nameless Mystery that is our
source, origin and end. This Mystery that is our ground is the origin, end and the
sustenance of our life and love. Mindfulness practice is finding our home in the
Mystery that is graciousness.
Let me end with the legend of the Buddha’s temptation by Mara:
Just before the historical Buddha, Siddhartha Gautama, realized enlightenment,

it is said that the tempter Mara attacked him with armies of monsters to frighten
Sid- dhartha away from his seat under the Bodhi tree. But the about-to-be
Buddha was not moved. In the final temptation, Mara demands that the Buddha
vacate his seat and depart, for, so Mara claims, the earth on which the Buddha is
seated belongs to him, Mara. The Buddha then touches the earth and calls on her
to witness; the earth opens up and proclaims that she belongs to the Buddha and
not to Mara. Thus Mara is vanquished. As the morning star rises in the sky,
Siddhartha Gautama realizes enlightenment and becomes Buddha. The
awakening of the Buddha is his bearing witness: “I and all beings on earth
together attain enlightenment at the same time.”
The Buddha touching the earth with his right hand and the earth witnessing to
him is symbolic of us humans being rooted and grounded in earth, matter, body
and psyche. Our spiritual realization dawns and matures only when we
acknowledge our rootedness and grounding. And it flows from the unconditional
acceptance of ourselves and from awakening to the ground of our reality.
The Buddha’s left hand is resting on the lap holding an alms bowl. This is
symbolic of our inter-dependence, inter-being and community. It points to our
embodied relationality as central to our healing, becoming whole and
awakening. It is in dialogue that one discovers oneself, gets reconciled with
oneself, with others and with earth and the world, and comes to awakening to the
Mystery of our selfhood, our Original Face before our parents were born.
(Written for the Jesuit magazine, Jivan, 2012).

Ananda asked Mahakasyapa,
“The World-Honored One gave you the golden brocade robe. Did he give
anything else?”
Kasyapa called, “Ananda!”
Ananda answered, “Yes, Master.”
Kasyapa responded, “Take down the flag-pole at the gate”. Ananda was greatly
awakened.
Poem:
The wisteria has withered, trees have fallen down;
Mountains have crumbled-
Valley streams gush forth,
Sparks pour out from the stone boulders. 11
2. The Wayless Way of Zen
1.When two hands clap, there is sound; what is the sound of One Hand?
2.What is your Original Face even before your parents were born?
3.All things return to the One, where does the One return to?
4.Master Goso said, “For example, it is just like a great cow passing through a
latticed window. Her head, horns, and four legs have passed through. Why is it
that her tail cannot pass through, too?”
These are some of the zen koans. Such koans are not simply riddles, they are
existential questions and quests in order to open up one and liberate. It is a call
to conversion and transformation of self and world.
There are two major zen schools in Japan and each follows a major path or
sadhana. Soto zen school privileges shikantaza, silent sitting, just being, be-ing
and letting-be. Rinzai school works with koans as the privileged way to
awakening. Both aim at awakening and compassion. Soto’s awakening is in
terms of shikantaza, which leads one to the realization that practice and
awakening are not-two, life and realization are intertwined, awakening is not
apart from practice and daily life. Rinzai will fault Soto as being too quietistic
and not distinguishing enough awakening from methods and practices. Some
schools, like my own Sanbo Kyodan school, combine both methods and ways.
For, some people prefer the way of just sitting, shikantaza, and some are prone to
questioning and koan practice. Soto does not entirely ignore koans, koans are
part of the study and are also incorporated into the practice, though not explicitly
as tools and methods of practice and awakening.
The word zen is transliteration of the Sanskrit word dhyan or dhyana, and in
China it is called Chan. Zen is a school of Mahayana Buddhism; in China
however Chan was simply Buddhism. Only later it was distinguished from Pure
Land, Tendai, Shingon and other forms of Buddhism. Chan was born from
Indian Mahayana Buddhism, with a mingling of Taoism and Confucianism. As
characteristic of Mahayana, zen is mystical and metaphysical, as well as
pragmatic and this-worldly— samsara is nirvana, nirvana samsara. In the famous
Heart Sutra words, emptiness is form, form is emptiness. Samsara or form is this
worldly life and nirvana or emptiness is formless, ineffable, deathless, other-
worldly realm of freedom, joy, and peace. These two dimensions or realms are
neither two nor one—not-two, and not-one. In the proclamation of the
Transcendent Wisdom of the Heart Sutra, the other shore is not apart from this
shore.
As for formal practice, Soto practice is shikantaza, the seated posture, which is a
body-mind-heart posture. Usually, focusing on the breath is recommended—
counting the breaths, or observing the sensation of breathing, or just being aware
of breath and all that happens. Shikantaza is above all just to be; it is a form of
letting-be and letting-go, self-surrender and at the same time selfacceptance.
Walking is part of the practice, just walking, or rather letting the walk do the
walking. Shikantaza is sort of wu-wei, action in non-action, Gelassenheit, to use
the German term of Meister Eckhart and Martin Heidegger. It is to Abide where
there is no-abiding. Japanese masters advise one to be seated as Mount Fuji: to
be centred and grounded, to give oneself space to be; to let thoughts, fantasies
and emotions come and go, likes waves on the ocean surface; to take note of all
that happens and come repeatedly back to the shikantaza, to being, to
selfpresence. With the realization that one is not separate from the world and
others and ultimate reality, that one stands in inter-dependence and interfusing of
all beings; and in deep faith and trust of “a condition of complete simplicity
(costing not less than everything): and all shall be well and all manner of things
shall be well, when the tongues of flame are in-folded into the crowned knot of
fire and the fire and the rose are one (T S. Eliot).
In the beautiful verse of the Japanese Soto master Dogen, To study the buddha
way is to study the self. To study the self is to forget the self.
To forget the self is to be actualized by myriad things.
When actualized by myriad things, Your body and mind as well as the bodies
and minds of others drop away.
No trace of realization remains,
and this no-trace continues endlessly.
Rinzai zen, on the other hand, uses the so-called koans to awaken one from the
worldly self of ignorance and delusion. On the fundamental level, awakening is
awakening to emptiness—it is, so to say, emptiness awakening to emptiness.
Simultaneously, it is the realization of the world as the self and self as the world.
If we use the metaphor of the ocean and waves, one is normally identified as the
wave. In the koan practice and realization, one is lead by and by to the
realization that one is not simply the wave: the ocean is the wave. To use a fine
phrase of Meister Eckhart, my ground and God’s ground is the same ground. It is
a process of conversion and transformation. Soto zen approach may tend to
affirm conversion within one’s own religion and tradition. Rinzai approach will
call one to die to one’s tradition and religion and to be resurrected to a new earth
and new heavens. It is a transformation of world-vision, a paradigm shift. It is
not a destruction of personhood and alterity but a transformation and
transfiguration. The Rinzai master Shibayama Roshi uses the term Absolute
Subjectivity to characterize this awakening:
“It is “Absolute Subjectivity”, which transcends both subjectivity and objectivity
and freely uses them. It is “Fundamental Subjectivity”, which can never be
objectified or conceptualised and is complete in itself with the full significance
of existence in itself. To call it by these names is already a mistake. Master Eisai
therefore remarked. “It is ever unnameable” (I would take it that the “I” in
“Before Abraham was I am”, also refers to the ever unnameable Reality).”
This is attained, to use again Shibayama’s words, through death and rebirth:
“Master Dogen very aptly said, ‘Death: just death all through--complete
manifestation!’ When you die, just die. When you just die thoroughly and
completely, you will have transcended life and death. Then, for the first time,
free and creative Zen life and work will be developed. There, cats and dogs,
mountains and rivers, sandals and hats, will all transcend their old names and
forms and be given new birth in the new world. This is the wonder of revival.”
Let me quote the zen saying, which delineates the zen tripartite paradoxical way:
Before enlightenment, mountains are mountains, trees are trees. During the
process of enlightenment, mountains are not mountains, trees are not trees. After
enlightenment, mountains are mountains, trees are trees! That is to say, before
awakening, I am I, you are you, and the world is the world; in awakening, you
are not you, I am not I, the world is not the world. After awakening, you are you,
I am I, and the world is the world. But the third phase is impregnated with the
second phase. This is the point of the saying, samsara is nirvana, nirvana
samsara.
Zen awakening is awakening of the heart, or better, awakening of the heart-mind

of the universe. An ancient verse describes the zen way as:
A special transmission outside the scriptures No dependence on words and

letters
Directly pointing to the heartmind
Seeing into one’s Nature, attaining Buddhahood.
In terms of techniques, methods and practices, Mumon’s ‘Zen Warning’ is

instructive. Mumon is the 13th century Chinese master who edited some 48 cases
of zen koans, Mumonkan:
Mumon’s Zen Warnings:

To obey the rules and regulations is to tie yourself without a rope. To act freely
and without restraint is heresy and deviltry. To be aware of the mind, making it
pure and quiet, is the false Zen of silent illumination. To arbitrarily ignore
causal relations is to fall into a deep pitfall. To abide in absolute awakening with
no darkening is to wear chains with a yoke. Thinking of good and evil is being in
Heaven and Hell. To have ideas about the Buddha and the Dharma is to be
imprisoned inside two iron mountains. Becoming aware of consciousness at the
instant it arises is toying with the mind. Practicing concentration in quiet sitting
is an action of devils. If you go forward, you will lose the essence. If you go
back, you oppose the truth. If you neither go forward nor back, you are a dead
man breathing. Tell me now, what will you do? Make the utmost effort to attain
realization completely in this life! Do not let yourself circulate karma forever.
Neither Soto shikantaza nor Rinzai koan practice is some short-cut method.
Methods, language and scriptures will be used, but one has to go beyond all of
these while dwelling in the home of language. It is a prolonged process of
practice, discernment and realization. All this takes place in the relationship with
the master and the sangha, in the matrix of the tradition and walking the way.
Thomas Merton has said that you have to look long and steady at duality before
you are freed from dualism and come to realize non-duality. The zen way is not
very different from the Ignatian way: however, the Ig- natian way is rather
dualistic, while the zen realization is non-dualistic. In zen awakening you have
not only to die with Christ, but you have to die to Christ as well and awaken as
Christ.
In the 12th century a Chinese zen master drew the socalled ox-herding pictures,
usually ten of them, to illustrate the stages of zen practice and awakening.
Commentaries and verses were added to the pictures. The ten titles of the
pictures and with brief explanations:
1. Searching for the Ox

A young farmer is shown searching for his lost ox. This is the search for ultimate
reality, the quest for the True Self. Suffering and lostness, and hope and trust, are
the sine qua non. The seeking and longing have to be such as if one is standing
on the brink of life and death. The sound of cicadae fill the air—what are they
proclaiming?
2. Finding Traces of the Ox

He has found the footprints of his ox and is hastening along their path. Empty,
aimless wandering is not enough, one has to find and choose a way, a marga.
The way has to be your way, and it must be an authentic way to the True Self. It
also implies a guide along the way, a true master.
3. Finding the Ox
The man discovers his ox, but at some distance. This is a crucial phase in the
quest, a coming to experience for oneself the true reality, the first Enlightenment
or satori. Mere belief and searching forever, without experiential Realization,
will be a wasted life. But this awakening and realization is only the beginning,
not the end.
4. Catching the Ox
The farmer catches hold of the ox, which is trying to get free. It is not enough
just to see, one has to touch and experience the real. Receptivity, willingness,
renunciation are all part of the way.
5. Taming the Ox
The ox has been quietened, tamed. The previous picture and this one show that it
is not enough to merely see, hear or experience the True Self. It is a long process
of discipline, training and discernment in discipleship.
6. Coming Home on the Back of the Ox

Man is sitting on the back of the ox, playing a flute, returning home. He has
found what he had lost or had been seeking; has caught, tamed and taken
possession of it. There is certainty, peace, joy, music. The struggle is over, or so
it seems.
7. The Ox Forgotten, Man Alone

The ox has disappeared, man is alone. Man has been identifying himself, finding
security, in one thing or the other—pleasure, power, romance, society, dogmas,
ideologies, action programmes, reason, emotion, history, nature… Images and
ideas of god, world, self, truth and reality can become idols, one finding security
and identity in them. All these are human constructions, fantasy projections.
There is no solid, certain, absolute foothold either out there in the objective
world or in the subjective world. What he had thought was his True Self, the
Absolute, was only a finite being, and his construction. This stage is the phase of
the withdrawal of projections. It is a time of loneliness, isolation, relativity; of
aloneness and solitude. A time of peace and calm, not yet authentic and full.
8. Ox and Man, Both Forgotten

There is only empty space, zero, with a circle. It is the letting go of all
identifications and egoistic attachments. Subject and object have both vanished.
It is the womb of nothingness and at the same time the source of all. Emptiness
is Fullness, Death transmutes into Life.
9. Return to the Source and Origin

There is a tree in bloom, a running brook, birds and fish. When you die
completely, you awaken to the heart of each and every reality. Man is not shown
here. It is not a homocentric world, which is a human construction, but reality in
suchness, in its interdependent co-arising and co-creating, in its inexhaustible
depth and infinite possibilities. It is the as-is-ness of the real, suchness, tathata:
the presentation of the mystery that is graciousness.
10. Entering the Market-Place with Open Hands In the final picture, an old
man, bare-chested and barefooted, is conversing with a younger one, who is
carrying fish and liquor to sell in the market place. It is the return to the world, to
the marketplace, in dialogue and relationship, in self-less compassion. There is
no more dualism (duality and plurality are not dualism) of sacred and secular,
holy and profane, market-place and temple, the unenlightened and the
Enlightened. Samsara is Nirvana, Nirvana is Samsara.
A verse to the 8th ox-herding picture representing sunyata/emptiness declares:
All worldly desires have fallen away and

at the same time
The meaning of holiness has become completely empty. Do not linger where the
Buddha dwells.
Go past the place where no Buddha dwells…. With one blow the vast sky
suddenly breaks into pieces. Holy, worldly, both vanished without a trace.
Zen, as every other religion and tradition, is multi-layered. There is the zen as
practice and method, zen as philosophy, zen as religion, zen as institution with
all that goes with that, zen as creative art and so on. Zen can be practiced simply
as a method—a method of just sitting and silence, in mindfulness, self-surrender
and self-acceptance. This is the way most people use this method, and
Christians, too. This is the practice of mindfulness meditation; it is a wonderful
healing and liberating way and practice.
By the way, Western Christian spirituality has no such deep, experiential

methods and ways as zen or some of the Eastern spiritualities. The modern
Centring Prayer and Mantra Prayer, as well as the Orthodox Jesus Prayer, have
learnt from and incorporated some of the Eastern elements, but these are not
enough. Let me not get into the matter further.
It should be mentioned also that as in every institution and method, zen

institutions also has their human problems and failures. Quite many zen masters
are not mature enough ethically, psychologically or spiritually. Most are not
really enlightened teachers, but if they are humble and caring, they can be of
great help. Zen attracts, particularly in the West, not only psychologically
unbalanced people, but also some narcissistic and power-hungry people. In
today’s world, Christianity and every other major religion has become
dysfunctional and fail to meet the spiritual hunger of so many seekers, young
and old. Given good, mature and enlightened masters and teachers, zen offers
great illumination and solace, peace, freedom, joy and compassion; yet only the
one who wakes from dreams can see the morning light. The way of zen is like
the flight of the bird leaving no traces:
The Great Way has no gate,

In myriad differences there is a road:
If you manage to pass this barrier,
You will walk freely through the universe.
Zen to be fully and authentically zen, it has to be religious. Stripped of being

religious, zen loses its heart and soul. Zen is a way of salvation and liberation,
not merely one of healing, relaxation, peace and quiet. Zen is marvelous and
profound, but it is utterly demanding and challenging. Zen calls for a radical
self-emptying, and it is also a radical challenge to religions—“Kill the Buddha if
you meet him/her on the way!” Meister Eckhart echoes this when he prays to
God that he may give up God! When Christians practice zen, it can be used as a
method; but this will not be enough if one wants to go deep into the heart of zen.
One has to pass over into the zen vision and realization, and return to one’s
home-ground. One then stands in-between the worlds, one worships in spirit and
truth, and it is neither in this mountain nor in that temple.
Here is the verse to the tenth and final ox-herding pic - ture portraying the
enlightened person returning to the marketplace of the world:
Barefooted and naked of breast,

I mingle with the people of the world. My clothes are ragged and dust-laden, and
I am ever blissful.
I use no magic to extend my life;
Now, before me, the dead trees become alive.
(Written for the Jesuit magazine Ignis, 2011)
The 40th Patriarch was Zen Master Tongan Daopi. Once, Yunju said, “If you
want to acquire such a thing, The Wayless Way of Zen you must become such a person.
Since you are such a person, why be anxious about such a thing?”
Hearing this, the master was awakened.
The poem:
Seeking it oneself with empty hands, you return with empty hands; In that place
where fundamentally nothing is acquired,
You really acquire it.
3. Is God Dead?
Jesus said, “It is written: ‘One does not live on bread alone, but on every word
that comes from the mouth of God’” (Mt. 4:4). Nietzsche said, “He who has a
why to live for can bear almost any how.” Viktor Frankl, the concentration-camp
survivor, proposed the will-to-meaning as more vital than those of pleasure or of
power.
All these point to the need of meaning for human living. Meaning is the food of
the soul. Meaning belongs to the psychic and spiritual dimensions. Meaning is
multi-faceted and complex. It can be expressed only in symbols and metaphors,
in rites and observances, not in some literal concepts or theories. We need a
meaning-framework and vision of life and reality; but it has to be a lived reality
and not a mere idea. Meaning embraces one’s whole life and is actualized in
action and interaction. Further, it is both a given and a human creation.
Religions and spiritualities are supposed to offer us worlds of meaning and

value. However, in the modern situation organized religions, including
Buddhism, have lost their vital meaning to most of the people. Crises of
religions are part of the general crises of society and cultures. Everything seems
to be breaking down and changing, and to be questioned. Spiritualities seem to
be more supportive and healing, but there are spiritualities and spiritualities; not
all of them are life-enhancing and liberating. Most of them do not have deep
spiritual roots and are consumer-driven and manipulative. However, the
spiritualities which have their source and origins in traditional religions have
depth and validity. Still, these also have vast variations and differences; above
all, the teachers in these traditions differ greatly in their maturity, depth and
skills. Further, it also depends on the seekers and students who come to them—
their motives, needs, temperaments, characters and grounding.
Organized, institutional religions, however, are vital to society and world. They
form and bind individuals into communities and they have the resources, ideals
and drive to motivate the followers to engage the world and help transform
society and culture. But all these religions are enmeshed in oppressive structures
of ideologies; hopefully, interaction with and infusion of some transforming
spirituality like zen may liberate the power of religions and save them. On the
other hand, spiritualities without religious belonging are good and beautiful but
they may not have the power to engage with and transform the world. Nowadays
there is talk of ‘belonging without believing’ or ‘believing without belonging’.
The first refers to someone belonging to a religious community without
endorsing all the institutional beliefs and dogmas. This is the case in the West
with many people formerly Christian. The second is a bit problematic; for, it is
rather individualistic and impotent. However, more and more people are
becoming religiously unaffiliated, belonging to no religious categories, or
selecting and choosing what they like as from a supermarket. In Western
Buddhism there is the movement of ‘engaged Buddhism’, which focuses on
engaging the world and working towards its transformation. This is fine, but
lacking a deep spiritual vision and awakening, it seems to be a tree without roots.
I said that organized religions are necessary components of nations and societies.
Religions have both a negative and a positive side. The negative side depends
very much on how involved religions are in ideologies and “isms”—particularly
in dogmatisms and authoritarianisms (See, for example, the articles in the New
Blackfriars, March 2013, about the Catholic Church as a dysfunctional
organization). With such “isms,” religions become oppressive and destructive.
However, religions cannot be completely purified of these “isms” and ideologies
either; let us remember that spiritualities also are to some extent caught in these
temptations. As Jesus remarked, wheat and weeds will be mingled to the end of
days (Mt. 13:27-9), and we have to tolerate them as necessary evils.
When you do not belong to a religion, at least do follow a sound spiritual way.
‘Following’ implies giving oneself to the way in full commitment. It is only by
losing oneself in the way you will find yourself. As an ancient zen verse
proclaims, ‘When you have gone through the narrow gate (barrier), you will
walk freely between heaven and earth’. However, take care not to fall into a
dysfunctional sangha or into the hands of an unscrupulous teacher. (There are
more than enough scandals of gurus, lamas and roshis.) However, if you belong
to a religion, be located in it but do not absolutize nor idolize your religion (Cf.
Gerald May, ch. 11). It is good to be at home in a religion, belong to a practicing
community, celebrate the rites, rituals and sacraments. And further, do get
involved in the work for the world. As John Donne says, ‘No man is an island,
entire of itself. Each is a piece of the continent, a part of the main.’ As regards
authorities, human society needs leaders and authorities, but finally each one
answers to one’s own conscience. As regards dogmas, do sit with them lightly.
Dogmas and doctrines are in a sense symbols and directives, not literal truths or
commandments. William David Hart denotes such an attitude of participation
without identification as ‘festive irony’:
“‘Festive irony,’ to coin a phrase, is the distance between an enthusiastic
embrace of the ceremonies, rituals, and disciplines of a tradition combined with
a cool skepticism, if not a satirical orientation toward its creedal, doctrinal, and
dogmatic expressions. Naturalistic Christianity is a religion of ‘festive irony.’
One engages fully in the ceremonial, ritual, and performative life of the tradition:
dancing, singing, and shouting. One drinks deeply from its spiritual disciplines:
prayer, scripture-reading, fasting, alms-giving, and meditation. But one’s
understanding of them is radically transformed by a disillusioned—again, not to
be confused with disenchanted—festive irony. Through these spiritual
disciplines, these technologies of the individual and corporate self, a naturalistic
Christian engages in care and compassion.” (Hart, 2012)
What is essential to being authentically human is the openness to and awareness

of mystery—mystery of life, of reality and of self. In our ordinary lives, we go
on living mostly on the surface level. This is all right as far as it goes, but we
need to take time for periods of silence or meditation to become aware of the
ultimate dimension of life and reality. The ultimate sources of life and reality, of
the whereto and wherefrom, of the meaning and purpose, of birth and death of
self and cosmos, all these are incomprehensible mysteries. Sciences,
philosophies, and religions all offer doctrines, solutions and answers to these
mysteries. But all these are, as a Zen phrase says, only paper dolls to stop the
crying of us babies. When we seriously pursue the questions of life and reality to
the ultimate sources, we are faced with the existential abyss of nihility. Dreyfuss
and Kelly (p. 20) phrase our reality of today thus:
“Friedrich Nietzsche, the great German philosopher of the late nineteenth

century, famously claimed that God is dead. What he meant by this is that we in
the modern West no longer live in a culture where the basic questions of
existence are already answered for us. The God of the Middle Ages played the
role of answering existential questions before they could be asked; but such a
role is no longer conceivable. This is true for modern religious believers and
skeptics alike, as the contemporary philosopher Charles Taylor points out. Even
if there is, as some have claimed, a Third Religious Awakening in the modern
United States, the kind of religious belief available in our culture today is not
sufficient to quell existential questioning” (Quoted in Hart)
This existential questioning and abyss is paradoxically the face of the mystery
that is graciousness. It is the dawning of the incomprehensible, ineffable mystery
that is the ground of the self and of the world; it is the mysterious realm of the
ground of the self that is no-self. There is beautiful koan illustrating this
dimension:
In a well that has not been dug
Water is rippling from a spring that does not flow;

