“What is Zen?” A question asked
many times over the centuries, sometimes by non-practitioners—who
need a definition, sometimes by practitioners who need a smack, a
shout, silence, or any number of answers—and not-answers. By
definition, Zen is a school of Buddhism (specifically Mahayana
Buddhism) that emphasizes meditation and intuition.
That's the description I use when I
give the 15-minute history of Zen Buddhism any time someone who has
never practiced Zen before walks into the sangha for the first time.
I start with Old Age, Sickness and Death, the Four Noble Truths, the
Eightfold Path, the skip ahead to Bodhidharma. The Sanskrit word
Dhyana, which translates as “meditation,” transliterated into
Ch'an when it came to China, Seon in Korea, Thien in Vietnam, and in
Japan, and now in the West, Zen. So “Zen Meditation” is
redundant. And I go on briefly from there about the story of our
order, the teachers in