There, someone with no shadow or form
Is drawing the water.
When Bodhidharma was asked by the Chinese Emperor, ‘Who are you standing
before me?’, he answered, ‘I don’t know.’ (HR no. 1; see my talk on this koan in
Samy, 2012). When the Sixth Patriarch of Zen, Huineng, asked Nangaku Ejo,
‘Who is that who comes thus?’, Nangaku came to answer after seven years of
meditation, ‘What- ever I say I am, I am not it’. What I refer to as mystery, is not
some unknown region, nor mere vacuum, nor nihility. It is first of all the
unfathomable ground and source of one’s own self. The Sixth Patriarch said of
the self, ‘The heart is vast and wide like the empty sky; it is without limits and
boundaries.’ It is oneself as knowingwilling-feeling person; not a conceptual
knowing, but a knowing of the heart-mind; like drinking water and knowing
whether it is cold or warm, as a zen saying reminds one. It is wisdom, not mere
reasoning. It is a coming home to the peace that the world cannot give; this is
beautifully shown in the story of The Fiftieth Gate (in Wiesel, 1978; Samy,
Koan, Hua-t’ou and Kensho).
The self is realized in our knowing-willing-feeling; the heart-mind of the self is a

boundless horizon, inexhaustible depth. This self comes to realization in one’s
affirmation of one’s own selfhood in its unbounded mystery and it is actualized
in the relationship to others and to the world. It is in the affirmation of others and
the world that one is affirmed; self-affirmation and the affirmation of others are
bound together in a dance of knowing-willing-feeling. There is also the negative
possibility of denying one’s mystery and negating the dignity and selfhood of
others and denying the reality of the world. This is a deluded dream and
destructive evil. We oscillate between these two poles of affirmation and
negation, of love and evil. Zen awakening is not only awakening to the mystery
of the self, but it is also an unconditional affirmation of others and world.
Without this unreserved affirmation of oneself as well as of others and world, no
authentic awakening. Such an affirmation, however, does not come cheap. One
has to face one’s own darkness and self-centredness and go through the
struggle with oneself and with others, with the world and society’s authorities
and laws. One has to let-go one’s egoistic clinging and attachments, one has to
die to one’s narcissistic world, fall into the void and come back to reality as it
is.
The Zen way is articulated beautifully in the ox-herding pictures (See the article,
Samy, 2005). In this journey, awakening takes place when you awaken to
Emptiness and the self is ‘forgotten’. Emptiness is the self, self is emptiness. All
substantial beings, God, Buddha, and self disappear into the incomprehensible
mystery. This is portrayed in the verse to the eighth ox-herding picture :
Whip and tether, ox and self,

all merge into emptiness,
no trace remains.
The vast blue sky cannot be reached
by thoughts;
How can snowflakes abide in the raging fire? Only when you arrive here, you
are in accord with the way.
The tenth picture portrays the Bodhisattva way. The verse runs:
Entering the marketplace bare-chested

and barefoot,
With mud-smeared face, dust-covered head, The face breaking into a broad,
wonderful smile, With no recourse to magic powers,
you let the withered trees bloom.
As mentioned earlier, we need religions. But religions cannot really still our
heart’s longings. Religions’ superstructure of dogmas and authority has lost their
credibility. However, when we belong to some religion, we can perform the
practices in a sort of ‘festive irony’. Yet, our wandering, restless and lost souls
can find meaning, peace and fulfilment perhaps only in some spiritual way such
as the Zen way. Zen comes in many different forms, and its institutional forms
have problems too; further, many a Zen teacher may not be really awakened nor
psychologically or ethically mature.
In the West, Zen practice has often been very individu - alistic; Zen awakening
needs to be grounded in a community rooted in ethics and care for the world.
The core of Zen is the light that can enlighten our deluded hearts and lead to an
authentic, meaningful life. The core of Zen is our awakening to Emptiness;
Emptiness that is mystery, mystery that is graciousness. This awakening is to
bloom into the flower of compassion and to bear fruits of freedom and peace in
the midst of darkness, suffering and death. Zen is the spirituality of the coming
world.
Let me end with the words of the Chinese Zen poet Sotoba:
Mount Ro and the misty rain, and

the waves in the Setsu River—
Before I had been there, my thou
sand longings never ceased.
Then I went, and came back. Nothing special— Mount Ro and the misty rain,
and
the waves in the Setsu River!
(March 2013)
One day, the 20th Patriarch, Jayata, said to Vasubandhu, “I do not seek the Way,
yet I am not confused. I do not worship the Buddha, yet I am not conceited. I do
not meditate for long periods of time, yet I am not lazy. I do not limit myself to
just one meal a day, yet I am not attached to food. I am not aware of satisfaction,
yet I am not covetous. When the mind seeks nothing, this is called the Way.”
When the master heard this, he awakened to undefiled wisdom.
Poem:
The wind blows through the vast sky,
Clouds emerge from the mountain caverns;
All desires for the Way and worldly affairs are no of concern at all.
II. The World and Zen
4. The Vale of Soul-Making
“Call the world if you Please “The vale of Soul-making”... I say ‘Soul making,’
Soul as distinguished from an Intelligence- There may be intelligences or sparks
of the divinity in millions-but they are not Souls till they acquire identities, till
each one is personally itself” (Keats).
Olaf Strelcyk sent me recently three very good books on dementia and
Alzheimer (See the book list, esp. Ten Thousand Joys, Ten Thousand Sorrowsby
Olivia Ames Hoblit- zelle). I suppose he did not mean to provide for me when I
come to that stage! However, it made me reflect a bit on getting old and even
getting dementia and the like.
Our life is a drama played out in many phases. We are born helpless, depending
completely on the caring of our parents and others. It is the age of trust and
acceptance. We grow in abilities and learn skills, get educated to take our place
in society. It is the age of learning, ideology and goals. We get partners, friends,
helpers; we fall in love and build families and societies. This is the age of love
and sharing. We collaborate with others, we make discoveries and find meaning,
we contribute to society and the world. This is the age of caring and generativity.
Then comes the age of wisdom and the passing on our learning, love, caring and
meaning to the next generation. Finally the age of decline and failure; again we
become like babies, to be taken care of by others and loved into dying and
disappearing. We came from nowhere and return into the nowhere, into
Emptiness.
Here, Shakespeare’s Seven Ages:
All the world’s a stage,

And all the men and women merely players: They have their exits and their
entrances; And one man in his time plays many parts, His acts being seven ages
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Turning again toward childish treble, pipes And whistles in his sound. Last scene
of all, That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion, Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans
everything.
Of course, there have been many such formulations of stages and phases of life.
Our life is framed by birth and death, is temporal, contingent, limited and finite.
It is a story we tell ourselves as well as perform. It is a play on the stage of the
world, a comic or a tragic story; a flower which blooms and flourishes for a day
and is no more. All of life is impermanent, changing and passing, Buddhism
proclaims. In this brief life course we run through joys and sorrows, suffering
and bliss, meaninglessness and beauty; anxiety, depression, boredom, void,
failure; as well as faith and faithlessness, courage and cowardice, loves and
betrayals, hatreds and forgiveness. And then the story ends. We vanish into the
nameless night of silence.
There is an interesting film: The Curious Case of Ben - jamin Button. A baby is
born in the form of a little, old man; and grows day by day into the reverse
stages of aging, the reverse of Shakespeare’s seven ages, from old age to youth
to childhood. Finally the man becomes a baby, to be cared for by his wife.
The person we are cannot be totally identified with any one role, function, stage
or personality. Ralph Waldo Emerson says of the person/self/soul:
“All goes to show that the soul in man is not an organ, but animates and
exercises all the organs; is not a function, like the power of memory, of
calculation, of comparison, but uses these as hands and feet; is not a faculty, but
a light; is not the intellect or the will, but the master of the intellect and the will;
is the background of our being, in which they lie, — an immensity not possessed
and that cannot be possessed. From within or from behind, a light shines through
us upon things, and makes us aware that we are nothing, but the light is all…..
When it [the soul] breathes through his intellect, it is genius; when it breathes
through his will, it is virtue; when it flows through his affection, it is love. And
the blindness of the intellect begins, when it would be something of itself. The
weakness of the will begins, when the individual would be something of himself.
All reform aims, in some one particular, to let the soul have its way through us;
in other words, to engage us to obey” (The Over-Soul).
As Erik Erikson points out, each stage of life has a virtue and a task. We can
actualize the virtues and fulfil the tasks or fail. However, on the stage of life we
can play many roles and take on many personalities. Our tasks and roles are
mostly confined to the middle period of our life. Our early childhood years and
the late old age period are helpless stages where we are dependent and need
caring and help. Still, these too have their particular virtues and tasks.
Particularly the virtue of courageous patience and composure, patience with
oneself and others and with the fate and world; patience will flower into
composure, serenity an wisdom.
We are inter-dependent beings, we need each other, we depend on many others

and as they too depend on us. Humankind can be said to be one inter-connected
chain of being, one inter-connected whole. As St. Paul says, we are all together
one body, each member of the others, inter-dependent. In adulthood we are
carers and makers. In old age we need caring and compassion. Of course, most
of us can be active and going till almost to the end. Still, most of us become
denuded of our abilities, memories, faculties and powers. We come to a second
childhood, so to say. Our being then depends not on our achievements or powers
or memories or intellects. We become self-emptied selves, nobodies who are
paradoxically divine beings. In our old age, powerless and cast adrift, not much
valued and even humiliated, we are Christ on the cross. We can no more give,
but only receive. However, our very presence in powerlessness and weakness
becomes a gift and grace to the world. What Dietrich Bonhoeffer says of God in
Christ on the cross is a description, we can say, of our selves in our illness,
powerlessness and disgrace.
All men go to God in their distress,

seek help and pray for bread and happiness, deliverance from pain, guilt and
death, All men do, Christians and others.
All men go to God in His distress

find Him poor, reviled, without shelter or bread, watch Him tormented by sin,
weakness and death. Christians stand by God in His hour of grieving.
The poet Wordsworth sang of our coming into the world as babies ‘trailing
clouds of glory’; now in our diminishment, we vanish into invisible clouds of
glory. Teilhard de Chardin has said, “In my younger years, I thanked God for this
expanding, growing life. In my later years, when I found my physical powers
growing less, I thanked God also for what I called the grace of diminishment.”
The grace of diminishment lies in the process of learning letting-go and letting-
be. It is the practice and realization of serenity in self-surrender and self-
acceptance.
Gelassenheit and Abgescheidenheit are expressions of Meister Eckhart to

express this letting-go, detachment and serenity in God. “We must learn to let
ourselves go until we retain nothing at all that is ours We should put ourselves
with all that is ours in a pure un-becoming of will and desire into the good and
beloved will of God, along with everything we could will or desire in all things.”
…… Eckhart’s carefully orchestrated three realizations of poverty of spirit—
wanting nothing, knowing nothing, and having nothing—are nothing less than
the absolute freedom that is the prerequisite for becoming truly aware of the God
beyond all conceptions of “God.” Any form of attachment, even to our good
works, or to our own will to follow God, must be relinquished, according to
Eckhart. One must strive to become as free of one’s created will as one was
before creation—an “empty existence”(ledic sin) in which God as creator no
longer is of concern. Becoming free of will, for Eckhart, involves letting go of
the will to be free of will. It means the rejection of all human works. As Michael
Sells has shown, this is not a form of quietism or a lack of productivity—”The
rejection of ‘human’ work is not a rejection of activity, but of the identification
of the agent with the ego-self. . . . The true actor is the divine who works in the
soul.” The return process frees us from God as creator and returns us to a
blessedness beyond loving and knowing where “God is free of all things and
therefore is all things”(McGinn, pp. 135-8).
In the poetic language of zen, in the sunset of your life you embody the Golden
Wind. The leaves falling and the trees withering portray not only one’s physical
decline, but also the wintry desert of one’s heart and mind:
A monk asked Master Ummon, “What will it be when trees wither and leaves
fall?” Ummon said, “You embody the Golden Wind”( HR 27).
Yet, in our powerlessness we bear witness to the immeasurable worth and

dignity, to the infinite mystery of our selfhood and being. In our weakness is the
revelation of divine manifestation. The third and last stanza of Bonhoeffer’s
above poem runs:
God goes to all men in their distress, satisfies body and soul with His bread, dies,
crucified for all, Christians and others, and both alike forgiving.
In our bare being and nakedness, we present our selves as no-selves, inviting
respect, caring and loving. Such witness of service manifests humanity’s dignity
and greatness. Death and life are inter-fused and co-inhering; life and death are
neither one nor two. What we do to others we do to ourselves and show who we
are truly. In aging, suffering and death our Original Face is revealed.
In today’s world medicine has advanced incredibly and old age can be prolonged
without too much of pain or inconvenience. Yet, there is a time to say enough is
enough, both for the sake of oneself and for the sake of the care-givers. Simply
keeping oneself as half-alive or half-awake indefinitely, or spending too much of
effort and expenses just to keep oneself barely alive does no good to oneself or
to others. One has to learn how to pre- pare oneself to say goodbye and let-go in
peace, freedom and love. There is the miracle of coming to birth into life from
the mystery of Emptiness, and there is the incomprehensible mystery of letting-
go of life into Emptiness. There is a Sufi saying, ‘There is a time when we jour-
ney towards God, and there is a time when we journey within God.’Our life is a
journey and no-journey. We are born, grow, change, die and all the while we are
nowhere else but in eternity. Eternity is the Now, it is the here and now. We
come and go all the time whereas in truth there is no coming and no going. Let
me quote what I wrote in ‘Zen: Ancient and Modern’:
‘It is your Original Face before your parents were born, the Formless Self of
yourself. It is pure nothing, ein lauter Nichts (A Pure No-Thing) in the words of
Angelus Silesius. …….In death, all that I have, and possess, and all that are my
parts, are removed; only the naked ‘I’ can go through. When Emperor Charles’s
body was taken to the monastery church for burial, a ceremonial question was
asked at the closed gates of the church, ‘Who is there?’ When the answer was,
The Great Emperor Charles, the reply came, Go away, there is no place for such
a one. After the second and third time with the same question and answer, the
answer to the question was finally given, ‘It is Charles.’ Then the reply came,
‘Enter!’ and the gates were thrown open. Finally, only ‘Karl’ (Charles) will go
through. And as in birth, so also a new relationship will be created between the
universe and the I. The Biblical Song of Songs proclaims (4:7), ”Behold, you are
all fair, my love; there is not a spot or wrinkle in you”- your self is truly ein
lauter Nichts, a No-Thing! Wu-men forecast his own death (1260) with a parting
verse: “With emptiness, there is no birth; with emptiness, there is no death. If
one realizes emptiness, one is no different from emptiness.”’
Let me end with the great master Baso. Baso is seriously ill and on his death-
bed. It is said that the next day of this dialogue Baso passed away. The
monastery administrator comes to enquire about his health. This is the koan and
Baso’s marvelous answer. Added here is the verse of Setcho; the verse points out
that to come to this marvelous realization is no easy matter (HR 3): The great
master Baso was seriously ill. The chief priest of the temple came to pay his
respects. He asked, “How do you feel these days?” The master said, “Sun- Face
Bud
dha, Moon-Face Buddha.”
Setcho’s verse:
Sun-face Buddha! Moon-face Bud- dha! Compared with them,
How pale the Three Sacred Sovereigns, the Five Ancestral Emperors!
For twenty years I have had fierce struggles, Descending into the dragon’s cave
for you.
The hardships defies description.
You clear-eyed monks—don’t make light of it.
(June 2012)
The 5th Patriarch, Dhrtaka, said “Because one who leaves home (and becomes a
monk) is a selfless Self, is selfless and possesses nothing, and because the
original Mind neither arises nor ceases— this is the eternal Way. All Buddhas
are also eternal. The Mind has no form and its essence is also thus.” Upagupta,
the Fourth Patriarch, said, “ You must realize this through your own
enlightenment”. Dhrtaka came to deep awakening.
Poem:
By acquiring the marrow,
You will know the clarity of what you found, Limpen still has a secret which he
cannot transmit.
[Note: According to the Taoist master Zhuangzi, Limpen was an expert

wheelwright who realized that much of his skill was beyond the power of words
to communicate.]
5.Self-Compassion and Self-Exertion
Zen most often is pictured in heroic terms. Of course zen demands courage,
endurance, renunciation and commitment. Yet, the human, vulnerable, needy,
and tender side is most often ignored and downplayed. However, this latter side
is the heart of being human and it calls for compassion. Compassion can be
called forth in many ways. Here some:
Jesus on his way of the cross meets some women from Jerusalem weeping in
deep sorrow and distress for him. Yet Jesus warns them not so much to weep for
his fate, but to weep for themselves and their children; because, he foretells them
some impending terrible fate coming on them: “And there followed him a great
multitude of the people, and of women who bewailed and lamented him. But
Jesus turning to them said, “Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me, but
weep for yourselves and for your children. For behold, the days are coming
when they will say, `Blessed are the barren, and the wombs that never bore, and
the breasts that never gave suck!’”(Luke 23: 26—31).
This will remind us how Jesus had wept over the city of Jerusalem: “And when
he drew near and saw the city, he wept over it, saying, “Would that you, even
you, had known on this day the things that make for peace! But now they are
hidden from your eyes. For the days will come upon you, when your enemies
will set up a barricade around you and surround you and hem you in on every
side and tear you down to the ground, you and your children within you. And
they will not leave one stone upon another in you, because you did not know the
time of your visitation”(Lk. 19: 41-44).
When King Herod hears of the birth of the child that would-be king, he orders all
the children under age two to be slaughtered. The prophetic foretelling of the
lament echoes in the land and in the Gospel of Mathew:
“A voice was heard in Ramah,

wailing and loud lamentation,
Rachel weeping for her children;
she refused to be consoled,
because they were no more”(Mathew 2: 17-18).
This is sorrow for and with the sorrows of the others. When innocent children
are murdered, women raped, third parties taken hostage, and wars brutally
ravage the people, your heart will come to a breaking-point. It is compassion for
others and the world.
Our human heart is good but it has also a shadow side of darkness and evil.
Hitler or the murderer is not merely out there, but also in us. One recent tortured
sufferer, Francois Bizot, remarks, “ If there is a true hero down here on this
earth, it isn’t the person whose courage bursts out while fighting against others,
but the one who is capable of showing the courage to battle with themselves—
to remain courageous when facing this distorted mirror image of themselves
whose threat leaves us with weakened defences” (Facing the Torturer, p. 90).
This should help us to feel compassion for the so-called evildoers and
miscreants.
When you are criticized, or your work is found fault with or rejected, you are
frustrated and lost; your life seems to lose all meaning and you feel empty. At
this time you need humility and self-acceptance. It is to know that there are other
people who have different viewpoints and other experiences. It is also a matter
of learning to live amidst ideologies, prejudices, party politics and lobbying. You
may not be innocent of all these, too. One has to learn patience, humility and
endurance.
When you bring shame on yourself by your behavior and actions, not only
because of your imperfections and faults, but also by your misbehavior,
dishonesty and betrayals, you may feel like hiding your face and getting lost—at
these times you need humility and compassion for yourself, and forgiveness.
All this is further complicated by the psychological, social and even theological
complexes we suffer. For, many of us are burdened with shame and guilt from
childhood on. Besides shame and guilt also some unspecified anxiety and
illness. All these may be due to the way we were treated, looked down upon,
humiliated for our behaviors, body, sex and so on. Causes and effects are mud-
died, fantasy and facts mixed and confused. We feel like being haunted by some
nightmare; we feel blocked, impotent, and cannot forgive ourselves nor receive
some forgiveness that will liberate us.
All these hopefully bring forth compassion and caring. In Awakening one is
opened to the whole world, one realizes that oneself is the world and the world is
the self; and that ultimately, the self is Emptiness, Emptiness is the self. Self-
compassion is in reality the actualization of Emptiness. Your attitude to yourself
is but Emptiness being embodied. Emptiness is not mere vacuum, it is fullness
of compassion and love. It is the space that lets you be you and the space that
you yourself are, too. This takes form as compassion and love. The zen
philosopher Hisamatsu names the Nothingness of Zen as Heart, which he
differentiates from Zen Emptiness (Die Fülle des Nichts). One’s heart has to be
drenched and soaked in compassion and caring, this is what makes one human.
However, a general feeling of compassion will not be enough. Only when

compassion for oneself is aroused and awakened, authentic compassion
flourishes. Selfcompassion is born when you learn to weep for yourself. Not
simply because you are mortal, or going to die, or destruction is facing you and
your people, etc, etc. All these will provoke compassion and pity. Still, self-
compassion is truly aroused when you are caught in some addiction or self-
destructive habits, stupidities and ego inflations, and you realize how you are
destroying yourself and your life and your people, and you learn to weep for
yourself— then authentic compassion is born. Compassion for yourself leads to
compassion for others. Your weeping for yourself will break open your heart,
your heart will be a broken heart; and made soft and tender, vulnerable and
bleeding.
Then, do not simply run to hide yourself in some byways, alleyways and forget-
me lanes. Give yourself silence and solitude; be with yourself in your sorrows
and suffering, weep for yourself in silence, embrace your fragile, mortal,
imperfect self. Remember, you are enfolded and empowered in the Mystery that
is graciousness, the Heart of Emptiness. Your brokenness and inadequacies will
become the openings of Emptiness. St. Paul glories in his weaknesses (2
Cor.11:30): it means to cherish the self which manifests in them and not get
attached to them. You have to learn to choose steadfastly the ways that bring
peace of heart and inner freedom. In your brokenness, learn to get up and walk.
Look at a baby learning to walk: it falls and gets up, falls and gets up, falls and
gets up. This is life-asserting itself; it is power flowing forth from life-affirming
passionateness. Do not let yourself be mired forever in despondency and despair.
Learn to tap your resources, power and dignity. It is love, ultimately, that
liberates and empowers us.
Emptiness or the Space that you are and which embraces you, lets you be you,
and embraces and lets the other be other. This can be called the Heart of love.
The transcendent love flows first through other humans, those close to us and
even strangers. This love is both enough and not enough. The human love has to
be enfolded and broken through by the transcendent horizon. Love’s heart is a
broken heart, broken open to others. This brokenness involves that your heart
and mind will be repeatedly broken so that the other as other can be let-be be
other. Criticisms, rejections, humiliations, differences and conflicts all these are
what decenter you and break your heart open. Thus you realize yourself not as a
self-enclosed monad but an openness and spaciousness of Heart as wide as the
world. Paradoxically, thus by losing yourself, losing your self-centredness and
self-enclosedness, you realize your authentic individuality and personhood. This
is the authentic realization of Emptiness as the Heart of Nothingness. Otherwise
Emptiness remains a concept and phantom.
Awakening and compassion for self and others should not be seen as some static
end and goal. Humans become selves only in and through the process of struggle
and effort. Unceasing struggle, contest and exertion are the way of becoming
oneself; it may be called individuation in Jungian terms. Desires can be fulfilled,
needs can be satisfied; but the drive for self-creation will keep one in unceasing
striving. This drive will not be the drive-topleasure nor even the drive-to-
survival. Nietzsche called this deep drive the ‘will-to-power’, and he may be
right. We need the will to go on willing oneself against all odds and strive to
create oneself; this requires all our imagination, power and will. Of course, it has
to be in terms of willingness and not egoistic willfulness. Nor should one go on
blindly flailing in some cul-de-sac, but learn to act with intelligence and
discernment. Nor settle down in some deadened harmony and peace.
Such will and willing can be called creative drive. We are called to create
ourselves. We have to create ourselves from the raw materials of our body, mind,
imagination, goals, desires out of the chaotic world. Our values and ideals are
the ends to be achieved and realized; but if there is no resistance and struggle in
this process, they will not be really valuable. Resistance from the world and
from ourselves, above all in terms of the relationship with others, forms the
creative matrix. It will involve a leap between two irreconcilables into a
commitment to the unknown and to deeper life and truth. The leap will be over
the abyss of fear and trembling, in hope and trust. In this a release of power takes
place; the power will be not simply for oneself, but will be creative of
community.
Zen, particularly Rinzai zen, posits three necessary requirements for the zen
journey: Great Doubt, Great faith and Great Exertion of Will. Doubt can be
interpreted as seeking, questing, and questioning; faith, in terms of trust and
hope, trust with no guaranteed security, hope in the darkness of hopelessness;
and exertion, in terms of self-assertion, self-creation and the will-to-power. The
poet Tennyson has a poem on the hero of the Trojan war Ulysses; Ulysses has
returned home after the long years of war, old and tired. Still, his spirit of
adventure will not rest and he launches with his comrades on a new quest; here a
few lines:
To follow knowledge like a sinking star, Beyond the utmost bound of human
thought. To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
Struggle against resistance and opposition in realizing our values and ideals will
be the crucible which will form and liberate us. And this is how our awakening
to Emptiness will be actualized. Again, the end is not mere achievement, or
attaining of the goal, or coming to final rest. Once we achieve the goal, we have
to go on further. Zen realization is first and foremost coming home to
unconditional self-acceptance in the Heart of Emptiness and in the interpersonal
community of caring and compassion; and at the same time it is a striving and
journeying; as the zen saying shows, Abide in Emptiness while walking on the
roads of the marketplace, walk on the roads of the marketplace while abiding in
Emptiness. We have to step forth from the top of hundred foot pole (MK 46).
Zen warns us, even the Buddha has reached only half the way; his way, as well
as our way, is endless. The Mahayana and the zen Four Great Vows illustrate the
endless way:
Though the many beings are numberless, I vow to save them all;
Though delusive passions and thoughts rise endlessly,

I vow to turn them around;
Though the Dharma is vast and fathomless, I vow to enter it fully;

Though the Way of the Awakened is unsurpassed, I vow to walk along, all the
Way.
(January 2013)
The 5th Patriarch, Dhrtaka, told Micchaka, Self-Compassion and Self-Exertion the
following teaching of the Buddha:
“ ‘If you practice the supernatural and study the lesser way, it is as though you
are bound by a rope.’ If you can leave the small stream and come enter the great
ocean, you will realize the birthless.” Hearing this, the master experienced
awakening.
Poem:
Even with purity like an autumn flood reaching to the heavens, How can it
compare with the hazy moon of a spring night? Most people want to find clear
purity,
But though they sweep and seep, their minds are not yet empty.
6. The Better Angels of Our Nature!
This is the title of a book by Steven Pinker. Pinker has many books, most of
them crammed with facts; his approach is predominantly one of naturalism,
which is not all wrong. The above book of the same title is a great one. His
thesis is that violence has declined in our present age. The facts he marshals are
persuasive and astonishing. The book in paperback is 800 pages and I could not
read through it all, only browsed through the pages. Still I get the gist of the
thesis. Let me give some quotes from him:
“But no historian who takes in the sweep of human history on the scale of
centuries could miss the fact that we are now living in a period of extraordinary
brainpower. We tend to be blase about moral progress as well, but historians who
take the long view have also marveled at the moral advances of the past six
decades. As we saw, the Long Peace has had the world’s most distinguished
military historians shaking their heads in disbelief. The Rights Revolutions too
have given us ideals that educated people today take for granted but that are
virtually unprecedented in human history, such as that people of all races and
creeds have equal rights, that women should be free from all forms of coercion,
that children should never, ever be spanked, that students should be protected
from bullying, and that there’s nothing wrong with being gay. I don’t find it at all
implausible that these are gifts, in part, of a refined and widening application of
reason” (657).
He calls the decline of violence the pacifying effect or civilizing process. Our
first nature, so to say, is selfish, greedy, nasty and brutish; our so-called second
nature he calls ‘the better angels of our nature.’ The major two reasons for the
civilizing process are the top-down rule of law and the bottom-up rule of morals.
The state and the rule of law include individual rights, universal laws,
commerce, cosmopolitanism, communication, education and science and so on.
The moral sense will include increasing cooperation and sympathy, justice and
fairness, self-control and delaying of gratification, feminine friendly values and
humanism and so on. Many of us cherish some romantic notions of primitive
peoples and ancient times. We need to be shocked out of our innocence and
ignorance—the lives of the ordinary people were poor, mean and wretched; the
great empires and glorious civilizations were built on untold cruelties, injustices,
oppressions and genocides:
“Our ancestors… were infested with lice and para - sites and lived above cellars
heaped with their own feces. Food was bland, monotonous, and intermittent.
Health care consisted of the doctor’s saw and the dentist’s pliers. Both sexes
labored from sunrise to sundown, whereupon they were plunged into darkness.
Winter meant months of hunger, boredom, and gnawing loneliness in
snowbound farmhouses.
But it was not just mundane physical comforts that our recent ancestors did
without. It was also the higher and nobler things in life, such as knowledge,
beauty, and human connection… …nostalgia for a peaceable past is the biggest
delusion of all. We now know that native peoples, whose lives are so
romanticized in today’s children’s books, had rates of death from warfare that
were greater than those of our world wars. The romantic visions of medieval
Europe omit the exquisitely crafted in- struments of torture and are innocent of
the thirtyfold greater risk of murder in those times. The centuries for which
people are nostalgic were times in which the wife of an adulterer could have her
nose cut off, children as young as eight could be hanged for property crimes, a
prisoner’s family could be charged for easement of irons, a witch could be sawn
in half, and a sailor could be flogged to a pulp. The moral commonplaces of our
age, such as that slavery, war, and torture are wrong, would have been seen as
saccharine sentimentality, and our notion of universal human rights almost
incoherent. Genocide and war crimes were absent from the historical record only
because no one at the time thought they were a big deal” (693-4). What about
religions? Were they not humanizing forces for righteousness and compassion?
Every institutional religion is the manifestation of the contemporary ethos and
mores; each carries the banner of universal love but their underside is
inhumanity, irrationality and injustice. We need some dose of disillusioning
medicine:
“Speaking of ideologies, we have seen that little good has come from ancient
tribal dogmas. All over the world, belief in the supernatural has authorized the
sacrifice of people to propitiate blood- thirsty gods, and the murder of witches
for their malevolent powers (chapter 4). The scriptures present a God who
delights in genocide, rape, slavery, and the execution of nonconformists, and for
millennia those writings were used to rationalize the massacre of infidels, the
ownership of women, the beating of children, dominion over animals, and the
persecution of heretics and homosexuals (chapters 1,4 and 7). Humanitarian
reforms such as the elimination of cruel punishment, the dissemination of
empathy-inducing novels, and the abolition of slavery were met with fierce
opposition in their time by ecclesiastical authorities and their apologists (chapter
4). The elevation of parochial values to the realm of the sacred is a license to
dismiss other people’s interests, and an imperative to reject the possibility of
compromise (chapter 9). It inflamed the combatants in the European Wars of
Religion, the second-bloodiest period in modern Western history, and it
continues to inflame partisans in the Middle East and parts of the Islamic world
today. The theory that religion is a force for peace, often heard among the
religious right and its allies today, does not fit the facts of history”
(676-7).
It was rather some minority religious sects as the Quakers and some Protestant
Peace Churches that were truly committed to nonviolence, peace and justice. Of
course there are individuals in the major religions who are inspired from their
own religious ideals as well as from other sources and who against all odds
sacrifice their lives for others in the cause of justice, freedom and peace.
Religions have good sides and bad sides, and which side comes to the fore
depends much on contemporary ideas and forces; individuals have to follow
their moral sense and choose whatever is good, true and beautiful. Gerald May is
wise to advice individuals not to be identified with one’s religion but to be
located in the tradition and community ( Ch. 11).
Buddhism, too, in its history and in its current forms, has both a good side and a
negative side. Zen has its roots in Mahayana Buddhism, and has also been influ-
enced by Taoism and Confucianism. Zen as institution, with its different
branches and teachers of varied depths and maturity, has its own share of
problems as any other religion. However, in spite of all its problems and
difficulties, zen has a saving grace, beauty and depth, all of which make it the
spirituality of the coming world. Zen’s strength has to be seen in its spirituality
and practice rather than in its institutional set-ups. Zen practice is body-centred,
community-oriented and world-affirming. Its core is Awakening, which has to
be actualized in compassion for all beings. The heart of zen is awakening, and
awakening is the presencing of the world in suchness. Let me first make a few
remarks on Pinker.
Steven Pinker’s thesis is persuasive and convincing. He wonders about the

mysterious arrow of time and history towards goodness and justice (see pp.168,
694-5). Yet he cannot postulate some divine agency. He will confine himself
only within the domain of reason and nature. His framework is fine, but he does
not go far enough nor deep enough. Let me explain a few things.
Pinker is too sanguine and is carried away by the idea of unceasing progress and
development. Human life and the history of our planet are contingent, precarious
and fragile. We do not know what will happen to us and to our earth tomorrow
and the day after. Pinker needs a good dose of Buddhism to sober him up. For,
Buddhism proclaims that our life is defined by dukkha and that all things are
impermanent and passing.
Pinker talks about moral choices and reason, but fails to see their ground and
their horizon. For, from what standpoint can you make moral choices, or perform
selfcontrol, or reasoning? How do you discern, and with what reasons, right
from wrong, good from bad, reason from unreason? Why be moral at all? What
empowers you to discern, to judge and to follow with action? We are not some
calculating machines or computers. Our calculating reason alone will not do.
Utilitarian calculi cannot touch our hearts and souls. We experience, reflect,
understand, judge and act. We are aware of awareness. As Pascal said, our
heart has reasons that reason cannot comprehend. Our mind has depths which
mind cannot fathom. These are not realms of the unconscious or subconscious as
Freud and others have hypothesized.
Wilfred Cantwell Smith has some deep things to say about the essential human
quality called faith, which is the human capacity for ultimate meaning:
“Faith is beyond apprehension because it is the human potentiality for being

human. It is our strange dynamic towards becoming our true selves, or becoming
divine. Those who have said traditionally that faith is supernatural may in our
century be heard by some as affirming that persons are, that personality is, non-
reducible, more than mundane, faith is that quality of or available to humankind
by which we are characterized as transcending, or are enabled to transcend, the
natural order—an order both in and beyond which, simultaneously, it has been
normal, we may observe, for men and women to live”.
“[Faith] is the capacity to see for oneself the loveliness of what is lovely, to see
the difference between justice and injustice; to see the stupendous importance of
truth; to see the point of a cup of cold water given in love, or the point of a man
dying on a cross. If we see what is there waiting to be seen in our life and in this
strange world of ours, waiting not necessarily on the surface but just beyond it,
and then more beyond that, then we have faith. If we see even a little, we soon
find that there is more and more. If we do not see, if we see nothing beyond the
surface at all, which is life’s supreme tragedy, then we do not have faith.”
“ One might argue that [faith] is the essential human quality: that it is
constitutive of man as human; that personality is constituted by our universal
ability, or invitation, to live in terms of a transcendent dimension, and in
response to it. Certainly the human everywhere is, and from the beginning has
been, open to a quality of life in oneself, in one’s neighbor, and in the universe
that lifts one above the merely mundane and the immediate, and means that one
may be always in part but is never totally simply a product or a victim of
circumstances” ( Qtd in Hughes, pp. 232-5). Through faith, persons have found
their lives set free (saved) from mediocrity and made capable of transformed
existence: “By ‘saved’ here, mundanely, I mean….saved from nihilism,
alienation, anomie, despair, from the bleak despondency of meaninglessness.
Saved from unfreedom; from being the victim of one’s own whims within, or of
pressures without; saved from being merely an organism reacting to its
environment” (In Hughes, p. 26.)
Faith is not merely a matter of believing a doctrine or in some higher power; it is

one’s openness to the otherness of the other and to the mystery and the
unfathomable ground and the boundless horizon of self and world. Further, it is
faith and trust that, in zen words, “Everyday is a good day”. It is faith and trust
in the transcendent goodness at the heart of reality. Still, ‘trees wither and leaves
fall’, as the zen saying goes. There is darkness, untold suffering and evil in the
world and even in the heart of oneself. Pinker offers a narrative of history as
progres- sive and meliorative. But that is the history of victors and survivors. Of
course, we can be grateful for all the fruits of history’s civilizing process;
however, what about those in the past and in the present who have been
marginalized, repressed, tortured and destroyed? Can we ignore the dark and
violent side of history and of evolution? The zen vision is the self as subject that
is Emptiness-- the self that is the world and the world that is the self. Mahayana
Buddhism and zen offers the image of the Bo- dhisattva of Compassion,
Kanzeon/Guanyin, who hears and bears the cries and sorrows of the world.
There is zen koan, “Why is it that the crimson lines of a clearly enlightened
person never cease to flow?’(‘Crimson lines’ refers to passions as well as
compassion.) Kanzeon is yourself, who hears and bears the joys and sorrows of
the world. The Vietnamese zen Buddhist teacher, Thich Nhat Hanh’s poem, ‘Call
Me by My True Names’ brings out beautifully this vision of Kanzeon, I quote
the last lines:
My joy is like spring, so warm it makes flowers bloom in all walks of life, my
pain is like a river of tears,
So full it fills up the four oceans.
Please call me by my true names, so I can hear all my cries and my laughs at
once, so I can see that my joy and pain are one.
Please call me by my true names, so I can wake up, and so the door of my heart
can be left open, the door of compassion.
The zen vocation is to awaken to one’s True Self and ‘save the many beings’. It
is a call to awaken to the miracle of the world and the unfathomable mystery of
the self. Zen’s concern with the self is as subject self-presencing and not as some
object; when the self is clarified, transformed and illumined, all ‘the ten
thousand things’ will fall in place. The mysterious dimension of the self is
shown in this ancient zen incident:
shown in this ancient zen incident:
744) who was later to become the successor to the Sixth Patriarch of Zen
Buddhism in China, the famous Hui-Neng (Jap. Eno, 637-713), came to visit the
latter. Quite abruptly Hui-Neng asked him: ‘What is this thing that has come to
me in this way?’. This put the young Nan Yueh completely at a loss for a reply.
He left the master. And it took him seven years to solve the problem. The
answer which Nan Yueh presented to the master after eight years’ struggle was a
very simple one: ‘Whatever I say in the form of I am X will miss the point. That
exactly is the real I’ (Qtd in Izutsu).
The self moves on many levels and dimensions, can be said to be even many
selves. However for zen we can talk of two major levels, the ultimate,
paramartha satya, and the phenomenal, lokuttara satya. On the phenomenal di-
mension one is who sees, hears, senses, feels, thinks, and acts. This self has its
identity in terms of objects and relationships. This is what we call normally ‘I’.
The ultimate dimension is beyond all these spheres, beyond space and time. It
measures and defines all that is phenomenal, itself is beyond all measures and
forms. However, it is present to all the phenomenal dimensions, is ‘witness’ to
all that happens and appears. It is present to history and illumines it, but is trans-
historical. It can be called Awareness of awareness, or the ground of awareness.
This is what Hui-Neng refers to in the above incident, ‘What is this thing coming
thus…?’ The question is: ‘Who are you truly and ultimately? How will you
define yourself in the ultimate dimension? Are you only the physical and the
mental, the phenomenal and the perceptible? Is there not something more to
you? Can you be reduced to the measurable, the passing and the finite?’The
‘who’question, for example, ‘Who is hearing?’Or, ‘Who is asking?’, will lead
finally to the ground of the self that cannot be grasped yet is revealing itself all
the time. The verse to case no. 23 in Mumonkan proclaims, “There is nowhere to
hide the primal face!” This is what comes out in this zen koan: ‘Standing
nowhere, let the mind come forth.’
Wolfgang Fasching describes this dimension thus: “In this way—as often
described in all contemplative traditions—one experiences oneself within every
movement as, simultaneously, the stillness wherein all movement takes place. In
this sense, for example, the Chinese Zen master Hui-neng says about “non-
thinking” (wu-nien) in Zen: “No-thought is not to think even when involved in
thought”. I am there not only as one who is active (who perceives, thinks,
desires) but also as the very being of activity (of perceiving, thinking, desiring)
itself, which is essentially non-activity in each and every moment of acting. For
self-presence is nothing that is done by oneself: there is nothing left to be
accomplished, no teleology of coming-nearer, no going from here to there within
its immanence”
Further, the ground as well as the horizon of consciousness or of the self is what
makes present the presence of phenomena. It is not an object among objects, it is
the ‘clearing’ (in German, die Lichtung) for the objects to come to be there at all.
It is ‘the light that enlightens everything coming into the world’. It is the horizon
that transcends the world and is the home of the world. When zen master Fa Yen
was studying with Master Ti Tsang, “having been driven by Ti Tsang into a
logical impasse and having finally confessed, ‘O Master, I am now in a situation
in which language is reduced to silence and thinking has no way to follow!’, he
heard his master remark, ‘If you still are to talk about the ultimate Reality, see
how it is nakedly apparent in everything and every event!’ Fa Yen is thereupon
said to have attained enlightenment.” Zen master Hung Chih Cheng Chueh
(Japanese: Wanshi Shogaku, 1091-1157) remarks: ‘The Reality [i.e. the Field]
has no definite aspect of its own; it reveals itself in accordance with things. The
Wisdom [i.e.I SEE] has no definite knowledge of its own; it illumines in
response to situations. Look! the green bamboo is so serenely green; the yellow
flower so profusely yellow! Just pick up anything you like, and see! In every
single thing IT is so nakedly manifested’ (Qtd in Izutsu).
The ultimate and the phenomenal are two sides of one’s very self. The
phenomenal is the necessary foundation of the ultimate, but not sufficient one. In
the phenomenal dimension there is time and space, history and evolution, growth
and decay, birth and death; this is what Steven Pinker describes and enumerates
masterfully. In the ultimate dimension it is Emptiness that is Mystery. How both
are related is mysterious, no science or philosophy can decipher it conclusively.
We can offer only guesses and glimpses, the rest we have to leave it as wondrous
mystery. The self is mystery, we are mystery. The world too is mystery that
‘comes thus’. Zen calls this mystery Emptiness. Emptiness is the self, the self is
Emptiness. At the same time, Emptiness is both the self and embraces the self.
There is not only my self, but there are other selves, too. They are centres and
circles interpenetrating and interfusing with each other; each is other and
nonother. Each is mystery and we stand in mystery, mystery that is graciousness.
In this dimension, the only answer to ‘Who are you?’ is what Bodhidharma gave
to the Chinese Emperor: ‘I don’t know!’
Here a zen koan from Mumonkan (Case no. 35):
Master Hoen of Goso asked a monk, “Seijo and her soul are separated; which
one is the true Seijo?”
The verse:
The clouds and the moon are the same,
Valleys and mountains are different from each other; All are blessed, all are
blessed,
Ten thousand things, ten thousand blessings; Is this one? Is this two?
( January 2012)

The 16th Patriarch, Rahulata, preached to Sanghanandi with a poem:
Since I am without a self,

You should see the Self.
Because if you make me your master, You will understand that the self is not the
Self.
When the master heard this, he awakened and came to liberation.
Poem:
Mind’s activity smoothly rolling on is the form the mind takes;
How many times has the Self appeared with a different face.
7. “Religion without God”
Summary:
Ethics and ethical values do not need any other source for their validity. Ethical
values stand by themselves and are manifest in and through our conscience. This
is the thesis of Ronald Dworkin. We become truly human when we submit
ourselves to the ethical values; this is ethical conversion, to use Kierkegaard’s
stages. Further we need a religious conversion. Religious conversion is twofold:
first is the realization that the self, the others, and the world, all these are in the
final reckoning, incomprehensible realities—this dimension can be called
mystery. Secondly, this mystery is graciousness. That reality is mystery, that it is
ultimately incomprehensible, can easily be accepted. That the mystery is
graciousness, is a proper religious conversion; this needs faith and trust as well
as a faith-community. To be rooted and grounded in the mystery that is
graciousness is awakening and liberation.
“Two things fill me with wonder,” Kant confessed: “the starry sky above and the
moral law within.” Kiekegard mentions three stages, the aesthetic, the ethical
and the religious. Bernard Lonergan talks about four conversions, the psychic,
the intellectual, the moral and the religious. Lawrence Kohlberg, some years ago,
classified the stages of moral development into 5 or 6 phases, without any
mention of religion. There have been many theories of ethics. Recently the
philosopher Ronald Dworkin wrote a book with the title,”Religion without
God”. I have read only the first chapter of Dworkin’s book. Let me select some
crucial points Dworkin makes:
Ethics and ethical values (justice, truthfulness, goodness, friendship, love,
fidelity, freedom, equality, respect, etc) are neither merely subjective nor merely
objective. The values manifest themselves through one’s conscience. Conscience
can be distorted, mislead, confused, and so on. However, one’s conscience is the
ultimate guide and authority. Correcting and setting right one’s conscience is part
of the work of conscience itself. Ethics and values subsist in themselves, there is
no other ulterior ground. Human beings stand under the claim of conscience;
conscience mediates the values which are transcendent.
Values have to be integrated and we need to dialogue with others, with culture,
society and religion. However, ultimately the person stands alone; culture,
society, religion, science, evolution and all these are not the ultimate ground of
ethics. Dworkin, as the title of his book, points out, religion, whether theistic or
nontheistic, is not the ground of ethics. Nor God, nor Buddha. Nor some
evolutionary history, nor neuroscience; there is no final authority for conscience
and ethics. Naturalism cannot ground ethics. “The religious attitude rejects
naturalism, which is one name for the very popular metaphysical theory that
nothing is real except what can be studied by the natural sciences, including
psychology”. Ethics is religious without religion; hence one can say that atheism
too can be religious.
Dworkin points out that there are two spheres in religion: one is rather historical
and scientific; it describes religion’s so-called facts, whether of revelation or
scriptural authority. The second sphere of religion is in terms of values. Values
are self-grounded-- groundless ground, so to say; they are transcendent, they do
not need some god or religion or philosophy to validate them. The same applies
also to Buddhism. Buddhism posits the inter-dependence of all beings as the
major ground of ethics. But ethics cannot be founded on that ground. Ethics is
not grounded in some other ground or authority than itself. Even the great
medieval theologian Thomas Aquinas said, you obey the law not because God
has said so, but because good is to be done, evil avoided.
Culture, religion, philosophy all these can help to clarify the ethical implications
and developments; they are only that, some support or superstructure and
clarification. One finally stands alone with one’s conscience; in faith and trust.
There is a need of faith; science also does not stand without faith. Science
assumes the reality of the world, the otherness of reality, the capacity to
understand the world and reality, trust in one’s cognitive abilities and in the order
and beauty of the cosmos.
Let me give a quote from Dworkin:

“In the special case of value, however, faith means something more, because our
convictions about value are emotional commitments as well and, whatever tests
of coherence and internal support they survive, they must feel right in an
emotional way as well. They must have a grip on one’s whole personality…..The
religious attitude accepts the full, independent reality of value. It accepts the
objective truth of two central judgments about value. The first holds that human
life has objective meaning or importance. Each person has an innate and
inescapable responsibility to try to make his life a successful one: that means
living well, accepting ethical responsibilities to oneself as well as moral
responsibilities to others, not just if we happen to think this important but
because it is in itself important whether we think so or not.
“The second holds that what we call “nature”— the universe as a whole and in
all its parts —is not just a matter of fact but is itself sublime: something of
intrinsic value and wonder. Together these two comprehensive value judgments
declare inherent value in both dimensions of human life: biological and
biographical. We are part of nature because we have a physical being and
duration: nature is the locus and nutrient of our physical lives. We are apart from
nature because we are conscious of ourselves as making a life and must make
decisions that, taken together, determine what life we have made”.
“….one cannot support a value judgment—an ethical or moral or aesthetic claim

—just by establishing some scientific fact about how the world is or was or will
be. Something else is always necessary: a background value judgment that
shows why the scientific fact is relevant and has that consequence. Yes,
whenever I see that someone is in pain, or threatened with danger, I have a moral
responsibility to help if I can. Just the plain fact of pain or danger appears to
generate, all by itself, a moral duty. But the appearance is deceptive: the pain and
danger would not generate a moral duty unless it was also true, as a matter of
background moral truth, that people have a general duty to relieve or prevent
suffering. Very often, as in this case, the background principle is too obvious to
need stating or even thinking. But it must still be there, and it must still really
connect the ordinary judgment with the more concrete moral or ethical or
aesthetic judgment it is supposed to support………. those background value
judgments can only themselves be defended—to the extent they can be defended
at all—by locating them in a larger network of values each of which draws on
and justifies the others. They can only be defended, as my account of the
religious attitude insists, within the overall scheme of value.”
Let me once again summarize: ethical values are transcendent and stand by
themselves; they do not need any further or ultimate grounding. Religions or the
idea of God, of heaven and hell, or evolution or nature as such, or culture,
society, history, all these are not the ground of ethical values. Ethical values
stand as integrated whole, not simply as separate single ones. Of course, they can
be differentiated in terms of instrumental, final, formal, and values. Ethical
values are embedded in our emotional convictions and judgments; they manifest
themselves through our conscience as obligation and ought. Humans become
truly human only when we answer the call of conscience. Our conscience is the
witness of our dignity, freedom and our basic goodness.
II
Our life is one of call and answer. The call comes forth from the others, as well
as from the world and also from our selves. We become truly human by
submitting ourselves to the call and answering to the call. However, we cannot
come up to answer the call fully and perfectly. All our life we are under
obligation and more often than not we fail. Not only failure, but also we fail to
listen attentively, we turn away and block our ears, we tend to manipulate and
manage, we find excuses and escapisms. We play games of blaming and self-
justifying. “All men are liars”, the Bible says. Not only liars, we are also
murderers. Is there healing and forgiveness for us? Human society and families
cannot survive without forgiveness and reconciliation. Healing, forgiveness and
reconciliation are gratuitous gifts and blessings. These gifts we receive from
each other, and ultimately from a transcendent source which embraces and
indwells us. Our hearts are ambivalent and divided. There is in us goodness and
also tendencies to negativities and evil. How will we answer the call of life, from
the goodness of our hearts or in fear and negation? Will we answer from our
heart of goodness, compassion, forgiveness and caring? Or, with fear,
resentment, bitterness, envy and hatred? When we answer from our heart of
goodness and compassion, we open our heart-minds to the cosmic, or better,
trans-cosmic goodness and love. Such acts of goodness and love are a leap in
faith and trust over the abyss of darkness and evil. This is the healing of our
broken world; it is the creation of a new earth and new heaven.
III
In the first part I mentioned Dworkin as pointing out that the ethical values
cannot be grounded apart from themselves; ethics is its own ground, which is
manifested in our conscience, calling us to respond to others and the world.
Being ethical is a choice and a leap of faith and trust. However, ethics alone is
not enough. As Kierkegaard points out, beyond ethical conversion there is
religious conversion. This involves both a vision as well as an attitude and
action. Let me describe briefly the twofold vision and how to appropriate the
vision.
The earth and the universe are a many-splendored marvel. Science explores the
intricate laws and energies which hold the universe and provides the possibilities
for human life. This exploration will be a never-ending journey. Life on earth
with its many phases and beings is a miracle. Science can explore the so-called
laws and regularities, but cannot know the wither and the whereto of the earth
and of the universe. For, the human subject who explores the universe is part of
the universe and hence humans cannot know the ultimate origin and the end of
the universe. Humans can know much and there will be no end to the
exploration. Not only knowledge but also scientific achievements will go on
without end. However, the meaning and purpose of the universe and life on earth
will ultimately stay a closed book to science. Let me use the word mystery to
describe this dimension. Mystery does not mean closure of knowledge; mystery
means rather the opening unto fathomless and inexhaustible horizon. There are
four sayings in Udana sutta which make clear that nirvana is an existing state in
the ultimate sense; it is stated there that the Buddha uttered these affirmations in
rapture and joy through recalling the good qualities of Nirvana, which actually
points to the sense of mystery. The third utterance as given in Col- lins (p. 167):
There exists, monks, that [no substantive is used] in which there is no birth,
where nothing has come into existence, where nothing has been made, where
there is nothing conditioned. If that in which there is no birth . . . [etc.] did not
exist, no escape here from what is [or: for one who is] born, become, made,
conditioned would be known. But since there is that in which there is no birth,
where nothing has come into existence, where nothing has been made, where
there is nothing conditioned, an escape here for what is [or: for one who is] born,
become, made, conditioned is known.
More than the universe, it is the human subject that eludes the purview of
science. Science can explore, discover, and manipulate the human body, mind
and psyche. Yet human consciousness, knowing and willing, intentionality, inter-
subjectivity and freedom cannot be comprehended nor mastered by natural
sciences (see Nagel, Tallis). When Emperor Wu asks Bodhidharma, “Who are
you?”, Bodhidharma responds, “I don’t know!” (HRNo.1). The human subject
transcends nature and remains ultimately a mystery. To use some images: our
phenomenal self is like the part of an iceberg seen above the surface of the
ocean; the depths of the self are hidden under-water, incomprehensible and
fathomless. Again, mystery does not mean that we do not or cannot know
anything; rather, it points to an endless horizon, fathomless dimension and holy
arcana. Furthermore, the mystery of the self is boundless openness to the world
and others; in this dimension the self is the world and the world is the self.
The world is mystery, the human subject is even greater mystery. However, to
proclaim mystery is not enough. For, mystery as unknowing and
incomprehensible can mean a mere void, or meaninglessness, or darkness,
absurdity and even evil. For, the universe, even with all its beauty and splendor,
is ‘nature red in tooth and claw’; it can be without a telos, a meaningless chance
evolution, tending towards entropy and void. Humans too are not always good
and loving; human history is filled with endless murder and destruction. Hence,
to say it is mystery will not be enough.
IV
“Reality is mystery; the mystery is graciousness”. Reality is mystery-- this fact

even science can acknowledge it. But, that the mystery is graciousness—this
assertion is religious. However, it is not blind faith. As mentioned earlier, our
hearts are ambiguous and divided; yet, the heart-mind carries the seeds of
goodness, truthfulness, justice, beauty. They are our ruling drives and passions.
The dark and negative pulls are only the shadow side of goodness, truth and
love. When we take a stand for the positive dimension, our acknowledgement
and confession cannot be partial and limited; they have to reach out beyond our
limits and boundaries. It will be a primordial Yes, Amen, even if it is only
potentially. It is the religious dimension embracing heaven and earth. It is both
subjective and objective; or better, it embraces both and is transcendent. The self
bears witness to the mystery that is graciousness, and itself is the manifestation
of the mystery that is graciousness. This shines forth in Master Ummon’s
assertion, “Every day is a good day”(HR 6). This is the realization of Tozan’s
awakening expressed in his poem: “I meet Him wherever I go; He is the same as
I am, but I am not the same as He”.
The self as consciousness and intentionality is boundless openness to the world.

The self is not an object in the world; it is nowhere and empty apart from the
world (Cf. Wolfgang Fasching). It is realized above all as the desireless desire
for the face of the other. I am none-other of the other; the self and the other are
not-one and not-two . When Taibai asked Master Baso, “What is Buddha?” Baso
answered, “The Heart-Mind is Buddha”(Mk 30). An old zen master made the
following poem as his answer to “The Heart-Mind is Buddha”:
In winter I long for warmth,

In rain I look for a fine day.
Spring enraptures people with
her beautiful moonlight.
Repeatedly she calls out, “Oh, Shogyoku!” It is for no other purpose than
That her love may recognize her voice.
Here is a koan with the verse illustrating the self as noneother of the other(HR
No.68):
Kyozan asked Sansho, ‘What is your name?” Sansho said, “Ejaku!”

Kyozan said, “Ejaku is my name!”
Sansho said, “My name is Enen!”
Kyozan laughed heartily.
[Ejaku: Kyozan’s personal name;
Enen: Sansho’s personal name]
Setcho’s verse:
Both grasping, both releasing—what fellows! Riding the tiger—marvelous skill!
The laughter ends, traceless they go. Infinite pathos, to think of them!
The ground of the self is mystery; the other person too is mystery; death deepens
the mystery further. When the Buddha was questioned by one Vaccha about the
existence or non-existence of the saint/arhat after death, he answered:
“Vaccha, all form…, sensation…, perception…, predispositions… and

consciousness… by which one could predicate the existence of the saint, all
these have been abandoned, uprooted, pulled out of the ground like a palmyra-
tree, and become nonexistent and not liable to spring up again in the future. The
saint, O Vaccha, who has been released, is deep, immeasurable, and
unfathomable, like the mighty ocean. To say that he is reborn would not fit the
case. To say that he is not reborn would not fit the case. To say that he is both
reborn and not reborn would not fit the case. To say that he is neither reborn nor
not reborn would not fit the case” ( Majjhima-nikaya, I, 72.qtd in Panikkar, p.
75).
The abyss calls out to the abyss—can you hear it? “Abide where there is no-
abiding!”
(April, 2013)
The 34th Patriarch, Qingyuan, went to Huineng’s assembly, and “Religion without
God” asked, “What sort of works do not fall into some class or stage?” The
Patriarch asked, “What have you been doing?”

The master said, “ I have not even practiced the (four) holy truths.” The
Patriarch said, “Then into what stage would you fall?” The master said, “If I still
have not practiced the holy truths, what stage can I achieve?”
The Patriarch acknowledged him deeply.
Poem:
When a bird flies, it comes and goes, but there are no traces. How can you look
for stages on the mystic road?
III
Awakening: what it is and what it is not:
Awakening is the heart of zen and compassion is its outflow. However, there is
much confusion and misunderstanding over awakening. Often awakening is
equated with an experience, whether of oneness or of emptiness, or what-not.
Zen is radical in labeling all such experiences as makyo, illusions; such
experiences further create attachments. Awakening is not some experience one
has. Many interpret awakening in terms of inter-dependence, pratityasamutpada.
Interdependence is a conclusion of ordinary reasoning and understanding, not
awakening proper. Some interpret awakening in terms of equanimity and
detachment; or of accepting life as it is, and of living here and now; or of
knowing that all is impermanent and passing, and that there is no self. All these
have some truth in them, but they do not go to the heart of awakening.
Many also put the stress on great effort and struggle, on one-pointed
concentration or on dropping off all thinking and thoughts, as if one can
achieve awakening by one’s efforts. There are many other such misguided no-
tions. Awakening is not some condition or state of mind one has; it is a radical
transformation or conversion of the self and the world. It has been dealt with in
terms of metaphoric process and a leap in earlier books. The following two
chapters are an attempt to clarify the confusion and point in the right direction.
Of course, the whole book as well as the earlier ones deal with the matter of
awakening and practice.
8. Koan, Hua-t’ou, and Kensho

The zen of ‘encounter dialogue’ (in koan stories, koan dialogues and
transmission stories) is a captivating form of zen, more so than the Soto variety
of just sitting or ‘silent illumination’. Koan zen is colourful and exciting to our
imagination though the Soto shikantaza is the more widely practiced form. The
practice of shikantaza or just sitting has its own problems, but the koan practice
is more problematic and provokes many questions. Here I would like to focus on
the koan practice. I will not be focusing on the problems of koan history, culture
or the social-political realities but rather on practice as such.
When zen developed in China in the 6th century, it was rather the Indian form of
dhyana or meditation, which was silent seated meditation. Gradually the
pragmatic students and masters began asking questions as to what was unique to
zen, and how the Buddha-nature was present in sentient beings and what
constituted liberation and enlightenment. It led to a radical simplification of
doctrines, to awakening in the here and now and to oneself as no other than the
Buddha-nature. It involved the existential question of trust and faith embracing
the self, the teacher, and the teaching. This lead to the so-called ‘encounter
dialogues’—questions and answers between students and masters, often the
master’s word or gesture provoking a ‘sudden’ awakening in the inquirer. Mazu
Daoyi (709—788) seems to have been the pre-eminent master of such dialogue
practice. The Tang Dynasty period (618—906) was the Spring time of such
encounter dialogues and dynamic masters. It was however during the Northern
and the Southern Sung period (960—1279) that such dialogues and the history of
the masters were self-consciously codified and constructed; facts and fic- tions
were interwoven and the zen dialogues became ritualized dialogues, and
enlightenment dramas of the masters were de rigueur (see Cole, 2009).
Silent Illumination versus Dahui:
During the 12th century zen entered a decline due to socio-political conditions.
At the same time a new form of Soto zen (Caodong in Chinese) revived the
fortunes, particularly with the educated classes, the literati. The main proponent
of this form of zen, referred to as ‘silent illumination’, was Hongzhi Zhengjue
(1091-1157). A quotation from Hongzhi (qtd in Child, 2012):
“The correct way of practice is to sit simply in stillness and silently investigate.
Deep down there is a state one reaches where externally one is no longer swirled
about by causes and conditions. The mind, being empty, is all-embracing. Its
luminosity being wondrous, it is precisely appropriate and impartial. Internally
there are no thoughts. Vast and removed, it stands alone in itself without falling
into stupor. Bright and potent, it cuts off all dependence and remains self-at-
ease.”
This approach to practice provoked the rivalry of Dahui Zonggao (1089—1163)
of the Linji (Rinzai in Japanese) school. Dahui seems to have been genuinely
concerned with the experience of zen awakening being undervalued; but the
rival school gaining most of the patronage of the educated elite was likely to his
chagrin, too. In opposition to silent illumination, Dahui portrayed zen as a drama
of heroic effort and sudden breakthrough to kensho or enlightenment. He posited
the hua-t’ou as the best means for this breakthrough (Lachs, 2012). Hua-t’ou is
translated as critical phrase, viewing the phrase, headword, or punch-line (hua-
t’ou in Chinese, wato in Japanese, hwadu in Korean).
Until then, koan zen and encounter dialogue were usually based on zen stories of
masters and monks, on catch phrases such as ‘What is the meaning of
Bodhidharma’s coming from the West?’ or on one’s present situation. Dahui’s
hua-t’ou was one word or phrase taken from a zen story, like the words What,
Who, Why. Most often, he used the story of Joshu and the dog, taking the one
word of Joshu’s Mu/Wu as the hua-t’ou. He instructed a student working on
another koan:
“You must in one fell swoop break through this one thought—then and only then
will you comprehend birth and death. Then and only then will it be called
accessing awakening….You need only lay down, all at once, the mind full of
deluded thoughts and inverted thinking, the mind of logical discrimination, the
mind that loves life and hates death, the mind of knowledge and views,
interpretation and comprehension, and the mind that rejoices in stillness and
turns from disturbance”( in Buswell, 1987).
Hua-t’ou, Dahui insisted, should be practiced in nonreflective concentration,

without any narrative content, meaning, insight or linguistic access. Great Doubt,
tireless effort and deep faith were the sine qua non. If one was one-pointedly
focussed day and night on the huat’ou, there would come a breakthrough.
Paradoxically, this non-intellectual, single-minded and faith-based practice is not
that different from the steady shikantaza of silent illumination. The main
difference, it would seem, was the emphasis on heroic effort in practicing hua-
t’ou and on serene abiding in stillness in the other. Already during the Ming
period (1368—1644) the hua-t’ou was practically replaced by nembutsu of Pure
Land Buddhism, and zen and Pure Land Buddhism were not seen as very
different. Thus, as he is said to have destroyed the famous literary commentaries
of his own master on the Blue Cliff Record, so also his approach to zen con-
tributed to the demise of zen as such. Zen in present day China is not much
different.
Korean zen
Korean zen derives directly from Dahui’s hua-t’ou zen, centering on Great
Doubt and the investigation of the hua-t’ou. Korean zen master Chinul (1158-
1210) and his disciple Hyesim (1178-1234) established koan zen in the country
while the silent illumination did not take root. During the Japanese occupation of
Korea in the last century, the Japanese establishment tried to impose the
Japanese Soto zen on Korea, but there was a violent reaction against Soto zen.
At present there seem to be three approaches to working with hua-t’ou (cf. Ryan
Bongseok Joo, 2011, for information on the masters). Some masters focus
exclusively on the hua-t’ou, coordinating it with breathing. The meditation is
supposed to become automatic throughout night and day, coupled at the same
time with relentless effort. Enlightenment is evaluated in terms of the effort prior
to kensho, the intensity of the doubt and the quality of concentration on the hua-
t’ou.
Another group of masters decry the mindless concentration on the hua-t’ou; they
ask the students to investigate the meaning of the hua-t’ou, for example, the why
of Mu. They would focus on the context and the meaning of the hua-t’ou, would
regard the coordination with breathing as hindrance, and would posit constant
meditation on the hua-t’ou, even in dream or dreamless state, as a necessity.
The third group of masters focus on the answers to the hua-t’ou; such a focus is
supposed to be helpful to the lay followers. They do not worry about first
calming the mind before focusing on investigating the hua-t’ou. The doubt and
the effort are supposed to produce bodily sensations, too. These teachers also
focus on the pre-enlightenment experience.
In addition to the hua-t’ou investigation, all these teachers focus on the actual
moment of awakening. All of them believe in the innate, inherent Buddha-nature
of the self, and the clouding of the rational mind has to be removed in sudden
awakening. This ideology of sudden awakening has led Korean zen into
confused knots. Of the three traditional requirements of the way of zen, Great
Faith, Great Doubt and Great Effort. Doubt has a central place in the Korean
practice. It is said that Doubt is the beginning and end of hua-t’ou practice. I will
offer questions to and criticisms of the Korean practice later.
Japanese Zen
Unlike in China, zen in Japan is split into two major sects, Soto and Rinzai. The
Obaku sect is a minor one. Dogen Kigen (1200—1253) traveled to China during
the 13th century and brought back the zen of silent illumination with a sectarian
identity. Myoan Eisai (1141—1215) went to China and studied under a Lin-chi
master and returned and established the Rinzai school. It was only in the 18th
century with Hakuin Ekaku (1686—1769) that Rinzai zen became well
organized with a proper koan curriculum and discipline. It was two disciples of
Gassan Jito (1727—1797), the heir of Hakuin, who fixed the ‘Hakuin zen’ into
two teaching styles which are current today. There are some variations in the two
systems and also with each Rinzai school; however, overall koans and their
standard answers are fixed. The koan curriculum comprises the initial koan of
Joshu’s Mu or Hakuin’s the Sound of One Hand, followed by some miscellane-
ous koans and then the traditional koan collections such as the Mumonkan,
Hegikanroku, Rinzairoku, Kidoroku and so on. The student has to go through the
main case of the koan and then the subsidiary cases as well. Furthermore, for
each koan a capping phrase has to be chosen from an established collection and
has to be presented to the master in dokusan.
For ‘passing’ the first koan of Mu (or the Sound of One Hand), the student has to
concentrate on mu one-pointedly day and night, similar to the practice of hua-
t’ou with Dahui or the Korean way. Sometimes, the student is advised even to
shout out ‘Mu’. The aim is to ‘become one’ with the koan so that the koan
possesses one and it can even be said that the koan becomes the agent. Of course
this can be achieved in some measure, and not completely; if totally, it would be
psychosis! No doubt, with enough effort and practice, one can get into an er- satz
emotion. In the process, one can also have some psychic experiences such as
hallucinations, auditions, and visualizations. When one can show to the master
that one has ‘become one’with the first koan, one is certified as having passed
the koan or having awakened. To call it ‘awakening’is a euphemism. One
example of honest dis- appointment with such awakening is the case of the
famous philosopher Nishida Kitaro (1870—1945). He was working on the koan
Mu, and Koju roshi acknowledged his passing of Mu and attaining kensho.
Nishida wrote in his diary: “7 a.m., listened to the talk. Evening, a private
audience with the master. I was cleared of the koan ‘Mu’. But I am not that
happy” (Yusa, p. 72). Another such case was that of Yamada Ko’un of Sanbo
Kyodan, who was quite disappointed with the confirmation of his passing of the
first koans with Asahina Sogen roshi of Engakuji.
Then follow the capping phrases and the subsidiary koans to the main koan, then
the miscellaneous koans and subsequently the traditional koan collections or
selections from them. In the end, the Five Ranks could be added, the Precepts,
and so on. When going through these koans, unlike in the beginning koan, one
has to get into the stories, grasp the main point, or visualize and ‘become
one’with the main phrase or image. One has to learn clever repartees, ritualized
language and gestures and be submissive to the master’s diktat and arbitration.
With the Rinzai tradition, ‘post-enlightenment’ refine- ment and maturation is
seen as vital. However, whether genuine maturity and depth of zen vision arise is
questionable. Running through the course of the koans requires crafty
intelligence, skill and the help of com- panions and others. The koan answers are
mostly stereotyped ones, set in the old Chinese/Japanese cultural, ritualized
forms.
Critique
I would like to focus on two major problems with the current koan practice.
When one takes the whole of the zen tradition, there are resources for authentic
awakening and realization. But the methods and techniques of Dahui as well as
of the Korean and Japanese Rinzai zen are inadequate and wanting in authentic
awakening and realization. The one-pointed, non-intellectual concentration on
the hua-t’ou (or Mu) is a pressure-cooker tactic, a reduction to a technique,
which can produce some psychic experiences. These methods and techniques are
forced efforts which can even run on auto-pilot. They can produce experiences
but not prajna wisdom. Some speak of ‘investigating’the hua-t’ou, but it is rather
a matter of concentration, which sometimes can provide insights, yet no more
than that. When awakening is reduced to a product of performance of
techniques, it is betrayal of one’s heart and mind. Some teachers even promise
that observing the correct method and technique will automatically lead to
awakening. This is but magic as well as deluded scientism. Furthermore, finding
the correct answers to the koans or ‘passing’ the koans is not awakening either.
The so-called kensho experiences are only passing experiences, not enduring
self-/world-transformation.
With regard to experiences:
There are experiences which are particular and passing. These are the ones
which one ‘has’; they can be deep, shallow, great, wonderful, good, bad and so
on. Zen rejects these kinds of experiences as makyos, illusions. On the other
hand, there are experiences which can be transforming of self and world, and the
transformation will be enduring. Such experiences are the so-called metaphoric
processes, or they may be structure anti-structure reversals (see Samy, 2005,
2007). The first sort of experiences will come and go; they depend upon our
bodily conditions and brain states. Furthermore, experiences are open to multiple
interpretations. The social milieu and our world-views condition and colour our
experiences. Experiences can be also produced, manufactured and manipulated.
There is thus a politics of experience.
Having or undergoing an experience is no guarantee of the truth or the validity

of awakening. There has to be a transforming world-view, enduring and non-
dualistic, for an authentic awakening. Such a transformation of world-view is a
matter of life-and-death, it is death and rebirth. However, this is not a matter of
mere willpower and effort but one of awareness, understanding, and judgment.
Furthermore, the awakening has to be interpersonally authenticated between the
master and disciple. And moreover, it is in action that the realization of non-
duality is manifested. It is self-appropriation and self-constitution in love and
freedom (see chapter 12 on Meditation and Therapy in Samy, 2010).
Authentic Awakening
The pre-requisites for zen practice and awakening are said to be Great Doubt,
Great Faith and Great Effort. I will focus on Doubt first.
Doubt can be understood on many levels and dimensions: epistemological,

metaphysical, psychological, ethical, religious. Descartes is well-known for his
methodological doubt. Doubt basically means an attitude of questioning and
vacillation between two opposite poles. It falls between certainty and nihilism.
Scepticism, cynicism, credulity, pride and all such attitudes are enemies of
genuine doubt. Doubt is founded on humility, openness, honesty, sincerity and
trustfulness. Doubt is inherent to religious life and knowledge.
As mentioned earlier, doubting is simply a matter of ques - tioning our beliefs

and experiences. For example, when the young Dogen was studying with the
Tendai teachers on Mount Hiei a question began to nag at him. His teachers told
him that ‘all beings are endowed with Buddha nature’. Dogen asked, ‘If that
being the case, why was it necessary to practice and seek enlightenment?’ It is
said that you begin zen practice with the belief that you are originally Buddha-
nature. But what is Buddha-nature? Is it permanent? Or impermanent? Or inter-
dependence? Is it the self? Or, no-self? The Buddhist sutras can yield diverse
even contradictory interpretations. And all these assertions are only that,
assertions. Doubting means putting to question all such assertions and beliefs.
However, it does not mean that you will come to assent finally to the belief that
you are innately Buddha-nature or to find some secure ground. The questioning
will go on asking what this Buddha-nature means, how it is acquired, what is its
truth and validity and so on. Not only this belief, but all beliefs such as: self, no-
self, impermanence, Buddha, original nature, heaven and hell, all are put to
question. Finally you will stand facing an abyss as this Hasidic story of the
‘Fiftieth Gate’demonstrates (Wiesel, 1978):
“Rebbe Barukh of Medzebozh had a disciple who was caught too much in
intellectual questions. The Rebbe could not answer all his questions. The
disciple withdrew from the Rebbe and the community, and began to dig more
and more into his own doubts and questions; all of which only leads him deeper
and deeper into despair and thoughts of suicide. The Rebbe one day goes in
search of him and stands face to face with his disciple:
‘You are surprised to see me here, in your room? You shouldn’t be. I can read
your thoughts. I know your innermost secrets. You are alone and trying to
deepen your loneliness. You have already passed through, one after the other, the
fifty gates of knowledge and doubt—and I know how you did it. You began
with one question; you explored it in depth to discover the first answer, which
allowed you to open the first gate; you crossed and found yourself confronted
by a new question. You worked on its solution and found the second gate. And
the third. And the fourth and the tenth; one leads to the other, one is a key to the
other. And now you stand before the fiftieth gate. Look: it is open. And you are
frightened, aren’t you? The open gate fills you with fear, because if you pass
through it, you will face a question to which there is no answer— no human
answer. And if you try you will fall. Into the abyss. And you will be lost.
Forever. You didn’t know that. Only I did. But now you also know.’ ‘What am I
to do?’ cried the disciple, terrified. ‘What can I do? Go back? To the beginning?
Back to the first gate?’-‘Impossible, said the Master. ‘Man can never go back; it
is too late. What is done cannot be undone.’
There was a long silence. Suddenly the young disciple began to tremble
violently. ‘Please, Rebbe,’ he cried, ‘help me. Protect me. What is there left for
me to do? Where can I go from here?’—‘Look in front of you. Look beyond that
gate. What keeps man from running, dashing over its threshold? What keeps
man from falling? Faith. Yes, son: beyond the fiftieth gate there is not only the
abyss but also faith—and they are next to one another….’ And the Rebbe
brought his disciple back to his people—and to himself.”
In the question of ultimate reality and of the self, there can be no sure and secure
knowledge and certainty. Our ultimate ground is an unknowing and mystery.
One zen koan challenges you: “Standing nowhere, let your mind come forth!”
We stand nowhere and that is our ground and selfhood. Abide where there is no
abiding, as another zen saying goes. The ultimate ground is groundless ground,
and it cannot be defined as Buddha-nature, nor original self, nor God-self, nor
Atman/Brahman, nor inside, nor outside, nor immortal, nor impermanent, nor
co-dependent. But it is not nothing. It is best pointed to by the zen idiom
‘Emptiness’. Zen would say that Emptiness has to be emptied, too!
On the other hand, St. Augustine said: “If I doubt, I ex - ist!” Descartes said: “I
think, therefore I am!” The modern philosopher Bernard Lonergan has said that
the very fact of my questioning is the affirmation of my capacity to know reality.
However, you can affirm that you are questioning, you can be aware you are
questioning. Yet beyond that all knowledge is ambiguous and uncertain. You can
go on questioning the questioning and you will not be able to jump out of this
cul-de-sac. Even this very doubting can be self-deceiving, Descartes has said. At
the same time, we are aware of our body-mind-world, and of our being
interpersonally constituted. We can be aware of being aware. Who is that who is
aware? Can you ever grasp the ‘Who’? If valid knowledge obtains only in
judgement, then every judgement is open-ended, opening onto endless further
questions and possibilities. It is only in action, inter-personal action, that the
judgement is actualized and settled.
Here Great Faith is implicated. Faith means trust and hope. In the above Hasidic
story, the Rebbe brings the disciple out of the abyss by asking him to go through
the abyss in faith, and thus he brings him to himself and to the community. You
cannot really question to the end unless you are embraced and carried by the
interpersonal trust and hope, the trust and hope generated interpersonally
between master and disciple as well as in the community. It is in the
interpersonal space that you can pursue the ultimate questions to their end. Not
only doubt and questioning, but also awakening takes place in this interpersonal
space. Awakening of course is personal and individual, but it is not apart from
the interpersonal acceptance, trust and hope, dialogue and affirmation. It is this
trust and affirmation that gives the nameless ground and abyss of the self the
import of graciousness and goodness. However, the trust and the self-acceptance
go beyond human relationships; they are actualized in unconditional self-
acceptance and affirmation of reality in its suchness. They are transpersonal
and trans-cosmic (see chapter 12 on Meditation and Therapy in Samy, 2010).
Great Effort involves one’s courage, commitment and fi - delity to the way.
However, when one has come to an impasse, with no-exit on the path of one’s
‘old world’, there comes an ‘over-turning of the base’; a new world and new life
is born. Great effort means the ‘leap of faith’ from the in-between of the
incomprehensible mystery that is one’s ultimate ground and one’s phenomenal
knowing and willing. Standing in-between the nameless mystery and the known,
the self presences itself in the world as the world. To act thus is to let-go and ‘to
die’ and to come to resurrection and new life. It is losing oneself and finding
oneself, a coming to be of a new earth and of new heavens.
The self is the world, the world the self
Awakening is first and foremost the realization of the core of one’s heart-mind as
the unknowing, inexpressible mystery; this is awakening to Emptiness.
Awakening is awakening to Emptiness—it is Emptiness awakening to
Emptiness, so to say: it is the mystery of No-Self that is nowhere and
everywhere. Secondly, it is the realization of this heart-mind as boundless
openness to the world: It is the realization of the self as the world and the world
as the self. This is the field of the practice of the many koans. ‘Becoming one
with the koan’ is perhaps not such an appropriate phrase. What it points to is the
actualization of one’s heart-mind’s openness to the other and the world. It is
letting the other be the other, the world be the world, and at the same time
‘welcoming’ the other and the world into one’s heart-mind as one’s very self; for,
one becomes self only in actualizing this selfless openness to the world and to
the other. It is not Idealism where the mind is the world, that is, the world only a
projection of the mind or the world contained within the individual mind. It is
rather one of intentionality—in the intentional sphere, one is the other and the
other is oneself (cf. Fasching, 2003). True compassion has its ground and source
in this heart-mind. The other is other and is at the same time non-other to the
self. Let me end with a beautiful koan from Hegikanroku, case no. 13 (tr. Sekida,
2005):
Haryō’s “Snow in the Silver Bowl”
Engo’s Introduction
Clouds gather over the great plain, but the universe can still be discerned. Snow
covers the flowering reeds and it is difficult to distinguish them. Speaking of the
coldness of it, it is colder than frozen snow; as for the fineness, it is finer than
powdered rice. With regard to the deepness, even the Buddha’s eyes cannot
penetrate it, while as for the way it is hidden, devils would be unable to spy it
out. I allow you are clever enough to know three corners from one, but how
would you speak to shut the mouths of the people of the world? Who has the
capacity to do that? See the following.
Main Subject:
A monk asked Haryō, “What is the Daiba school?” Haryō said, “Snow in the
silver bowl.”
Setcho’s Verse:
Remarkable, the old man of Shinkai Temple; It was well said, that “Snow in the
silver bowl.”
The ninety-six can learn for themselves what it means; If they cannot, let them
ask the moon in the sky. Daiba school! Daiba school!
Scarlet banners flapping, the wind is cool!
The 31st Patriarch, Daoxin, made his bows before Sengcan, and said, “I beg
Your Reverence, please teach me the Dharma of
emancipation.”
The Patriarch asked, “Who is binding you?”
The master replied, “No one is binding me.”
The Patriarch said, “Then why should you search for emancipation?” Hearing
this, the master had great realization.
Poem:
Mind is empty, and pure knowing contains no right or wrong. In this, what is
there to be bound or liberated?
Even though it becomes the four elements and five skandhas, In the end, seeing,
hearing, forms and sounds are nothing else than the Mind.
9. What Is the ‘I’ of Awakening?
I
“There is a difference between spiritual things and bodily things. Every spiritual
thing can dwell in another; but nothing bodily can exist in another. There may be
water in a tub, and the tub surrounds it, but where the wood is, there is no water.
In this sense no material thing dwells in another, but every spiritual thing does
dwell in another. Every single angel is in the next with all his joy, with all his
happiness and all his beatitude as perfectly as in himself; and every angel with
all his joy and all his beatitude is in me, and so is God Himself with all His
beatitude, though I know it not.”
(Meister Eckhart in Walshe, 1979, Pf 5, Q65)
Meister Eckhart points out the immaterial nature of a spiritual being as well as of
the intellect. He draws from Neo-Platonism but there is no denying of the fact
that our intellect proper is of immaterial nature. The intellect can form concepts
and ideas, and combine them to form judgments. Concepts and judgments are
not sensations or imagination, both of which are sensible and corporeal.
Concepts are abstract and universal, determinate and clear whereas imagination
is concrete, particular and also indistinct. For example, take a tree: the concept of
a tree is abstract, applies to any number of trees, is determinate and clear; on the
other hand, imagination of a tree is particular, concrete, not universal and though
it can be a clear image, it is only a partial simulation and cannot apply exactly to
another tree. Consciousness also can be on many levels, it can be sensory,
psychological, and also intellectual. Consciousness can be vegetative, animal, or
reflexive. So also intentionality; intentionality means ‘being about’ another
being; this cannot be said to be purely immaterial.
[One can leave out this first part and go to the rest. For an in-depth discussion of
these aspects, see Feser (2013). Bernard Lonergan has written elaborately on
intellect, consciousness and judgment; I am only giving some brief pointers: Cf.
Tad Dunne].
In judgments, one draws conclusions about the truth or falsity of a state of affairs
or of the nature of a thing. Only humans with immaterial intellect can make such
judgments; a dog, for example, will be concerned with the matter of survival,
and success or failure in that effort. It is conscious, conscious of likes and
dislikes, but cannot be said to be aware of awareness, and have concepts of
things. Awareness of awareness is reflexive and is immaterial. Some postulate
that information is consciousness, but in itself information does not posit
consciousness, neither sensory nor intellectual (Cf. Searle, 2013).
Intellect as such is immaterial, ie, it is not determined by space and time, by

body and matter. Hence, as Eckhart points out, it is open to the others and can
indwell in the others. It is through the door of the intellect that we realize
Emptiness. However, our intellect is dependent on material processes, but they
are not sufficient for its existence and reality. This is the paradox of body-mind
relationship: the body and the material processes are necessary for the
spirit/intellect, but they are not sufficient to account for the spirit/intellect.
Human beings are body-mind unity; one organism with two-fold dimensions.
When we talk about the intellect, it can be said to be many-sided or many

dimensional. There are factual, conceptual, procedural and meta-cognitive levels
of knowledge. There are personal versus impersonal sort of knowing. In Indian
philosophy the mind (manas) belongs to the body and is material whereas
wisdom/insight (prajna) is immaterial and meta-cognitive. Among the
characteristics of mysticism noetic quality (cf. James, 2012) or interior
knowledge is central. The human intellect cannot be divorced from the will. The
human intellect has an active dimension and a passive dimension. The active
side is the creative one, the passive side is the receptive one. The passive
intellect takes on the colour of any sensible form it receives; the active one is the
one that forms concepts and judgments, and is immaterial. For practical
purposes, let us take both together.
II
I have gone to some extent to explain the intellect in order to clarify our
relationship to the world and reality. Beings have real, physical, separate being-
in-existence and an intentional existence. Intentional existence is the sphere of
intentionality pertaining to the intellect; intentionality is closely related to
imagination but it is not imagination. We humans cannot really know some being
except by becoming it through imagination and intellect. First we come into
contact with the other beings through our senses of touch, feeling, imagining; we
can feel, sense and imagine the other being; but this is not enough. To really
know the other, we have to know the being of the other by our intuitive intellect.
This means, letting the other’s being enter into our very being, and by becoming
the other, know the other. It is in a sense becoming one with the other; though, in
a fundamental sense we are always being-with others and the world. However,
we come home to our very selves through the other: we come to know ourselves
by knowing the other. It is of course mutual, for self-knowledge and knowledge
of the others go together. Avery M. Fouts (2004) quotes some Christian
philosophers to explain this intentional being of beings:
“In less contentious terms, [taking the example of an apple] while the apple and I
remain numerically distinct throughout my experience, we enter into some sort
of nondual relationship, cognitively speaking. Concerning the cognitive
relationship, Maritain sees that “by an apparent scandal to the principle of
identity, to know is to be in a certain way something other than what one is: it is
to become a thing other than the self….[according to] the Aristotelian dictum,
endorsed by St. Thomas, that in cognition the soul is ‘in a way’ all things……
That the subject is (or becomes) the object “in a way” is the reason the nondual
relationship between the two is often couched in terms of or implying, identity.
Simon puts it succinctly: “What I know, I am.” Maritain terms it “a
correspondence that amounts to an identity.” Elsewhere he points out that “the
notion of knowledge as a copy or transfer is utterly inadequate” and therefore in
cognition the thing known and the mind “are not only joined, they are strictly
one.” Gilson says it this way: “Since, in fact, to know a thing is to become it, it
follows necessarily that at the moment when the act of knowing takes place, a
new being is formed. . . . This synthesis involves, consequently, the fusion of
two beings which coincide at the moment of their union.”
On the natural being and intentional being:

“The two kinds of existence posited are esse naturale and esse intentionale.
Natural existence pertains to the object inasmuch as it is numerically distinct
from the subject, and intentional existence pertains to this naturally existing
object as it actualizes the cognitive faculties of the subject. Maritain defines
intentionality as “a property of thought, a prerogative of its immateriality,
whereby being in itself posited ‘outside it,’ i.e. being which is fully independent
of the act of thought, becomes a thing existing within it.” The naturally existing
object comes to exist intentionally in the subject, as it were, such that the subject
becomes the object in what “amounts to an identity.” Maritain recognizes that
“intentionality brings the other into me ‘beginning with’ its otherness and makes
me be the other”’ (Fouts, 2004).
Intentional identity is non-dual identity. Dogen (13th century) exclaims, “I have

clearly realized that the Mind is none other than the mountains, rivers and the
great earth”. Dogen’s famous description of awakening is: “To study the Buddha
way is to study the self; to study the self is to forget the self; to forget the self is
to be actualized by the ten thousand dharmas.” The 17th century zen master
Bankei’s teaching is about the Unborn Buddha Mind in us. He teaches, “Your
unborn mind is the Buddha-mind itself, and it is unconcerned with either birth or
death. As evidence that it is, when you look at things, you’re able to see and
distinguish them all at once. And as you are doing that, if a bird sings or a bell
tolls, or other noises or sounds occur, you hear and recognize each of them too,
even though you haven’t given rise to a single thought to do so. …The mind of
the Buddhas and the mind of ordinary men are not two different minds”. When a
monk asked him, “What happens when someone who believes in the Unborn
dies, and the four elements of his physical body disperse? Is he born again or
not?” Bankei answered, “At the place of the Unborn, there’s no distinction
between being born and not being born” (Waddell, 1984, pp. 120-121). The
Unborn Mind of Bankei is like the bright mirror that reflects whatever comes
before it exactly as it is in itself. Zen Master Bassui (14th century) taught the
students to listen to the sounds and in listening to lose oneself in the hearing; and
then to inquire, ‘Who hears?’: “Do you wish to penetrate directly and be
free?...Look at the one who is listening to this talk. Who is he who is listening
right now?” “This focusing on the one who is listening to the Dharma is the
dharani gate of all buddhas and ordinary people. If you penetrate this gate,
regardless of whether your ability is great or little, all will be liberated….This is
how perfection becomes actuality. This is the one nirvana gate of the buddhas
as numerous as the sands of the Ganges” (Braverman, 2002, pp. 158—161).
Zen awakening is the realization of the non-duality of self and world. The world
is the self, the self the world. Of course, it is not a physical identity, but one of
intentionality. Zen koans and zen poetry witness to this non-duality of the
intentional realm. Tozan Ryoki came to awakening on seeing his own reflection
in a stream when he was crossing it. His poem celebrating this is the beautiful
Jewel Mirror Samadhi—there he proclaims, ‘He is the same as I but I am not the
same as He.’ The human ‘I’ has twofold structure: the fundamental divine
ground and the ego-self. The ultimate subject and the ego are both one and two
at the same time, or better, not- two and not-one (See Yagi, below).
A zen verse reflects this reality metaphorically: The mirror reflects the light of
the golden palace, The hills respond to the note of
the moonlit tower’s bell.
Or, this verse to case no. 16 of Mumonkan:

With realization, all things are of one family, Without realization, everything
is separate and different.
Without realization, all things are of one family, With realization, everything is
sepa
rate and different.
III
There is much confusion in zen circles about the two forms of identity, that of
intentionality and that of the physical. The image of consciousness as a mirror
mirroring the world will lead to such confusion. Sensory or imaginative
identification with beings is not zen non-dual realization. Feelings of oneness or
of images of identity are only that, feelings and imagination, and not authentic
awakening. Teachers like Douglas Harding with the example of his of image of
Headlessness can easily fall into such a fallacy. Harding teaches that when you
look out, you see only the various things of the world, reflected in the mirror of
your mind (e.g., Harding, 2002). From this he draws the conclusion that your
head or self is the world. But it is only mirroring of imagination, not one of
intentional identity. Further, such mirroring need not be one of consciousness nor
of self-awareness.
Here is an event in the awakening story of Hakuin (17th18 century):

“One night in a dream my mother came and presented me with a purple robe
made of silk. When I lifted it, both sleeves seemed very heavy, and on examining
them I found an old mirror, five or six inches in diameter, in each sleeve. The
reflection from the mirror in the right sleeve penetrated to my heart and vital
organs. My own mind, mountains and rivers, the great earth seemed serene and
bottomless. The mirror in the left sleeve, however, gave off no reflection
whatsoever. Its surface was like that of a new pan that had yet to be touched by
flames. But suddenly I came aware that the lus- ter of the mirror from the left
sleeve was innumerable times brighter than the other. After this, when I looked
at all things, it was as though I were seeing my own face. For the first time I
understood the meaning of the saying, ‘The Tathagata sees the Buddha-nature
within his eye.’”(Yampolsky, 1971, p. 121)
This was supposed to be his major enlightenment and its authentication.

However, it is only a dream imagination. It is interesting, and very a consoling
and comforting sign to Hakuin, but it is not authentic awakening as he imagines.
Dreams are dreams, they are sensory, corporeal, and passing images. Further,
they need analysis, interpretation, understanding and application.
During Hakuin’s time zen had lost its orientation and was degenerate. Hakuin
and his disciples codified the koan school system and brought some order and
discipline into the practice and revived it. Hence Japanese Rinzai zen can be
grateful to him. But Hakuin’s zen turn was not for the better compared to Bassui,
Bankei or Dogen. Hakuin zen is sort of samurai zen and a distortion of its
authentic spirit. He was vainglorious and boasted, “I have had 18 great
enlightenments and my small enlightenments are countless”. To this Iida Toin
Roshi (19th century) commented that the first 17 enlightenments must have
been fake ones! Hakuin was completely off the mark in claiming that
enlightenment and Buddha-nature were the achievement of heroic battles, will-
power, effort, drive and choice. His deluded, egoistic heritage is a burden and
shackles zen practitioners till today.
Intentional unity or identity is not a matter of thinking or feeling. It is somewhat
similar to what Gerald May describes as unitive consciousness:
“ There is one kind of spiritual experience, however, that occurs much more
commonly than the others, seems to be universal among different cultures and
environments, and most importantly, is characterized by a loss of self-definition.
This is the unitive experience, the self-losing experience that is the
fundamental, paradigmatic experience of consciousness, mystery, and being. It
constitutes true intuition and radical spontaneity. It is the keystone of
contemplative spirituality. In spontaneously occurring unitive experiences, one
feels suddenly “swept up” by life, “caught” in a suspended moment where time
seems to stand still and awareness peaks in both of its dimensions, becoming at
once totally wide-awake and open. Everything in the immediate environment is
experienced with awesome clarity, and the vast panorama of consciousness lies
open. For the duration of the experience—which is usually not long—mental
activity seems to be suspended. Preoccupations, misgivings, worries, and desires
all seem to evaporate, leaving everything “perfect, just as it is.””(May, 1982, Ch.
3)
It is a beautiful description and it often happens spon - taneously and passively.

But it is an experience which comes and goes, not an authentic awakening.
Awakening is awakening to your own true Self and it is not some passive,
momentary happening. Awakening becomes actualized when one pays attention
to reality, when one is open, aware and gives total attention to the reality other
than the self. This is not only an experience of intentional identity; it is above all
a realization of the mystery of the world and of the Self. Zen calls it the
realization of Emptiness. It is a coming home.
IV
Wolfgang Fasching (2008) clarifies the self that is no-self in terms of

fundamental consciousness, which is a clearing (In German Lichtung), that is,
space, for the world to come to presence; not only for the presencing of the
world, but also for the space-time bounded individual self:
“So the meditative state of mind qua being aware of presence itself cannot be a
looking at the presence, for I cannot see my consciousness by looking anywhere
other than wherever I look. I am nowhere else, no object distinct from other
objects I encounter; I am not something “inner” as distinct from external objects.
…..There is no “I” to which things are given, there is just the event of givenness.
Thereness as such has no subject-object structure: Consciousness is not
something that is directed at something, it is the very being-there of this
something. There is no such distance that would allow any “directing-at”….... It
is true that conscious presence is not an objective occurrence; it does not just lie
about objectively, independently of who looks at it. There is something like an
“I” involved, but it is—it seems to me—more correct to say that manifestation
happens as me rather than for me ….Of course, things present themselves from a
certain angle, in a certain perspective, in a certain respect. They are not just
there, but given from a certain viewpoint. In this respect every givenness
involves a “dative” one way or another, a subject to whom the given is given in a
certain way, to whom it is nearer or farther away from, to whom it has this and
that meaning, and whose bodily and mental movement accounts for the changing
appearances of an unchanging identical object. But this subject, as has been
shown above, is a structural element of the field of the given. Consciousness, in
contrast, is not such a structural element, but the taking place of givenness itself.
So consciousness is not located on one side of what opens itself up as present,
and the “subject” cannot be the place wherein consciousness occurs. Again:
Manifestation happens neither “in me”, nor “for me”, but “as me”.”
Ummon spoke to the assembly and said, “Everybody has his own light. If hetries
to see it, everything is darkness. What is everybody’s light?” later, in the place of
the disciples, he said, “The halls and the gate.” And again he said, ‘Blessing
things cannot be better than nothing” (Sekida, 2000, HR 86).
The self is the halls and the gate, for, the self is no-self, and it is none other than
the world. The ground and the horizon of the self is Emptiness. Emptiness is the
self, the self is Emptiness. When the Chinese Emperor Wu of Liang asked
Bodhidharma, ‘What is the first principle of the holy teaching?’ Bodhidharma
replied, ‘Vast Emptiness, no holiness.’ When asked, ‘Who are you standing
before me?’, he replied, ‘I don’t know’. Setcho’s verse to this koan includes
these lines, “A pure wind pervades the universe. Where will it find an end?” It
points to the cosmic mystery of the universe; this is what Bodhidharma
presents: the mystery of Emptiness of the self and world. Ultimately all our
knowledge of reality enters into the home of mystery of ‘Emptiness’ and ‘I don’t
know’.
Here a Christian perspective of Awakening:

The Japanese theologian Seiichi Yagi (1987) develops the theme of awakening
introducing the Christic selfrealization of St. Paul, “I have died with Christ on
the cross, so that it is not longer I who live, but Christ in me” (Ga.2:20). Yagi
takes off from the Japanese theologian Takizawa Katsumi:
“For Takizawa, the ‘event of Jesus’ alone is not the exclusive ground of our
salvation. Rather, Jesus was the person who in Hebrew tradition played the same
role as did Gautama Buddha in the Indian tradition. The ground of salvation is
the primary contact of God with the self, and this is the common ground of both
Buddhism and Christianity” (Yagi, 1987).
The human ‘I’ has twofold structure: the fundamental divine ground and the ego-
self. The ultimate subject and the ego are both one and two at the same time, or
better, not-two and not-one. It is the paradoxical identity of the divine and the
human. The divine ground is our primary and fundamental ground of being, but
the human ego, when not awakened, is unaware of its own ground and lives in
avidya, ignorance. Awakening arises when the human ego awakens to its
primordial, divine Christic ground.
“Therefore, insofar as the self is ignorant of the primary contact of God with the
self, this contact is not real; it does not work in and through the self. It is
virtually nonexistent. The fundamental importance, therefore of ‘awakening’ or
‘enlightenment’ lies in the fact that ‘Truth’ (dharma) is activated in the self
through enlightenment; it works in the self when the self is awakened to it.”
“The ‘I’ in Paul has a double structure. When Paul was ‘crucified with Christ’, a
change of subject took place so that Christ become Paul’s ultimate subject. This
does not mean, however, that the ‘ego’ of Paul disappeared. On the contrary it
was Paul’s ego that believed in Christ, or more correctly, it was his ego that,
aware of the reality of Christ in him, proclaimed that he believed in the Son of
God who was, in this case, the object of his faith. In the words of Paul quoted
above, Christ is both Paul’s ultimate subject as well as the object of his faith
referred in the third person. So we can say that for Paul, Christ as the object of
faith and Christ as the ultimate subject of the believer are, paradoxically,
identical.” (Yagi, 1987)
The ‘I’ of Jesus has similarly two centres, the ultimate subject and the empirical
ego and these centres relate to each other concentrically and elliptically. His
words are divine spoken through the mouth of his empirical person. The divine
was for him both das ganz Andere and his own ultimate subject. When Jesus
dies and his presence is lost to the Apostles, in the darkness of their loss, despair
and brokenness they come in touch with the divine ground in their hearts; and
they see this realization in the form of the appearing of Christ Risen from death.
This experience empowers them to announce the reign of God as the coming of
the new earth and new heavens. The ‘reign of God’ is the sphere of the divine
reality; whereas the moral or ethical programmes are of the empirical ego.
“In the human heart under the reign of God— that is, insofar as it is revealed to
the ego and thus works in the human being—there is no anger, nor lustful desire,
nor vengeance, nor hatred in the human self. When the reign of God in the
person is so revealed that it becomes reflected in the ego, then it constitutes the
will of the ego (cf. Phil.2:13); then what is realized is ‘I will,’ not ‘you should’.
Of course, to speak as Jesus did is not easy. But it is possible, I think, for all of
us insofar as it is based on the activity of God who is at the same time both das
ganz Andere and the ultimate subject of every human being….So the
understanding of the transcendent as the paradoxical identity of das ganz Andere
and the ultimate subject of every human being is indispensable not only for our
understanding of Jesus but also for our theological thinking today.” (Yagi, 1987)
We have to go to Meister Eckhart to realize the full force of this awakening and
realization. Bernard McGinn (2001) has wonderfully delineated the mysticism of
Eckhart of as Grunt mysticism: ‘This helps us to see why it is better to speak of
the ‘mysticism of the ground’than the ‘the mysticism of the ground of the soul.’
The essential point, as Eckhart often put it, is that “God’s ground and the soul’s
ground is one ground”. It is not because either the soul is grounded in its
essential reality, or God in his, but because they are both grounded in the same
ground in a fused identity that Eckhart and his followers found the language of
the ground so rich in meaning. As he put it in Sermon 5b: “Here God’s ground is
my ground and my ground is God’s ground. Here I live out of what is mine, just
as God lives out of what is his”’.
Another great motif of Eckhart is the Birth of the Word in the soul.
‘Nevertheless, they are not the same. Eckhart says that the birth of the Son does
not exhaust what takes place in the ground. In Pr.48, for example, he speaks of
the ‘uncreated light,’ which comprehends God without a medium, a
comprehension that is to be understood as happening when the birth takes place.
But this ‘spark of the soul’ is not only not content with creatures, but also “is not
content with the Father or the Son or the Holy Spirit…so far as each of them
persists in his properties.” It is not even satisfied with “the simple divine essence
in its repose.” No, “It wants to go into the simple ground, into the quiet desert,
into which distinction never gazed, not the Father, nor the Son, nor the Holy
Spirit….for this ground is a simple silence, in itself immovable, and by this
immovability all things are moved, all life is received by those who in
themselves have rational being”’. Eckhart is known for making a distinction
between God and Godhead. He says that as long as he was “in the ground, the
depths, the flood and source of the Godhead”, no one asked him anything,
because while God acts, the Godhead does not. The Godhead becomes ‘God’in
the flowing of creation.
‘Grunt is employed by Eckhart in a rich variety of ways, but the basic intention
of the semantic field of groundlanguage is always geared to one goal: achieving
indistinct identity of God and human in what Eckhart calls the ‘simple
One’.’The meaning of grunt is fused identity, or union of indistinction; it is
identity without distinction, a paradoxical identity. Grunt points to a dynamic
identity, the activity of grounding. In Pr.39 Eckhart advises, “Go into your own
ground and there act, and the works that you do there will all be living”. In
Pr.16b, “You should pass through and pass over all virtues and should only take
hold of virtue in the ground where it is one with the divine nature”. Thus, acting
out of a ‘well-exercised ground’, as Pr.86 says of Martha in Luke 10, is to live
and act ‘without a why’, the core of Eckhartian ethics’ (see pp. 44-49, McGinn,
2001).
VI
This Christian perspective from Meister Eckhart and Seiichi Yagi is mystical and
speaks heart to heart with zen. Now on some problems and pitfalls:
On the path of awakening and its realization, there is many a pitfall, mistake,
misunderstanding and illusion. The usual one is to imagine that one has attained
awakening just by imagining or thinking of unity, oneness and emptiness.
Having the idea of unity or of emptiness is just that, a mere idea. Many seek
after some experience of cosmic oneness, or of emptiness; such experiences are
called makyos in zen, that is, illusions. Connected with this is the vain and
illusory struggle to achieve enlightenment by one’s own heroic will-power. A
near-psychotic fantasy is that there is no self at all, or that the self is totally
collapsed into the things and objects; or the self is an object among objects, or
the longing and the attempt to objectify the self. Along with this goes the fear
and denial of freedom and responsibility. There are also some Buddhist and other
theories that there is no self at all, only an illusion of the self; or conversely, that
the world is a dream and illusion. Some spiritualities and scientisms proclaim
that everything is determined or fated, that humans have no freedom or choice.
That everything is interdependent, that humans are not apart from the world, is
true and meaningful. But to go on to proclaim that the human self disintegrates
with death into the elements of matter is failure of spirit and imagination.
Buddhisms that teach such a doctrine are nihilistic and fatalistic. Zen master
Dogen errs in this regard; also the present day teacher, Thich Nhat Hanh. On the
other hand, that the self is independent of the body and that it does not die but is
eternal is another wrong idea. Even zen masters like Bankei hold to such
doctrines:
“Since the physical body of ours is something that was born and is composed of
the elements of earth, water, fire, and air brought temporarily together, according
to the principle that what is born cannot avoid perishing, our body too must one
day perish. But the Buddha-mind is unborn; the body may be burned with fire or
decompose through interment, but the Buddhamind cannot. The unborn
Buddhamind simply makes the born body its temporary home….The body, being
created, has a birth and a death, but the mind, which is originally the unborn
Buddha-mind, does not” (Waddell, 1984, p.81).
The true zen vision is ‘I die and I do not die’. We have to acknowledge our
mortality and death, but at the same time hold to the mystery of life and death.
Life is a mystery, death is mystery. ‘I die and I do not die’. Simply to hold that
there is no death at all, or to claim that there is no duality of life and death nor of
good and bad, or that the self is only a temporary illusion, all such theories are
only word games. To paraphrase the Diamond Sutra, the self is not the self,
therefore the self is the self. It is in realizing the not-self that we come home; it is
the realization of Emptiness that is Mystery.
VII
The zen way is to abide in Emptiness while walking on the roads of the
marketplace, to walk on the roads of the marketplace while abiding in
Emptiness. One needs to be grounded and established in Emptiness in walking
the path of living and loving. The heart has to be transformed, passions purified.
Such transformation and pu- rification will necessarily go through the path of
suffering and brokenness. ‘No one is as whole as he who has a broken heart’,
said Rabbi Moshe Leib of Sasov. When our self-enclosed heart is made
vulnerable and broken open, living waters of love will flow forth nourishing life
and creativity. Hisamatsu Shin’ichi (1999) asserts that the Nothing of zen is the
Heart of zen; it is the heart of the universe, it is your very heart. Such a heart is
as wide as the universe, embracing all beings with all their sorrows and joys,
weaknesses and strengths, successes and failures, life and death. Master Ummon
asks us (Sekida, 2000, HR. 87):
Ummon said to his disciples,

‘Medicine and sickness cure each other.
All the earth is medicine. Where do you find yourself?’
Setcho’s first part of verse to this koan runs:
All the earth is medicine;

Ancient and modern, men make a great mistake. Shut the gate, but do not build
the cart; The universe is the highway, vast and wide.
Let me end with the figure of Vimalakirti. Vimalakirti is lying sick, sick with the
sickness of the beings of the world. Manjusri and other bodhisattvas come to
enquire after him. There ensue questions and answers about nonduality and the
entrance to the bodhisattvas’ Gate to the One and Only. After all have answered,
they ask Vimala- kirti for his answer. Vimalakirti just lies in silence; this silence
is said to be thundering silence. It is the silence of the Buddha to the
metaphysical questions, and the silence of the second patriarch Hui-k’o before
Bodhidharma; it is the silence of Jesus before the accusers of the woman caught
in misbehavior as well as his silence before the judging Sanhedrin on his way to
his suffering, passion and death. Setcho has a beautiful verse to this koan
(Sekida, HR 84):
You foolish old Vimalakirti, Sorrowful for sentient beings, You lie sick in
Vaisali,
Your body all withered up.
The teacher of the Seven Buddhas comes, The room is cleared of everything,
You ask for the Gate to the One and Only; Are you repulsed by Manjusri’s
words? No, not repulsed; the golden-lion Can find you nowhere.
(February , 2013)
One day, the 19th Patriarch, Kumarata, taught Jayata, saying, “Although you
believe in the three kinds of karma, it is still not clear to you that karma is born
of delusion; delusion comes into existence because of consciousness;
consciousness comes from ignorance; and ignorance comes from the mind. Mind
is originally pure, without origination or cessation, without doing or effort,
without karmic retribution, without superiority or inferiority. It is solitary and
exquisite. If you enter this Dharma gate, you are the same as Buddha. All good
and evil, conditioned and unconditioned, are like dreams and fantasies.”
The master, on hearing this, grasped the meaning of the teaching and attained the
wisdom he had possessed since time immemorial.
Poem:
Intrinsically, the camphor tree [yosho], is born in emptiness, Its branches, leaves,
root and trunk flourish beyond the clouds.
[Note: the yosho: according to Chuang-tzu, does not grow for seven years, then
it rapidly becomes a huge tree.]

10. Awakening from the Nightmare
‘Know thyself’ is an ancient wisdom of both East and West. In the East often it
is phrased as ‘Who am I?’ or, ‘Who are you?’ The ‘I’ or the self is embedded in
layer upon layer of the material, the mental, the psychic, the ethical and the
spiritual—all in terms of relationships. The French sociologist-philosopher René
Girard explains the self-in-society in terms of mimesis, or imitative desiring.
According to him, at birth humans are endowed with some inchoate instincts and
drives, but culturally and psychically they lack being. They feel empty of being
and look to other humans to find fulfillment. In this process they learn to form
their desires on the model of the desires of others. If the others desire wealth,
beauty, power and so on, these seem to them the source of their own fulfillment.
But soon they see that the desired objects themselves are not enough, and they
imagine that the others have found being for themselves and seem to sufficient
for themselves. Hence they begin to imitate the selves of others, which is the
desired model and the model becomes the desired object.
This brings about competition, rivalry and in short, envy. The models though
flattered at first, soon become threatened that they will be undermined and
undone. The have-nots become more and more envious and greedy. This conflict
leads to hatred and violence; envy and violence are contagious and spread
throughout society. When the violence reaches a peak, it can find a safety valve
only through the mechanism of a scapegoat. Someone similar to the others and
yet different becomes the focus of the hatred and violence of the parties, who is
made the scapegoat; the scapegoat is murdered or destroyed, and this ‘sacrifice’
brings temporary peace and reconciliation to the warring parties. We can see this
mechanism operate throughout society: the scapegoats can be Jews,
homosexuals, women, witches, the authorities, the poor, the foreigner, the misfit
and so on. The scapegoat, the object of violence and at the same time the source
of peace and reconciliation, becomes later sacred and venerated. According to
Girard, violence and the sacred are intimately connected. But this peace is
illusory; envy and violence will flare up again and again, and new scapegoats
and sacrifices will be needed. Thus the so-called normal society is built on envy,
greed and violence, and sustained by numberless victims of scapegoats. This
echoes the Buddhist analysis of society caught in greed, hatred and ignorance,
and the Christian view of original evil as envy in the stories of Adam and Eve
and of Cain and Abel.
Girard is persuasive and his vision can explain much of our distorted self-image
and the image of society. But this tool of mimetic mechanism is only one, albeit
great, interpretive tool of self and society. Ernest Becker (The Denial of Death)
and Aung Sang Suu Kyi (Freedom from Fear) point out that fear is the basis of
our destructive behavior and relationships. Fear of death, fear for our safety and
security, fear of violence and harm, of oppression or of rejection, of our
mortality, impermanence, disasters, illness and so on. Fear stalks our every
corner of life and world. How can we freed from this all-pervasive fear and
become fearless?
Further, so many people are affected by psychological imbalances which cause

dysfunctional behaviors, lack of empathy and even trigger aggression and
destructiveness. Still more, our society is becoming an ‘addictive society’—we
are enslaved by addiction to drugs of various kinds, sex and porn, internet,
games, and so on. Addictions drug us into ‘mindlessness’ and lead to destructive
behavior to self and to society.
The Socratic view that evil springs from ignorance of the good and that
knowledge is virtue, or the Christian Scholastic view that evil is lack of being, is
inadequate to explain our human disorder and hubris. Nietzschean Will-to-Power
and self-will are more often than not the human motivating force. Paul W. Kahn
(Out of Eden) shows remarkable insight and points out that “Evil makes us
Human”. Kahn’s aim is to explore the nature of evil itself. He interprets it, not
just as doing or experiencing bad things, but as “a way of being in the world”.
Evil, he claims, is about making ourselves the source of our own meaning, a
meaning inevitably negated by death, the certainty of which gives urgency and
depth to the way life is lived. It is this consciousness of our mortality, and the
refusal to accept its implications, which can lead to the worship of false gods.
Ascribing ultimate value to what is essentially nothing at all results in what he
calls “a pathology of the will”. Personal evil is essentially about willfulness
rather than reason, nor can it be subsumed within our rational understanding.
Evil in this sense, as part of our humanity, is not a fashionable concept, but we
have good reasons to recognize it, not least in ourselves (from a review by John
Habgood). The Enlightenment vision of humans and of world sang of the glories
and the dignity of humans, of universal harmony and peace, of scientific
progress, the benign march of evolution, of reason and happiness, the goodness
of creation and personal fulfillment. This was what William James described as
that of the once-born people as opposed to that of the twice-born. However,
history of humankind has proved this a mirage and illusion. Humans are
irrational, violent, unpredictable, and history is strewn with monstrous
destructions and genocides, malice, depravity and unspeakable horrors.
Our human heart is good but it has also a shadow side of darkness and evil.
Hitler or the murderer is not merely out there, but also in us. One recent tortured
sufferer, Francois Bizot, remarks, “ If there is a true hero down here on this
earth, it isn’t the person whose courage bursts out while fighting against others,
but the one who is capable of showing the courage to battle with themselves—
to remain courageous when facing this distorted mirror image of themselves
whose threat leaves us with weakened defences” (Facing the Torturer, p. 90.)
Where can we then find liberation and peace? Mere hu - manism, atheism,
reason, science, or philosophy or psychology will not do. Religions each has a
different solution. Some are other-centred, such as Christianity, and posit God
or similar Being as the source of liberation and freedom. Some, such as
Buddhism, are self-centred and posit liberation by one’s own power. Both views
have strengths and weaknesses. Religions have also a darker side and have been
source of conflict and wars. I offer the zen vision as the source of liberation and
freedom. Zen usually is viewed as one of self-power, but this view is not quite
right.
Mahayana Buddhism talks of Two Truths, the Ultimate Truth, paramartha satya,
and the Conventional Truth, samvrti satya. Liberation and Nibbana cannot be
attained apart from the transcendent paramartha satya. Defining oneself only in
terms of the conventional, worldly realm of samvrti satya is the source of
ignorance, envy and violence. However, not any Transcendent will be the saving
Nibbana. Furthermore, the Transcendent has to be actualized in the praxis of the
trustworthy sangha and authentic tradition in order to be a source of liberation
and Nibbana.
Zen is rooted in Mahayana Buddhism, though it also goes beyond Buddhism as
such. Zen is grounded in zen tradition as well as in the living sangha or
community. It is essentially relational, relational and dialogual first in terms of
master-student relationship. It is in and through the relationship to the master, the
sangha and the world that one realizes oneself and comes home. The relationship
is the doorway through which one passes to the transcendent ground of the self
and reality. Let me describe in brief some of the essential stages and phases.
1. When you come into the master-disciple relationship as well as into the
sangha, you are accepted and affirmed as you are, in an unconditional
affirmation. ‘You are good and beautiful as you are!’ At the same time there
comes also a paradoxical challenge: “You are perfect as you are, and you must
change!” It is not a goody-goody “I am ok, you are ok” discourse. The challenge
to become what you are is actually the audacious affirmation of your true self.
This will be similar to the love of your father and mother or friends and lovers.
Yet this relationship of discipleship is different and unique.
2. It involves further an ethical call to free oneself from slavery to addictions and
passions and to follow the call of the good, the true, the just and the beautiful.
Emotions are not wrong in themselves, but they can become addictive and
enslaving; they need to be transmuted into the virtues of our true and authentic
selves. Addictions drug us into mindless destructiveness of self and others.
However, addictions are, in a sense, choices and thus open the doors to freedom
and peace. You will have to make the choice for the sake of the others, the
teacher and yourself for freedom and peace. It involves learning the heart’s way
of finding what leads to peace, freedom and joy.
3. The foregoing are rather conventional ways of being a disciple. Authentic

discipleship of following is unique and radical. Robert P. Scharlemann has some
beautiful pointers on this:
‘The call to follow is from the ‘I’ of ‘I am’ to the ‘I’ of ‘I am’….The voice of ‘I
am’ which comes from another person and can call me into being myself on my
own by following it, not harbored by the worldliness of the world, sounds not
from the thou but from the I. Following is, therefore, as different from trusting as
the respect with which the other ‘fills’ me is different from the summons, coming
from elsewhere, that ‘sends’ me. In the act of trust, the one trusted is other than
the one trusting; in the act of following, the one followed is the same as the one
following. We trust one whom we can address as ‘thou’; we follow one whom
we can never address as ‘thou’ but can hear as the ‘I’ of our own peace or
wholeness….A following of the ‘I am’ terminates not in there being the one and
the other, the follower and the followed; it terminates in the follower’s coming to
be as ‘I’ in the fullness of being I….the call to follow is a call to become in fact
what one already is.
“One person is capable of following another person and of becoming free in the
process because the ownness of the I can be presented in the person of another.
To the extent that the disciples of Jesus were ‘followers’ of the ‘I am’ of Jesus,
the one they encountered in his person was not their ‘thou’ but their ‘I’, and in
losing themselves to him, they attached themselves to one whose death left them
on their own. His exousia (‘authority’, literally, ‘beingout’, ‘ex-entitas’) is not
the power of a lord over a servant but the ‘being-outside’, the appearance
‘without’, of the egoity of the I of which we are normally aware ‘within’
ourselves. That the I can so call and be followed is its ecstatic trait…The
summons of ‘I am’ is…related to the possibility of being freely and wholly in the
world and, that is to say, a way of being worldly other than through care….The
ecstatic I is the external but proper I placed outside itself. That the self can be
beside itself is, thus, not a new idea. Discipleship, as a way of the self’s coming
to itself by being outside itself, involves such a possibility of exstasis. In
following the ‘I am’ who summons the follower, the self comes to itself as I. The
other side of this capacity for the ecstatic reception of the self is the capacity for
giving oneself, as is indicated in such paradoxical formulations as this that the
self can find itself only by losing itself” (The Reason of Following: Christology
and the Ecstatic I, pp. 33-5, 100-1).
4. Following or discipleship as Scharlemann describes it may sound like an

event of the moment and not of duration. It is both, as the example of Jesus and
his disciples and of the Buddha and his followers will attest. From the initial call
to the final sending forth of the disciple, there is a time of journeying, learning,
waiting, being transformed and coming home to abide in the mystery of the self.
It takes place in the dialogue with the master, particularly in the zen interview
and exchange as well as in the dawning awareness of the mysterious reality of
oneself.
Zen Awakening is awakening to Emptiness as one’s very self, the self as

Emptiness and Emptiness as the self. It is awakening to the boundlessness and
ineffability of the ground of the self. It is the groundless ground, which founds
and sustains everything. The self is the limit and the horizon of the world. It is in
the world yet not of this world. It is spaceless and timeless, without birth and
without death. Awakening to Emptiness of the self is liberation and Nibbana; it is
the coming home to the peace that the world cannot give. It is actualized in one’s
freedom and openness, in one’s commitment and responsibility. In the following
sections the awakening to emptiness and the mystery of the self will be
articulated and expressed in some brief points.
5. In Awakening one realizes further that the self is the world and the world the
self. The self is the mountains, the rivers and the wide earth. The other is the
face of oneself: the other is other and non-other. The dialectics of self and
emptiness and self and the world is portrayed in the zen saying: Before
enlightenment, mountains are mountains and trees are trees; during
enlightenment, mountains are not mountains and trees are not trees; after
enlightenment, mountains are mountains and trees are trees. Hear this fine koan
from Hekiganroku, case no.53:
When Basho was out walking with Hyakujo

he saw a wild duck fly past.
Basho said, “What is it?”
Hyakujo said, “It is a wild duck.”
Basho said, “Where is it?”
Hyakujo said, “It has flown away.”
Basho at last gave Hyakujo’s nose a sharp pinch.
Hyakujo cried out with pain.
Basho said, “There, how can it fly away?”
Setcho’s verse:
The wild duck! What, how and where? Basho has seen, talked, taught and
exhausted the meaning of
Mountain clouds and moonlit seas.
But Jo doesn’t understand – “has flown away.” Flown away? No, he is brought
back! Say! Say!
6. The awakened self is dual and bi-polar. In the horizontal dimension of samvrti
satya it is a phenomenal reality, bounded in time and space. In the vertical
dimension of paramartha satya, it is transcendent, beyond space and time.
However, the self is neither the one nor the other, but dwells in the in-between. It
is a mystery which actualizes itself now as this and now as that. It is the eternal
embodying forth in the temporal, the finite actualizing itself in the infinite. It is
the mystery of two natures but one reality. The I is nowhere and yet here and
now. It cannot be named except in the first person I.
7. The awakening to Emptiness and the realization of the self and world as
mystery, and the transformation and maturation of the self, implies a ‘turning-
over of the base’ (asraya-pravritti) of our old world and the birth of the new earth
and new heavens (see my chapter on metaphoric process in Zen: Awakening to
your Original Face). Sometimes this is discussed in terms of a gradual
awakening versus sudden awakening. Such discussions are irrelevant. What is
important is that we have died to our old self and old world-view and are born to
the new. We are grounded and rooted in the mystery that is Emptiness. The Heart
Sutra proclaims: Form is Emptiness, Emptiness is Form. The Japanese zen
master Shibayama, commenting on the koan Nansen Kills the Cat , speaks
beautifully of this new world and new life: “It is said that Jesus Christ rose from
death after his crucifixion. As I am not a Christian, I do not know the orthodox
interpretation of the resurrection in Christianity. I myself believe, however, that
Jesus’ resurrection means to die in human flesh and to revive as the Son of God
transcending life and death. His resurrection means the advent of the Kingdom
of God. It is the mysterious work of God to create the new and true world. There
everybody, everything, lives in God, and all the provisional names and
defilements of this earth are never found in the least” (The Gateless Barrier, case
no.14).
8. Let me elaborate the foregoing sections a bit more in terms of Being Truth and
Doing Justice: How does this mystery of the self manifest itself? It can be
expressed in terms of the pre-Socratic Greek idea of truth as aletheia—
unconcealment, disclosure, showing. It is letting-be, be-ing, being seen. This,
according to Martin Heidegger, is the original meaning of truth. Later the
Romans and the Medieval Scholastics expressed it in the Latin verum and
veritas. Verum came to be understood as the ‘upright’, and finally justum, the
right. Ver- itas came to mean rectitude understood as correctness of human
thinking, which came to mean justification, justice. Justice then became
rightness or righteousness, connected with correctness. And this justice is
thought in terms of the subject, and ultimately, of the will. It leads to making
oneself justified, it is adequation with an established truth or law. Justice
become the correctness of reason and will. It is a short step to Nietzsche’s will-
topower. Through one’s willful mastery one adjusts oneself, making oneself just.
But this, as can be noticed, is the way to untruth, to distortion and falsification of
the truth of oneself.
Aletheia, unconcealment, disclosure, or letting-be means letting-be oneself in all

of one’s complexity and relationships; of the past and the future, the present
and the possible self. It is also letting-be the other the other, letting-be things be
things, in all their multiplicity and interdependence. However, it is the human
being who stands in the openness of Being, who can let beings be beings, who is
a clearing, an open space, for beings to reveal themselves. ‘Only by letting
beings be can the human being let things show themselves as the are. In a
word, it is only the human being…who can be just. A corollary of this is that it is
only the human being who can be unjust. It is precisely because the human being
stands within the openness of Being that it is in a position to be closed off to it.
Phrased otherwise, it is only because the human being can let beings be that the
human being can fail to let beings be, can superimpose upon them its own will.’
This letting-be is not so much an act of decision and choice but one of
steadfastly standing in the truth of Being. ‘To be virtuous is to stand resolutely in
being’s unconcealment in such a way as to experience awe’ (Cf. Montgomery
Ewegen).
9. The foregoing exposition of truth and justice in terms of aletheia, as

unconcealedness, disclosure and lettingbe, has not been an enduring tradition in
the West. It is otherwise in the East, particularly with Taoism and Zen. It is
applied in the social and political realms in terms of nonviolence, here is the
main theme: Satya and Ahimsa, truth and non-violence, have been the hall-mark
of Buddhism and Jainism, as well as of Hinduism. Of course, they have not been
practiced consistently in the mainstream; but the tradition has been alive and
persistent. The Jesus tradition of nonviolent love has not been completely
forgotten in Western Christianity, either.
“Gandhi, it is said, once famously quipped, ‘The only people on earth who do
not see Christ and his teachings as nonviolent are Christians.’ This is, of course,
not entirely true. The Christians of the first three centuries are known for their
refusal to participate in violence, and the history of the church is replete with
numerous examples of theologians, bishops, saints, mystics, monastic groups,
historic peace churches, and all sorts of Christians committed to the practice of
nonviolence. …Unfortunately, it can certainly be argued that, generally
speaking, Gandhi may have been right….We have assumed its necessity for so
long that it remains easy to justify any present situations in which we imagine
that the potential ends of violence outweigh the potential problems it causes for
those serious about following Jesus….Of course, these very reasons have led to
many wars, pograms, inquisitions, and public executions” (A Faith Not Worth
Fighting For, p. 3. Ed. York and Barringer). David J. Krieger describes the
nonviolent alternative vision, “This way of being and acting is not based on
power and exclusion but on nonviolent love. It is redemptive love of solidarity
with the enemy and voluntary self-suffering, ahimsa and satyagraha. A
pragmatics of non-violence opens up a horizon of encounter and thus carries
discourse into the realm where power confronts and excludes the other, thereby
transforming the violence of exclusion into a solidarity from which speech may
arise” (The New Universalism, p. 151. He has an excellent article on dialogue:
Communication Theory and Inter-religious Dialogue, Journal of Ecumenical
Studies, Summer-Fall, 1993).
10. It can be helpful to offer further clarification in terms of the attitude of

willingness versus willfulness in our actions and relationships ( see Gerald May).
Willfulness, as the term indicates, is self-centered assertiveness, attempting to
manipulate self and things to one’s own purposes. It is will-to-power.
Willingness on the other hand is letting-be self and beings, respecting the mys-
tery of self, of others and the world. Willingness is selfacceptance and
affirmation of things and others. Things and people are let-be to reveal
themselves in the openness of the self; at the same time it is letting the otherness
of the other be other, and not try to swallow up or erase the mystery of other.
Let me give some quotes from Gerald May:

‘The problem of personal mastery versus self-surrender exists in every moment
of choice. It appears in the most mundane of daily decisions, and it glows
fiercely in the way we view the very meaning of our existence. It presents us
with a dilemma; a dilemma that can confuse us and may—if taken far enough—
even destroy us. Fundamentally, this dilemma has to do with whether we engage
the deepest levels of our lives in willing or in willful ways. Willingness and
willfulness become possibilities every time we truly engage life. There is only
one other option—to avoid the engagement entirely….willingness implies a
surrendering of one’s self-separateness, an entering-into, an immersion in the
deepest processes of life itself. It is a realization that one already is a part of
some ultimate cosmic process and it is a commitment to participation in that
process. In contrast, willfulness is the setting of oneself apart from the
fundamental essence of life in an attempt to master, direct, control, or otherwise
manipulate existence. More simply, willingness is saying yes to the mystery of
being alive, in each moment. Willfulness is saying no, or perhaps more
commonly, ‘Yes, but….’”(Will and SpiritWill and Spirit 6).
11. What I have been describing so far is rather the general vision of and attitude
to life and reality. Let me also say a few words about one’s particular way of life.
We each are unique individuals, unique, singular persons. Awakening, in
general, is the realization of the self beyond space and time, it is a coming home
to the mystery of the self that is ineffable and fathomless. It is one’s openness to
the world with the realization of the self as the world and the world as the self.
But each of us also needs to become an individual and particular being; it is the
so-called individualization process. How is the process of individuation and
singularization? Becoming a singular, unique person involves a process of
psychological and moral discernment. It is not enough to go by general rules and
theories. Of course, first and foremost, we have to learn to abide by the Precepts,
for example, The Ten Grave Precepts; which means, avoid evil and do good.
This is the first requirement.
Secondly, we have to listen to what gives our hearts and minds peace, inner
freedom and joy. We are interdependent, relational persons, and we cannot
become ourselves apart from others. Each of us has a particular history of life,
embodied in particular living symbols, places, relationships and practices. We
have particular emotions, temperament and dispositions. As Pascal said, our
hearts have reasons that reason may not know. Willingness, as mentioned
earlier, and mindfulness, is learning to listen to our hearts, to our history, to the
historical and local stories we carry with us. This is the process of discernment
of the way of life congruent with our heart and mind. It involves also, as some
call it, the process of soul-making or care of the soul (Cf. James Hillman,
Thomas Moore). Soul-making is not one of pure spirit and light—which zen
calls the way of ascent as opposed to the way of descent--but of flesh and blood,
earth and slime, darkness and confusion, tangled relationships and strife; it deals
with imperfections and failures, sorrow and suffering, the tragedies and the
comedies of our human life. The ancient Roman playwright Terence said, “I am
human. Nothing human is alien to me”. The journey through the ways of ascent
and descent and of realizing one’s unique self is not an easy one. We need
humility as well as patience and courage. Thérèse of Lisieux cried out from the
depth of her loneliness and sorrow, ‘I have my faults, but I also have courage’.
Listen to the Hasidic Rabbi Zusya, who lived in the 1700’s: “When I get to the
heavenly court, God will not ask me, ‘Why weren’t you Moses?’ Rather he will
ask me, ‘Why were you not Zusya?’ Paradoxically, the more unique one
becomes, the more universal is the transformation.
Let me end with the case of Nansen and Joshu, on which Shibayama earlier
commented (Mumonkan, case 14):
Once the monks of the Eastern Hall and the Western Hall were disputing about a
cat. Master Nansen, holding up the cat, said, “Monks, if you can say a word of
Zen, I will spare the cat. If you cannot, I will kill it!” No monk could answer.
Nansen finally killed the cat.
In the evening, when Joshu came back, Nansen told him of the incident. Joshu
took off his sandal, put it on his head, and walked off. Nansen said, “If you had
been there, I could have saved the cat!”
(Oct. 2012)
The 47th Patriarch, Wukong, came to Danxia. Danxia asked him, “What is your
self prior to innumerable kalpas?”
The master was about to speak, when Tanka said, “You are a little too noisy. You
should leave here for a while.”
One day the master went up to Boyu peak, and all of a sudden he came to
awakening.
Poem:
The ancient stream, the cold spring— no one can peak into it.
It does not allow travelers to penetrate its depths.
11.Ethics and Buddhism
“Buddha was one of the greatest ethical men of genius ever bestowed upon the
world”, Albert Schweitzer.
bestowed upon the world”, Albert Schweitzer. 69) about how the Buddha’s re-
definition of ‘action’ as ‘intention’, an audacious use of language, turned the
brahmin ideology upside down and ethicised the universe. I do not see how one
could exaggerate the importance of the Buddha’s ethicisation of the world,
which I regard as a turning point in the history of civilization,” (Richard F.
Gombrich, How Buddhism Began.)
I am glad that the editorial board has chosen the theme of ethics for this Sangha
Blossom. Ethics, personal, communal and societal is most vital and at the same
time has become most vulnerable in today’s world. It is a burning issue in all
spiritual communities, but particularly in Buddhist ones. Many of the Buddhist
sanghas in the West seem to be confused and confusing as regards ethical norms
and standards. Let me say a few words as opening comment.
Kierkegaard talks of three kinds of persons: the aesthete, the ethical and the
religious. The aesthete is one who is self-centred and lives a life of self-
indulgence and narcissism. The ethical person bases his/her life on values and
lives in terms of other-orientedness. The religious person lives in terms of faith
and surrender. The ethical and the religious dimensions go together. The
religious dimension without the ethical will be hollow; the ethical without the
religious will be good but will be lacking something. The aesthete will remain an
immature human life-long unless he/she passes through an ethical conversion.
Many of the spiritual teachers and masters lack ethical norms and standards and
lead lives of immorality. They are narcissistic and psychopathic, as also are
many CEOs in the secular world. Spiritual traditions warn against the age-old
three-fold temptations of power, money and sex. Manipulation and
untruthfulness are inherent temptations to the spiritual teachers; however,
manipulation of power and money are often not so noticeable as the abuse of
sex. Some say that the teacher and the student can have consensual sex. No, the
teachers are in a position of power and authority and the students can be swayed
and blinded. Even if the student consents, the responsibility rests on the teacher
to safeguard the student against herself/himself. Personal integrity and
fundamental caring should form the character of the spiritual teacher; such
integrity and caring actually go together.
Very often the sangha around the teacher colludes with and protects the teacher
against the accusations. The student has been hurt, damaged or broken , and the
leaders of the sangha have to care for the student and call
Ethics and Buddhism
the teacher to accountability, but they often confuse, ob - fuscate and manipulate
the student and lose their own credibility. True, the teacher is also human and
imperfect and can fail and stumble. But when there has been hurt, brokenness,
infidelity and destruction, the teacher has to take responsibility, ask for
forgiveness and make reparation as far as possible. Unfortunately so far very few
teachers have come forward to acknowledge their misdeeds and rectify their
behavior. The leading Buddhist authorities should have publicly condemned the
immoral and destructive behavior of such teachers, but almost all of them seem
to be keeping quiet.
Some students even justify the behavior of the teacher saying that the teacher is a
good teacher, and that he or she teaches good dharma. What nonsense! Without
the grounding in ethics-- particularly of justice, fairness, decency, faithfulness,
caring, empathy and respect-- how can the dharma be good and true? Without
ethical foundation, the dharma is only pseudo dharma. These teachers can be
clever and know a lot of intellectual stuff, but theirs is not authentic dharma.
Unless the teachers themselves lead a life of authenticity and truthfulness, their
example and life-pattern will be only misleading and de- luding their students.
The Buddha’s dharma is first and foremost ethical dhar - ma. Buddhism is
essentially ethics or it is not Buddhism. Buddha’s revolution was an ethical
revolution. The socalled enlightenment without ethics is pseudo enlightenment.
During the World War II many Japanese zen masters became rabidly
nationalistic and racist; their so-called enlightenment proved to be illusory
without a firm grounding in universal ethics. Awakening cannot be divorced
from ethics and it should lead one to compassion, caring and respect for others.
In the perspective of ultimate truth, awakening can be said to go beyond good
and evil; but awakening to Emptiness and selflessness does not abolish the
otherness of the other nor the identity of the self as such. It is never an
entitlement to abuse and disrespect others, particularly one’s own students and
followers. If a teacher fails in this respect, he/ she betrays the sacred trust of the
students; the students should avoid him/her as plague.
The Teaching of the Seven Buddhas:

Not to do harm
Always to do good
And to keep one’s heart-mind pure-This is the teaching of all the Buddhas.
(Editorial for the sangha letter on Buddhism and ethics, 2013)

A soldier named Nobushige came to Hakuin, and asked:

“Is there really a paradise and a hell?”
“Who are you?” inquired Hakuin.

“I am a samurai, “ the warrior replied.
“You, a soldier!” exclaimed Hakuin. “What kind of ruler would have you as his
guard? Your face looks like that of a beggar.”
Nobushige became so angry that he began to draw his sword, but Hakuin
continued: “So you have a sword! Your weapon is probably much too dull to cut
off my head.”
As Nobushige drew his sword Hakuin remarked:

“Here open the gates of hell!”
At these words the samurai, perceiving the master’s discipline, sheathed his
sword and bowed.
“Here open the gates of paradise,” said Hakuin.

IV. Teishos
12. The Way of Freedom
Master Ummon said, “The world is vast and wide like this. Why do we put on
our seven-panel robe at the sound of the bell?”
Mumon’s commentary:
Generally speaking, in practicing and studying Zen, it is most detestable to
follow sounds and pursue colors. Even though you may become enlightened
through hearing sounds and come to realize mind by seeing colors, that is the
ordinary way of things. People do not know that for real Zen monks, when they
are riding on sounds and becoming one with colors, everything is clear, moment
by moment, everything is full of wonder, action after action. When you hear a
sound, however, just tell me, does the sound come to the ear or the ear goes to
the sound? Even though you have extinguished both sound and silence, what
will you realize here? If you hear with the ear, you cannot realize it. When you
hear with the eye, for the first time it will become intimate.
The Verse:
With realization, all things are of one family, Without realization, everything is
separate and different.
Without realization, all things are of one family, With realization, everything is
separate and different.
Master Ummon (862 or 864—949), in Chinese Yuen-men Wen-yen, is one of the

great masters of Chinese zen. John C. H. Wu regards him almost as the greatest.
Wu remarks, Lin-chi only kills those whom he happens to encounter. Yuen-men’s
massacre is universal. He does away with all people even before they are born.
To him the ‘true man of no title’ is already the second moon, therefore a phantom
not worth the trouble of killing. Again, To Yuen-men, any speech, however
legitimate from the worldly point of view, is out of place in regard to the eternal
Tao. He seems to be obsessed with the primary insight of Lao-tzu: ‘The Tao that
could be expressed in words is not the eternal Tao’….The self being beyond
space and time, it is nowhere and yet it is manifested everywhere and in all
things. Therefore, to try to find him only in the innermost recesses of your mind
is to miss him. On this point, Yuen-men saw eye-to-eye with his great
contemporary Ts’aoshan (Jap. Sozan Honjaku). He once asked Ts’ao-shan,
‘What is the best way of being intimate with this Man?’ The latter replied, ‘Don’t
seek intimacy with him esoterically and in the innermost recesses of your mind.’
Yuen-men asked again, ‘What follows if we don’t?’ Ts’ao-shan answered, ‘Then
we are truly intimate with him.’ Yuen-men exclaimed, ‘How true! How true!’
When he was asked, What is Tao?Yuen-men uttered one single word, Go!
When Yunmen was 85 (or 86), he composed a farewell letter to his patron, the
new king of the Southern Han, and gave a final talk to his monks, finishing with
the statement: Coming and going is continuous. I must be on my way!
Now to the koan.

Ummon proclaims, The world is vast and wide like this. This will remind us of
the answer of Bodhidharma to the Emperor Wu’s question, ‘What is the first
principle of holy teachings?’ Bodhidharma replied, Vast Emptiness, no holiness
(HR 1). Tell me, what is the ultimate reality for you? When the Emperor asks
Who are you? Bodhidharma replies, I do not know! ‘Like this’ manifests
Thusness. How will you manifest thusness?
The Heart Sutra proclaims Emptiness is form, form is Emptiness. Emptiness is

the self, Emptiness is the world. Emptiness can be said to be the unknown, the
ineffable, incomprehensible, in short, mystery. To Kyozan’s question about the
abiding place of the true Buddha, Isan replied:
“By the ineffable subtlety and thinking without thinking, turn your attention
inwards to reflect on the infinite power of the divine spark. When your thinking
can go no further, it returns to its source, where Nature and Form eternally abide
where phenomenon and noumenon are not dual but one. It is there that abides
the suchness of the true Buddha” (qtd in Wu).
Emptiness is mystery; Emptiness also means boundless openness. This is what

the self is: mystery as well as boundless openness. Emptiness is the self; and
when the bell sounds, it puts on the clothes and goes to the Zendo. It just goes;
when the sesshin ends, it just gets up and goes out. There is no ‘why’ in it. There
is no willful choice and attachment in all these actions. The self just responds to
the needs of the situation and circumstances. There is awareness, alertness and
openness, and readiness to respond and act. The problem for us humans is that
between Emptiness and form, Emptiness and self, self-image intervenes. Our
self-image is formed of desire and aversions, imagination and attachments.
This is dualistic and conceptual, the self over against others and the world. The
self-image is the false fabrication of reality, parikalpita svabhava. Thus the self-
image covers Emptiness and fixates the self. This is ignorance and delusion,
the source of bondage and suffering.
Ummon’s ‘Why’ challenges the monks to awaken to their true nature and attain
freedom. How is freedom manifested in your everyday actions? The monks have
chosen their way of life, and have committed themselves to follow the customs
and rules under the guidance of the master. Their commitment and actions
presumably are wholehearted and selfless. Or perhaps they are only following
customs, habits and their attachments? The first of Kido’s Three Barriers asks,
How is it that someone whose eyes are not opened puts on clothes and skirts
made of emptiness? How do you attain freedom in the midst of habits, customs
and daily routine? How do you get freed from the imprisonment in concepts and
images of self, others and world?
Generally speaking, in practicing and studying Zen, it is most detestable to

follow sounds and pursue colors. Zen is the way of selflessness and of radical
freedom; it is the way of wuwei, action in non-action. Not to be enslaved by
sounds and colors implies not being slave to objects and things of the world and
the senses. Most of us allow ourselves to be carried away mindlessly, by the
fashions of the world and the opinions of others; or are imprisoned in
compulsions and addictions, or driven by impulses and passions. Rinzai said that
ordinary people are used by the 24 hours of the day, but he uses the 24 hours. He
titles his person of freedom as the person of no rank. Such freedom does not
come cheap.
Enlightened through hearing sounds and by seeing colors, that is the ordinary
way of things. When Joshu asked Master Nansen, What is the Way?, Nansen
answered, Ordinary mind is the Way. Rinzai tells his monks, The way I see it,
there is no call for anything special. Just be ordinary, put on your clothes, eat
your rice, pass the time doing nothing……... Followers of the Way, if you want to
get the kind of understanding that accords with the Dharma, never be misled by
others. Whether you are facing inward or facing outward, whatever you meet up
with, just kill it! If you meet a Buddha, kill the Buddha. If you meet a patriarch,
kill the patriarch. If you meet an arhat, kill the arhat…..Then for the first time
you will gain emancipation, will not be entangled with things, will pass freely
anywhere you wish to go(tran. Burton Watson).
Moment by moment, everything is full of wonder, action after action. I mentioned
Nansen’s saying that ordinary mind is the Way. This ordinary mind is not the
deluded ordinary mind. It is the heart-mind turned over on its base, Asraya-
pravritti. It means that the dualistic ground on which one stands is overturned,
revealing a new world, illumined by new light. It is the dawning of the new earth
and new heavens. Layman Pang sings of this new vision: Wondrous power,
marvelous activity: I draw water, split firewood. The Diamond Sutra proclaims,
the world is not the world, therefore the world is the world. Why is the world the
world? Why are the laws of the world what they are?
Have extinguished both sound and silence . There is beautiful case in

Mumonkan(no.24): A monk asked Fuketsu in all earnestness, ‘Both speech and
silence are concerned with ri and mi. How can we transcend them?’ Fuketsu
said, ‘I constantly think of Konan in March, where partridges chirp among
hundreds of sweet-scented blossoms. Another koan in Mumonkan runs, Master
Goso said, If you meet a man on the path who has accomplished the Way, do not
greet him with words or silence. Tell me, how will you greet him? (MK 36). The
man who has accomplished the Way is an enlightened person, a Buddha. Where
can you find such a person? And if you meet him or her how will you greet? All
these questions finally come to: Who are you truly?
When you hear with the eye, for the first time it will become intimate. These lines
refer to the insight of the 38th Patriarch (in Denkoroku) Dongshan Liangje and
his exchange with his master Yunyan; the latter reprimanded him, If you still
don’t hear me preach the Dharma, how much less can you hear the non-sentient
preach the Dharma? Dongshan expressed his insight with a poem: Wondrous!
Wondrous! The teaching of the inanimate is inconceivable. If you listen with your
ears you won’t understand; when you hear the sound with your eyes, then you’ll
know. This is also the realization of Master Dogen when he came to awakening:
Body and mind fallen away, fallen away of body and mind. It is transcending the
dualisms and discriminations of the mind and responding selflessly with the
entire bodymind-spirit. A koan asks you, In this Dharma everything is equal,
there is neither high nor low. Why is Mountain Ro high and Mountain An low?
The Question is, Why are you you?
The verse points to the awakened life in oneness and differentiation, unity and
multiplicity. It is a life in true freedom, freed from addictions and attachments,
fantasies and dreams.
The poem Shinjin No Mei, On Trust in the Heart-Mind, proclaims,

One thing, all things, move among and intermingle
without attachment.
To live in this realization is to be without anxiety
about non-perfection.
To live in this faith is the road to non-duality
Because the non-dual is one with the trusting Mind.
II
Leaving the koan as such, let me briefly describe the freedom of the zen person.
As regards the idea of freedom, there are many theories and theses. Some would
abolish human freedom, some would postulate absolute freedom. Inbetween are
numberless computations and shades. I do not want to get into all those theories.
Here, a brief zen vision.
We come into the world as subjects and not as objects or things. The baby is a
self, but not yet fully. It is a flowerbud, in the process of growing into a bloom,
flower and fruit. Becoming a self is the process of self-transcending; it means
daring to go beyond one’s self-enclosed security and confines, and opening
oneself to others and the world. The self is an openness, it is boundless
openness, openness to Absolute Emptiness. Absolute Emptiness is the ground of
oneself and also the further horizon. Paradoxically, one cannot realize Absolute
Emptiness except in and through the others and the world.
Self-transcending and opening of oneself is self-creation. It is choosing oneself
in terms of one’s relationship to others, world and also to oneself. One is
originator and cause of one’s choices, attitudes and actions. It is both self-
creation and self-development. This takes place in our response to the others and
the world. From response comes responsibility. Ultimately, it is our realization of
Absolute Emptiness. Emptiness is Fullness-- fullness in terms of the real, the
good, the beautiful and the true; it is boundless and infinite, yet mediated
through persons and world. It is love freed from attachments and addictions of
self-images and self-definitions.
Absolute Emptiness is mediated in the first place inter - personally. The self is
constituted in the relationship to the others. The other is the face of Emptiness
calling one into selfhood as well as calling for a response. The self attains to
selfhood by being recognized by the other. It is said that one’s desire is for the
desire of the other; that is, it is the desire to be desired by the other. Such a desire
is mutual. This makes one vulnerable and dependent. Thus one is hostage to the
other, so to say. The self is outside of oneself in the other, and the other has taken
home in the self. This is the world of mutual interpenetration; but our
unavoidable fault line lies in a dualistic, oppositional conceptualization of self
and others. The cure will be in terms of coming home to oneself by losing
oneself—losing oneself to find oneself, finding oneself by losing oneself. The
losing is surrendering one’s attachments and self-images; it is by selflessly
responding to the other, the other who cannot be objectified or controlled. It is
the depth calling to the depth; responding to the mystery and coming home to the
mystery that is the self. This is the way to heaven.
This creates, as one can imagine, endless complications of relationship, of

desires, attachments and fantasies. Freedom becomes actual in affirming the
other wholeheartedly and also being affirmed. One lets the other be other, lets
the other flourish and be appreciated and respected. Thus one’s heart is opened
up in love, peace and joy. Then the entire universe wears the face of love. Or on
the other hand, one can try to avoid one’s vulner- ability and dependence in the
face of the other by manipulating and objectifying the other. Fear and anxiety,
mimetic desire and envy become then our controllers. It is the way to hell--
Sartre said, ‘hell is the other.’
Interpersonal sphere is the field of self-becoming. How - ever, as a seedling

takes time and seasons to grow into a tree and bear fruit, so also humans need
time and patience to grow into mature freedom and self-realization. One is an
embodied person; that means that body, mind, psyche and all that goes with
these, that is, neuro-biology, evolution, environment, culture, and history,
become both the material as well as obstacles to one’s freedom and selfhood. To
be embodied means also that we are historical and temporal beings, rooted in
time and space; we are rooted in the past and reach out towards the future.
Stretched out between the past and the future, we have to learn to come to live in
the present, to be present here and now. Our bodies, minds and emotions are
entangled in numberless relationships, persons and beings. We cannot simply
order our minds and bodies as we want. Particularly, our passions and emotions,
our desires and aversions, and our thoughts and imagination, are like wild horses
pulling in diverse directions, driving one almost mad. St. Paul moans, “I don’t
really understand myself; for, I want to do what is right, but I don’t do it. Instead,
I do what I hate” (Rom. 7: 15).
Each one of us is endowed with a particular body-mindpsyche complex. We

have to listen to our complexity, become intimate with our different selves and
personalities. Further, our lives are in constant motion and change and are filled
with conflicts. Our prejudices and biases, fears and greed, culture and society, all
these can make us self-centred and give us a false sense of safety and freedom.
In the midst of these we have to know and learn what is good and true, for
ourselves and others, choose what will lead us to the good and the true, and
decide to act on them. Understanding, judging, choosing and acting is the
process of growing in freedom and selfrealization. This has to be our regular
way of living and practice; this is the way of mindfulness and attentiveness. It is
sadhana, the practice of repetition and deepening. This is the way we grow in
the habits of virtues. This is the way of losing oneself and finding oneself in the
mystery of the world and the other.
Yet, how do we know what is good, true and life-giving, what leads us to
freedom and peace and not to unfreedom and darkness? The Teaching of the
Seven Buddhas prescribes, “Not to do evil/Always to do good/And to keep one’s
heart-mind pure/This is the teaching of all the Buddhas”.
Not to do what is evil —this is the first basic commandment. This is clear to
almost all of us: our conscience is the voice of the commandment. When we are
freed from our addictions, attachments and self-images, our heartmind will know
of itself how to respond to the situation.
Always to do good : What will be conflicting and confusing is choosing between

the good and the good. Most of us will be caught among possibilities and
choices that are good but we may not know which will be our right and true way.
We will have to listen to our minds and hearts in terms of the possibilities and
see which will lead us to true inner freedom and peace, and which will be caring
respecting of the others. Here, we have to listen to our feelings, enduring
feelings, which can put our hearts and minds in harmony with our lives and our
telos. This can be said to be the way of keeping one’s heart-mind pure. Pascal
said, the heart has reasons that reason does not know.
We need to let-go of many things and even many relationships and focus on
what is most liberating for us and life-giving. Above all, we need to be freed
from out attachments and self-images and learn to respond to the situation and
people as they are. In all these we need the courage of our convictions.
We need to be aware that we are imperfect and mortal, ignorant and foolish, and
that we will fail often in our lives. We will hurt others and get hurt ourselves. We
will make egregious mistakes and life may turn out unlucky for us. We depend
on others, on luck and on providence. Sometimes all things work out for our
good, sometimes they may turn out against us. Illness, tragedies, fatalities and
stupidities may be our lot. In those times, we need patience, courage and self-
compassion. And we need the compassion and caring of others. Caring for and
bearing with each other is the meaning of our lives. Our freedom will be in
willing to say ‘yes’ to our shared humanity. Above all, we have to awaken to the
ground of peace of our heart-centre. In the midst of the storms and breakdowns,
the ups and downs of life, we need the courage to abide in the peace not of the
world. Finally, our death is our ultimate ‘yes’ to life’s goodness and mystery.
Death is both our passio, an undergoing, and also our final act of self-acceptance
and life-affirmation. ‘All shall be well, all manner of things shall be well’.
All of one’s life and its course are but the course that Emptiness takes.
Emptiness is form, form is Emptiness; neither one nor two; or better, not-one and
not-two. Each branch of coral reflects the hazy moon of enlightenment! (Cf. HR
100). The Thirty-eighth Patriarch (in Denkoroku), Dongshan Liangje (Jap. Tozan
Ryokai), expressed in a famous poem his self-realization thus:
Do not seek him anywhere else!

Or he will run away from you!
Now that I go on all alone,
I meet him everywhere.
He is even now what I am.
I am even now not what he is.
Only by understanding this way,
Can there be a true union with the Self-So (Tran. Wu)
The Self-So is the Nothingness Self; it is the Formless Self, to use the phrase of
Hisamatsu Shin’ichi. It is the Formless Self realizing itself in all the forms: the
Self is the world, the world the Self. Keizan’s verse to the case of the 10th
Patriarch Parshva illustrates this beautifully: “Turning, turning—so many sutra
scrolls! Born here, dying there—nothing but chapters and phrases!” The Self is
Emptiness that is Mystery; it is enfolded in the Mystery that is graciousness. It
neither goes nor comes and is always actualizing itself in going and coming, in
acting and interacting. Let me end with Hakuin’s favorite koan:
When two hands are clapped, there is sound; What is the sound of a Single
Hand?
(Teisho, 2011)

The Thirtieth Patriarch, [China’s Third Patriarch], was Great Master Jianzhi
[Sengcan]. He visited the Twenty-ninth Patriarch [Huike] and said, “My body is
infected with leprosy. I beg you, O priest, to cleanse me of my wrong doing.”
The Patriarch said, “Bring me your wrongdoing and I will cleanse you.” The
master paused awhile and then said, “When I look for my wrongdoing, I cannot
find it.”
The Patriarch replied, “I have already cleansed you of your wrongdoing. You
must rely on the Buddha, Dharma, and Community of believers.”
Poem:
Essential Emptiness has no inside or outside,
Good and bad leave no traces there.
Mind and Buddha are fundamentally thus,
And Dharma and Community are the same way.
13. Awakening to the Formless Self
The Case:
Our Patriarch and Master Hoen of Tozan said, “Even Shakyamuni and Maitreya
are servants of that one. Just tell me, who is that one?”
Mumon’s Commentary:
If you clearly recognize that one, it will be just like meeting your father at the
crossroads. It is not necessary to ask others whether it is he or not.
The verse:
Don’t draw another’s bow;
Don’t ride another’s horse;
Don’t speak of another’s faults;
Don’t inquire into another’s affairs (MK 45).
“One day Master Hoen gave a striking teisho, which even sounds shocking:
‘Sakyamuni and Maitreya are but his servants. Now tell me, who is he?’ All
Buddhists pay their utmost homage to Sakyamuni, giving him such titles as the
Buddha, or the World-Honored One. They equally respect Maitreya as the future
Buddha, who will be born in this world to save all beings of the generations yet
to come. Yet before “him,” they are only lowly servants. Now tell me who this
“he” is, Hoen demands. Do you know “him,” who makes the noblest, the holiest,
and the most revered saints in the world his servants? Anyone would naturally
be astounded at this extraordinary question” (Shibayama).
Taibai asked Master Baso, “What is Buddha?” Baso answered, “The very mind
is Buddha” (MK 30). ‘Mind’ here means of course ‘Heart-Mind’, or your very
Self. It is reported that to the same question, “What is Buddha?” Baso answered
another time, “No mind, no Buddha” (MK33).
Buddha is No-Buddha, is not an object nor some substance. It is the Formless

Self, which is none other than your very Self. “A monk asked Master Hogen,
“My name is E-cho. I ask you, Master, what is Buddha?” Hogen said, “You are
E-cho!”(HR 7). Master Seppo Gison once remarked, “It is something entirely,
entirely effulgent, entirely mysterious”. His student and later master Kyosei
asked, “What is it about that it is entirely, entirely effulgent, entirely
mysterious?” Seppo thereupon solemnly rose up and stood forth radiantly
(Gundert, Kapitel 16). A monk asked Master Hyakujo, “What is the most
wonderful thing in the world?” Hyakujo said, “I sit alone on this Sublime Peak.”
The monk made a bow, Hyakujo struck him (HR 26). The Self, standing or
sitting, how “ entirely, entirely effulgent, entirely mysterious!”
The Self has many dimensions. The essential core is a twofold dimension:
mystery and intentionality of openness. When one pursues the question, ‘Who
am I?’, it leads ultimately to the unknown, unfathomable, incomprehensible
reality as mystery. This is the groundless ground of the Self. In the words of
Meister Eckhart, “My ground and God’s ground is the same ground.” It is in the
verse of Keizan, “The ancient stream, the cold spring—no one can peak into it. It
does not allow travelers to penetrate its depths.” Secondly, this Self in essence is
intentionality, which means it is boundless openness to the world; it is the
‘space’ which makes present the world; it is the presencing of the world. The
presencing of the world takes place primarily in self’s intellectual consciousness.
Consciousness is many dimensional. The basic level is the all embracing ground
which makes present everything but itself cannot be comprehended or grasped.
For, whatever you grasp or understand will be only by the power of this
ungraspable ground consciousness. It is actually the light which enlightens the
world. It is the ‘I’ which transcends the world and yet is not apart from the
world.
Arthur J. Deikman comments on awareness/consciousness: “Awareness may

vary in intensity as our total state changes, but it is usually a constant. Awareness
cannot itself be observed, it is not an object, not a thing. Indeed, it is featureless,
lacking form, texture, colour, spatial dimensions. These characteristics indicate
that awareness is of a different nature than the contents of the mind; it goes
beyond sensation, emotions, ideation, memory. Awareness is at a different level,
it is prior to contents, more fundamental. Awareness has no intrinsic content, no
form, no surface characteristics — it is unlike everything else we experience,
unlike objects, sensations, emotions, thoughts, or memories”. Deikman
summarizes: “Introspection reveals that the core of subjectivity — the Ì’ — is
identical to awareness. This Ì’ should be differentiated from the various
aspects of the physical person and its mental contents which form the `self’.
Most discussions of consciousness confuse the Ì’ and the `self’. In fact, our
experience is fundamentally dualistic — not the dualism of mind and matter —
but that of the Ì’and that which is observed. The identity of awareness and the
Ì’ means that we know awareness by being it, thus solving the problem of the
infinite regress of observers. It follows that whatever our ontology of awareness
may be, it must also be the same for Ì’” (See also Wolfgang Fasching).
This is what you are basically and fundamentally: the ‘I’ as mystery that is
boundless openness. It is the Formless Self that takes on form. Emptiness is
Form, Form is Emptiness, as the Heart Sutra proclaims. Emptiness reveals itself
as the embodied Formless Self. It is beyond time and space, beyond coming and
going, while it comes and goes all the time. It is the groundless ground of reality,
which is not apart from the world and others. The ‘I’ is the ‘I Am Who I AM’--
it is just AM. The ‘I’ comes to abide where there is no-abiding. This ‘I’ in reality
is ‘that one’.
II
The ‘I’ is not apart from the world, and consciousness becomes present with and
through the world and others. This is what the verse to the koan points out.
There is no ‘another’ as a total other. The other is non-other of yourself. The
other is other to you and not other, too. The self is self only in relation to the
world and others. The affairs of others are your affairs, the faults of others are
your faults. When another rides his/her horse, it is you who are riding, when
another draws his/her bow, it is you who are drawing the bow. The sufferings
and the joys are the sufferings and joys of yourself; so also the successes and the
failures, the laughs and the cries of the world.
The verse to the Case 23 of Mumonkan, the koan on Original Face runs:
It can’t be described,
It can’t he pictured!
It can’t be sufficiently praised!
Stop trying to grasp it with your head!
There is nowhere to hide the primal face. Even when the world is destroyed,
it is indestructible.
The Formless Self cannot be described, it cannot be pictured. And yet there is no
place to hide it! Where then can be its hiding place? The mountains and the
rivers, the clouds and the skies; and the laughter of children, the cries of the
poor, the struggles and the labours of humans, the births and deaths of all beings.
When Master Hogen was staying with Master Jizo, one day, having been driven
by the master into a logical impasse and having finally confessed, ‘O Master, I
am now in a situation in which language is reduced to silence and thinking has
no way to follow!’, he heard his master remark, ‘If you still are to talk about the
ultimate Reality, see how it is nakedly apparent in everything and every event!’
III
The koan gestures towards Maitreya Buddha, the Buddha-to-come. Maitreya is

the Absolute Future; it is the always-coming reality, it is the coming one. The
Self, the ‘I’, is not some substantial, fixed reality, but it is the one who comes
thus, tatha-agata. This coming thus is the coming of the Self in justice and
compassion, truthfulness and fidelity, goodness and beauty. The self is actu-
alized in relationship to the others and the world, and this actualizing is action
both here and now, and in an ongoing coming-to-be of Satya and Ahimsa, Truth
and Non-violence. The world is a becoming, it is a comingto-be-world. This
coming thus of the Absolute Future is actualized in the Bodhisattva who will not
enter Nirvana except with all other beings. It is the ‘I’ who comes thus, the
Bodhisattva of infinite compassion.
Let me quote a passage I wrote some years ago: “Emptiness takes form all the
time, it is a continuous birth and death, coming and disappearance, it is
continuous creation; and it is history in the making. It means not only that
emptiness takes form continually, it means that it is an ever-coming-to-be, a
future; it is not merely an openness to the here and now, it is above all an
openness to the future; that is, it is the openness to the possible, it is the womb of
possibilities and potentialities. The NoSelf is presencing of Emptiness and as
such it is creative openness to the future………
The future that is No-Self is not something far-away in time or space; it is

Emptiness that is mystery. It is the possible and the unknown, the potential and
the mysterious present in the womb of No-Self. It is not a mere stretching
forward or a going-forth of the Self; such a going forth or stretching forward will
be self-projection, a wish-fulfilment of the ego-self; this will not be new crea-
tive life and being. The future that is emptiness and NoSelf is rather the coming
of the other. The other comes, world comes; and the Self gives space for the
other, for the Self is openness for the other and for the world. The Self as
emptiness lets the other be in the place of itself. It is the famous Mahayana
Bodhisattva exchange of self for the other; a dispossessing of the self in favour
of the other, the other becoming one’s Self. The future is none other than the
coming of the other and of the world. It is the coming of the new, the stranger,
and other……… The infinite openness that is emptiness is other to the self and
is also the Self, it annuls the self and thus recreates the self. It is in being selfless,
being No-Self, being an openness for the other, that the Self truly realizes itself
and life” (Chapter 9: Awakening: Breaking-in of the Absolute Future. Zen:
Awakening to Your Original Face). The last Book of the Bible ends with the
exclamation,
“The Spirit and Bride say, ‘Come!’

(Teisho, 2012)

The Eighth Patriarch was the Venerable Gayashata. He served the Venerable
Sanghanandi. One time, he heard the sound of the wind blowing the bronze bells
in the temple. The Venerable Sanghanadi asked the Master, “Are the bells
ringing or is the wind ringing?” The Master replied, “It is neither the bells nor
the wind; it is my Mind that is ringing.” The Venerable [Sanghanandi] asked,
“And who is the Mind?” the Master replied, “Because both are silent.” The
venerable [Sanghanandi] said, “Excellent, excellent! Who but you will succeed
to my Way?”
Verse:
Silent, still, the Mind rings and echoes
In ten thousand ways—
Sanghanandi, Gayashata, and wind and bells.
14.Where Do You Go After Death?
The Case:
Master Tosotsu Etsu set up three barriers and asked his
students:
“The purpose of making one’s way through grasses and
asking a master about the subtle truth is only to realize
one’s self-nature. Now, you venerable monks, where is
the self-nature at this very moment?
“When you have attained your self-nature, you can free
yourself from life-and-death. How will you free yourself
from life-and-death when the light of your eyes is falling
to the ground?
“When you have freed yourself from life-and-death, you
know where to go. After your four elements have de-
composed, where will you go?”
Mumon’s Commentary:
If you can say three turning words about these barriers, you will be the master
wherever you may be, in close contact with the real essence in all situations. If
you have not yet reached this stage, gulping down your food will fill you up
quickly, while chewing well will make it more difficult to become hungry again.
The Verse:
In one consciousness, we see the whole of eternity; Eternity is nothing other than
right now. If you see through this one consciousness at this moment,
You see through the one who is seeing right now (MK 47).
This koan is known as the “Three Barriers of Tosotsu” and it is said to be “koan
in the sickroom,” or “koan on the death bed.” Master Tosotsu Juetsu was a
Rinzai master who lived only 48 years, 1044—1091. Though young, he had a
deeply enlightened eye and this koan attests to his profound insight and his sharp
challenge to his students. This koan comprises the core of zen training and
awakening. This is the one barrier of the gateless gate of zen, and when you have
broken through this one barrier, you walk freely between heaven and earth.
The first barrier asks in simple terms: “Monks, you have taken such trouble to
come here and strive to realize your True Self. Now show me here and now
where your True Self is!”
‘Making your way through grass’ means taking so much of trouble and toil,
coming from far away and going through many difficulties and troubles, at a
great cost to themselves. Further, ‘grass’ also means conceptualizations and
imaginations. The monks are struggling through their endless conceptualizations,
hearsays and fabrications of what the True Self is, what liberation is. Drop all
that and show me your true reality, Master Tosotsu is challenging.
This is the koan dealing with the barrier of death. What is death? How do you
experience death? And how will you be liberated from the abyss and void of
death? Children experience plants, trees and flowers being cut down or decaying
and disappearing; but then they soon grow back as if they had just disappeared
for a while and are back again. It is sort of eternal recurrence. Here they
experience no sense of real death. But it is otherwise with regard to animals and
birds. The child’s dog or cat or pet bird dies and it is gone for ever, no more to
return. The child mourns and grieves inconsolably.
More than animals and birds, it is the human death that is inexplicable and is a
surd. First, you experience the death of the others, your parent or sibling, relative
or friend. The people were just here and now have gone. Where? Into another
realm? A physical realm or a psychic or spiritual realm? You do not see such
realms, except in imagination or thought. There can be non-physical realms, of
course, but they are given only in your experience, and not apart from you and
your experience. Your thoughts and ideas are non-physical, but they are your
mental sphere. In that case, are your dead people living in that sphere only? Can
you say they are alive there? Or are they only memories, albeit lively memories?
All around you there can be mementos of the dead, the other people also can
carry the memories; but the dead can be present only to your consciousness and
memory. Are they then only phantoms?
The death of our close friends and family almost break our hearts and it is
irrevocable loss. This brings home to us our own mortality and death. We realize
that we are born to die, death is our constant companion; death is unpredictable
but there is no escape. Death makes its physical presence felt in our illnesses,
accidents, aging and failings. Our bodies are fragile and our health is precarious.
Perhaps we can try to manage our fitness, well-being and health, but there is no
escape from the ever-tightening grip of death. Paradoxically, it is death which
gives definite meaning and validity to our lives. It is death which makes our life
a significant narrative and eventful journey with a beginning and an end. Unlike
with animals, we humans see before and after, and create a complex and
meaningful narrative of our lives. Consciousness of our mortality and death runs
through the fabric of our life story. Such consciousness and the narrative
structure of life are what imparts poignancy and meaning to our lives.
Death concerns first and foremost with our bodies. But what about our selves,
our spirit, or mind? When our bodies disintegrate, what happens to our minds
and selves? We can foresee our death, we can foresee the possibility of our being
no more alive. Can we really experience our death? Our not being or existing?
We can even put ourselves out of existence by suicide. We can imagine the
possibility of not existing, we can even actualize that possibility, but what about
the self who imagines? Does the self not also die? Or is the self continuing on as
immortal even when the body is dead? However, our memories, our
consciousness, our identities, and our selves, all these are dependent on our
bodies and psyches. We are embodied beings, not mere minds or spirits. There
can be no selves, no I, apart from our bodies. When the body dies, the self dies.
Many Buddhists imagine that what continues after death is only the skandhas,
the bodily and mental elements and not selves as such; and compounds of the
skandhas would be reborn again and again, with apparent or illusory selfhoods.
Or some imagine that the Buddha Mind goes on eternally, apart from the body.
What exactly is the Buddha-Nature or Buddha-Mind? Is it only the fact of
interdependence or interconnectedness of beings and no subsisting selves? But
all these are only theories and dogmas. Some others imagine that one is a cosmic
or acosmic self, independent of the body, eternal and immortal. Sometimes
scriptures, for example the Upanishads, are quoted as proof texts. This is only
Revelation and its truth or falsehood depends on your belief. Christians will talk
of resurrection of the body, this is again only Revelation. Such Revelations invite
more questions than can be reliably answered. And these Revelations are based
on external authority which need further authentication with no end.
When I die, I die, that is it. But is that all? Will our heart and mind be at peace
with this vision? Is not such a vision an imposed belief and hopeless resignation?
I remember as a young Jesuit visiting a terminally ill patient, a young Hindu lad,
in the hospital. He was of course frightened of death and asked me what would
happen to him after death. As a pious Christian I consoled and assured him that
though his body would disintegrate and decompose, his soul would not die, it
would go to God in heaven. The young man stared at me and said, “I do not care
where my soul goes; tell me, where do I go?!”
Death is not a benign companion or friend. Death is alien and forbidding, a

scourge and terror. Death comes to us as dark abyss and nihility, as void and
meaninglessness. Death breaks up our bodies and our lives, puts an end to all
that we have lived for. We realize that we are not masters of our lives; we are
vulnerable, imperfect, wounded and dependent. We can only wait for death.
Death is the boundary and limit to our world and our projects. The face of death
turned towards us is one of void, nihility, emptiness, a valley of darkness and
shadows. But in actuality it is the door to the unknown and unknowable. Death is
the presence in us of the other which is nonother of the self. The non-other of
self is revealed to the self in all its strangeness and mystery.
The self in its otherness is mystery and incomprehensible. You know yourself
but you cannot comprehend yourself. Master Keizan’s verse to the 47th Patriarch
Wukong describes this other side of your self:
The icy spring of the valley stream—

no one peeks into it.
It does not allow travelers to penetrate its depth.
When Nangaku Ejo came to the Sixth Patriarch, the Patriarch asked him, ‘Who
is that who comes thus?’ Nangaku took seven years to come back with his
answer, ‘Whatever I say I am, I am not it!’ As the Diamond Sutra will put it, ‘the
self is not the self, therefore the self is the self.’ When Dongshan asked Daoying,
the 39th Patriarch, ‘What is your Name?’the latter replied, ‘Daoying’. Dongshan
said, ‘Say it from beyond.’ The master replied, ‘If I speak from beyond, I cannot
say that I am Daoying.’ The self is no-self, it is empty, it is nothingness-self. The
self is mystery that is emptiness; As Master Keijan describes it: “Never has it
been bound to name and form; How can you speak of it as ‘beyond or
‘relative’?” The self is empty means that it is boundless openness to the world
and others. And as empty and open, the self cannot be apart from the world and
others. The self is mountains, rivers and the wide earth. Master Tangen makes a
beautiful verse on the seamless pagoda, which is none other than the self (HR
18):
“South of sho and north of Tan,

[Setcho says, “Soundless sound of one hand.”] In between, gold abounds.
[Setcho says, “A staff of a mountain kind.”] The ferryboat under the shadowless
tree, [Setcho says, “Clear is the river, calm is the sea.”] No holy one in the
emerald palace you see.” [Setcho says, “All is finished.”]
Tangen portrays the self as the universe, the universe as the self. But the self is
not a mere passivity. It is a dragon which does not thrive in a placid lake:
Setcho’s verse runs:

”A seamless pagoda, it is difficult to describe; The dragon does not thrive in a
placid lake. Tier after tier, superbly it casts its shadow; Let it be admired for a
thousand ages.”
I have so far pointed to death as the doorway to the nonother of the self, which at
first reveals itself as empty and void, as darkness and meaningless abyss. You
have to let go yourself and fall into the void and lose yourself. Then there
happens a turning-over, a conversion: the void of emptiness is revealed as
mystery that is graciousness. It is a religious conversion, a leap of faith over the
abyss into a groundless trust and love. It is grace and gift, so to say, and not your
doing and achieving. Further, the self as Emptiness is boundless openness to the
world and others—this is radical affirmation of the otherness of the other. It is a
YES to the world and to the other, and in this Yes, your Yes to yourself.
Thus you come to awakening to your self as the groundless ground, as
Emptiness that is mystery. In your self as empty and open, you realize the world
as your very self, and the world as the self. But do not be caught by fantasies of
idealism. The down-to-earth Master Joshu will prick the balloon of your
fantasies: “A monk asked Joshu, “All the Dharmas are reduced to oneness, but
what is oneness reduced to?” Joshu said, “When I was in Seishu I made a
hempen shirt. It weighed seven pounds.”
Now to the first barrier of Tosotsu: Where do you find your True Self here and
now?
The second barrier runs: “When you have realized your True Self, you are free
from life and death. At the moment of your death, how will you realize and
manifest that freedom?”
Death can come in any form, normal, abnormal, sudden, old age, illness,
disaster, etc, etc. Someone asked Master Joshu, “When one is confronted with
disaster, how can one avoid it?” Joshu answered, “That is it!” (Hoffman, p. 72).
“A monk said to Tozan, “Cold and heat descend upon us. How can we avoid
them?” Tozan said, “Why don’t you go where there is no cold or heat?” The
monk said, “Where is the place where there is no cold or heat?” Tozan said,
“When cold, let it be so cold that it kills you; when hot, let it be so hot that it
kills you”(HR 43). ‘Cold and heat’ refer to suffering, sorrows and death. There is
a historical incident in reference to Master Tozan’s heat and cold. After suffering
30 days of terrible heat, a Chinese poet made a verse with the concluding lines:
“Samadhi does not need necessarily mountains and rivers; If heart and mind are
stilled, fire in itself is cool”. In the year 1582 the Japanese feudal lord Oda
Nobunaga destroyed one of his rivals and his soldiers went into the mountains
after the fleeing enemies. In the mountains was zen monastery with Master Kai-
sen, who was suspected of giving refuge to the fleeing soldiers and who was
reluctant to betray any of them. Nobunaga’s soldiers lit fire all around the
monastery. Kai-sen gathered his monks and asked each of them how in that fire
circle they would turn the Wheel of Dharma. After each had spoken fittingly,
Kai-sen recited calmly the above verse even while the fire was spreading on his
robes, ‘Samadhi does not need necessarily mountains and rivers; if heart and
mind are stilled, fire in itself is cool’ and sank into fire Samadhi unto death
(Gundert, Kapitel 43).
It is not mere stoic resignation or fatalism; it flows from the freedom realized
through awakening. An important zen saying is this: “I die and I do not die”.
You can die, embrace death freely, because you do not die. It is in the realization
of ‘I do not die’ that you go through life and death in freedom, peace and self-
acceptance. It is not death that is affirmed in death, but life that is affirmed. It is
the Nothingness-Self, the Self that is Emptiness, that affirms itself in such
affirmation. It is the transcendental sense that the Self that is Emptiness does not
die. You do not realize it by reasoning and logic but by a leap of faith grounded
in the community of the teacher and disciples. Mumon sings in verse to the case
of Seijo and Her Soul Separated(MK no. 35):
The clouds and the moon are the same;

Valleys and mountains are dif
ferent from each other.
All are blessed, ten thousand times blessed! Is this one? Is this two?
‘All are blessed, ten thousand times blessed’. Every event, every moment,
everything is grace and gift. It is the presencing of the mystery that is
graciousness, the mystery of Emptiness that is the self. This presencing is a
radical affirmation of freedom and it can be realized only when we affirm the
others and the world wholeheartedly and selflessly. Such affirmation has to be in
terms of values such as justice, truthfulness, goodness, beauty, courage, patience,
fidelity, friendship and so on. As Erich Fromm points out authentic love not only
embraces self and the other, but it is a leap of faith embracing all the world: “If I
can say to somebody else, ‘I love you,’ I must be able to say, ‘I love in you
everybody, I love through you the world, I love in you also myself.’” Authentic
self-affirmation cannot be apart from world and other affirmation. Such an
affirmation is in a deeper sense an affirmation of the other as your own self. This
is truly what ‘Love the others as yourself’ means. Such an affirmation and love
is consummated in sacrifice of the self for the sake of the others. Death then is
your gift of love and ultimate affirmation; this is the way of the Bodhisattva.
The alleged prayer of St. Francis of Assisi expresses such a selfless affirmation
beautifully:
Lord, make me an instrument of your peace, Where there is hatred, let me sow
love;
Where there is injury, pardon;
Where there is doubt, faith;
Where there is despair, hope;
Where there is darkness, light;
Where there is sadness, joy.
O Divine Master,
grant that I may not so much seek
to be consoled, as to console;
to be understood, as to understand;
to be loved, as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive.
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
and it is in dying that we are born to Eternal Life. Amen.
Third barrier of Tosotsu asks: “When you have attained true freedom, you will
know where you come from and where you go to. After your death, where do
you go?”
A zen master asked his monk, “Where will you go after death?” The monk
answered, “Excuse me for a minute, I have to go to the toilet!” (Hoffman, p. 73).
Zen master Musho Josho who died in1306 composed his death poem:
When it comes—just so!

When it goes—just so!
Both coming and going occurs each day.
The words I am speaking now—just so!
(Hoffman, p. 110).
Once you are awakened, you ‘enter the market-place with empty hands’; you no
more cling to awakening or remain in the state of Emptiness. You forget
awakening and Emptiness, and you live with and for others and all beings in
selfless compassion and caring.
“The master of Rengeho cottage held out his staff and said to his disciples,
“When, in olden times, a man reached the state of enlightenment, why did he not
remain there?” No one could answer, and he replied for them, “Because it is of
no use in the course of life.” And again he asked, “After all, what will you do
with it?” And once again he said in their stead, “Taking no notice of others,
Throwing his staff over his shoulder, He goes straight ahead and journeys Deep
into the recesses of the hundred thousand mountains.”
Setcho’s Verse:
His eyes filled with sand, his ears with clay, Even among the thousand moun
tains he does not remain.
Falling blossoms, flowing streams:
he leaves no trace.
Open your eyes wide, and you’ll wonder where he’s gone” (HR.25).
“He goes straight ahead and journeys Deep into the recesses of the hundred
thousand mountains” means he does not spare himself but goes into the illusions
and delusions of everyday life of ordinary folks. You leave no trace of yourself;
you have forgotten your self-images and self-definitions. Fantasies of the so-
called life after death, of acquiring merit for a better birth, or of safeguarding
your future and guaranteeing your name and fame, all such images and fantasies
of the self and self’s world have gone with the wind. Gratitude and compassion,
humility, courage and patience will be your way. Torei Zenji reminds us
(Bodhisattva Vow):
Who can be ungrateful or not respect

ful to each and everything
as well as to human beings!
Even though someone may be a fool,
let’s be warm and compassionate.
If by any chance such a per
son should turn against us,
become a sworn enemy and
abuse and persecute us,
we should sincerely bow down with humble language, in reverent belief
that he or she is the merciful avatar of Buddha. At the same time Hakuin calls us
to dance and rejoice (Song of Zazen):
Entering the form of no-form,

Your going and coming is nowhere else;
Entering the thought of no-thought,
Your singing and dancing is the voice of Dharma.
How boundless and free is the sky of Samadhi, How bright the Moon of the
Fourfold Wisdom! At this moment what are you seeking?
Nirvana is right here before your eyes:
This very place is the Lotus Land!
This very body, the Buddha!
Once you are freed from the fear of failure and death, from the slavery to time
and the addictions and attachments to our passions and self-images, you can
walk in the light of the day and know for the first time the others and the world
as they are, in suchness. Let me single out one unfreedom people suffer terribly
nowadays: time famine. People imagine they do not have enough time, they feel
like dogs on a leash straining and pushing themselves day in and day out; they
feel desperate, driven and stressed out. They further exacerbate themselves and
the conditions by their intolerant impatience to force the pace of things and
events; it is all violence. We will need to learn to purge our selves of violence, as
Gandhi’s Satyagraha calls for. True strength does not come from violence but
from truth and love. Gandhi famously said, “Pity you Westerners who have to
get everything done in a lifetime; I can wait 40 or 400 years!” ( See Starosta and
Chaudhary). You have to learn patience with yourselves, with the others and the
world. You are free and you have all the time in the world, you are, so to say,
time-full. As Mumon tells you in the verse, “In one consciousness, we see the
whole of eternity; Eternity is nothing other than right now.”
Take time for silence and solitude, this is necessary for your freedom. And take
time to be with yourselves, with family and to be with others. Learn to free
yourselves from the slavery to time. Choose freedom from the slavery to
addictions, particularly today from internet obsession! Particularly, it is in doing
things for others that you will find you have all the time in the world. And take
time to look at flowers, stones, worms and at each of God’s creatures in awe and
wonder. Learn to wonder, to rejoice, to dance and sing; and listen to all the
voices of the world. Learn the wisdom of the poet’s prayer, ‘Teach us to care and
not to care’. You are going nowhere else, where you are is only here and now. In
all your goings and comings, there is ‘no coming and going.’ Do you know
where Buddha is? “Your very heart-mind, that is Buddha” (MK 30). You are
Buddha, here and now. And you can be also Mara. Who do you want to be? Let
me end this section with the beautiful quotation of Shibayama Roshi on the koan
Nansen Kills the Cat (MK 14):
“Master Dogen very aptly said. “Death: just death all through-complete
manifestation!” When you die, just die. When you just die thoroughly and
completely, you will have transcended life and death. Then for the first time free
and creative Zen life and work will be developed. There, cats and dogs,
mountains and rivers, sandals and hats, will all transcend their old names and
forms and be given new birth in the new world. This is the wonder of revival. In
this new world the old provisional names all lose their significance. Listen to an
old Master who says:
Aman passes over the bridge. Lo! The bridge is flowing and the waters are
unmoving.
“It is said that Jesus Christ rose from death after his cru - cifixion. As I am not a
Christian, I do not know the orthodox interpretation of the resurrection in
Christianity. I myself believe, however, that Jesus’ resurrection means to die in
human flesh and to revive as the Son of God transcending life and death. His
resurrection means the advent of the Kingdom of God. It is the mysterious work
of God to create the new and true world. There everybody, everything, lives in
God and all the provisional names and defilements of this earth are never found
in the least.”
(Teisho, 2013)
The great master Baso was seriously ill [on his death-bed]. The chief priest of
the temple came to pay his respects and asked, “How do you feel these days,
Master?”
The master said, “Sun- Face Buddha, Moon-Face Buddha” (HR 3).
A REMINISCENCE
15. Sister Renee of selfless service, deep faith and enduring beauty
This morning, July 27th (2012), I received an email saying that Sr. Renee was
dying. My heart was filled with inexplicable sorrow and sadness. Renee was
close to me; she came to zen with me even before I went to Japan, and continued
faithfully all these years to come for sesshins. Her zen was sort of Christian zen,
and she was faithful to the sitting practice. She was a person of deep faith and
love.
Renee came to India some 45 years ago and served the poor and the sick
selflessly. Even when she was exhausted or ill, she would not spare herself in
her service to the people. Three years ago she got into an accident and broke her
ribs; then the blood vessels in one eye broke, and she had to undergo some hard
and prolonged treatment, though it was not completely cured. Then she got rectal
cancer and after surgery, she was better. After a year the cancer came back into
her body; she struggled mightily to get cured. The doctors in Belgium gave her
too much of medication, radiations and endless chemotherapy, which finally
took a toll on her strengths and hastened her end.
Zen: The Wayless Way
Her beautiful life of love, service and joy will be remembered by all of us who
knew her. She is present with us always, she did not leave us. Rajneesh wrote for
his epitaph, “Never Born, Never Died. Only Visited this Planet Earth briefly”.
This is misleading. In Emptiness there is no coming and no going. We are not
some aliens to the planet. Further, eternity is here and now; in life as well as in
death we abide in eternity. Remember, you die and you do not die.
Just before his lay disciple, Ninakawa, passed away, Master Ikkyu visited him.
“Shall I lead you on?” asked Ikkyu.
Ninakawa replied, “I came here alone, and I go alone. What help could you be to
me?”
“If you think you really come and go, that is your delusion. Let me show you the
path on which there is no coming and no going”, replied Ikkyu.
With these words Ikkyu had revealed the path so clearly that Ninakawa smiled
and passed away.
Our self is Emptiness which takes form of this body and mind; not only this
body and mind, but the entire universe is our dharma body:
“An ancient Buddha said:
The entire universe is the true human body. The entire universe is the gate of
liberation. The entire universe is the eye of Vairochana. The entire universe is
the dharma body of the self.
Sister Renee
Emptiness is our self and it can be expressed by the name of Mysterium,

mystery. Life and death are twin sides of this mystery. We as the mystery appear
and disappear as form, so to say. Form is emptiness, emptiness is form. One’s
life task is to be self-creating and form ones character. We are here not only to
enjoy this life, but to serve the world and each other. Compassion and
contemplation are our earthly tasks.
Sr. Renee’s passing away is heart-breaking for me. Earlier, Sridevi’s death too
was for me heart-breaking. For both of them my tears fall like gentle, sad rain.
Let us weep and mourn. Yet let our hearts abide in peace, in peace that the world
cannot give. The poet T. S. Eliot sings beautifully using the words of the mystic
Julian of Norwich:
And all shall be well and

All manner of thing shall be well
When the tongues of flame are in-folded
Into the crowned knot of fire

And the fire and the rose are one.
Sr. Renee passed away Aug. 3. I attended the funeral Mass on the 8th Aug. at
Heverlee, Belgium.
(July,2012)
The 26th Patriarch, Punyamitra, one day asked Prajnatara, “Do you remember
past times or not?” Sister Renee Prajnatara replied,“ I remember in the past times of
a far distant kalpa, I was living with you. You were preaching the Great Wisdom
(Maha Prajna), and I was reciting the profound sutra. The matter of today
responds to ancient causation”.
Poem:
The moonlight, reflecting to the bottom of the pond, is clear in the sky; The
waves of the sea that swell to the heavens are totally clear and pure. Though you
scoop it up repeatedly and try to know it,
Vast, clarifying all, it remains unknown.
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ZEN:

The Wayless Way

Zen Master Ama Samy

© AMA SAMY, 2013 All Rights Reserved

Email: mail@bodhizendo.org Website: Bodhizendo.org

First Indian Edition, 2013.

Part I. An Introduction to Zen Practice

2. The Wayless Way of Zen 13 48th Patriarch Tongan Daopi

Part II. The World and Zen

5. Self-Compassion and Self-Exertion 53 6th Patriarch Micchaka

Part III. Awakening- What it is and What it isn’t

9. What Is the ‘I’ of Awakening? 119 20th Patriarch Jayata

Part IV. Teishos

13. Awakening to the Formless Self. 187 8th Patriarch Gayashata

Ama Samy June 2013

Introduction to Parts I & II:

Mindfulness practice and meditation are basic to healing and therapy.

Mindfulness comprises the three-fold of awareness, attitude and awakening to

Mindfulness is first of all awareness: non-judgmental awareness of what is

Though your attention is centred on the breath, there will be a spaciousness to

Mindfulness involves an attitude of self-acceptance, un - conditional acceptance.

Such mindfulness can be prayer. Mindfulness in formal setting is practiced in

Above all, mindfulness means awakening to the ground of awareness itself, it is

Let me end with the legend of the Buddha’s temptation by Mara:

Just before the historical Buddha, Siddhartha Gautama, realized enlightenment,

(Written for the Jesuit magazine, Jivan, 2012).

2. The Wayless Way of Zen

Zen awakening is awakening of the heart, or better, awakening of the heart-mind

A special transmission outside the scriptures No dependence on words and

In terms of techniques, methods and practices, Mumon’s ‘Zen Warning’ is

Mumon’s Zen Warnings:

1. Searching for the Ox

2. Finding Traces of the Ox

6. Coming Home on the Back of the Ox

7. The Ox Forgotten, Man Alone

8. Ox and Man, Both Forgotten

9. Return to the Source and Origin

A verse to the 8th ox-herding picture representing sunyata/emptiness declares:

All worldly desires have fallen away and

By the way, Western Christian spirituality has no such deep, experiential

It should be mentioned also that as in every institution and method, zen

The Great Way has no gate,

Zen to be fully and authentically zen, it has to be religious. Stripped of being

Barefooted and naked of breast,

(Written for the Jesuit magazine Ignis, 2011)

Religions and spiritualities are supposed to offer us worlds of meaning and

What is essential to being authentically human is the openness to and awareness

“Friedrich Nietzsche, the great German philosopher of the late nineteenth

In a well that has not been dug

Water is rippling from a spring that does not flow;

The self is realized in our knowing-willing-feeling; the heart-mind of the self is a

Whip and tether, ox and self,

Entering the marketplace bare-chested

Mount Ro and the misty rain, and

When the master heard this, he awakened to undefiled wisdom.

each one is personally itself” (Keats).

All the world’s a stage,

We are inter-dependent beings, we need each other, we depend on many others

All men go to God in their distress,

All men go to God in His distress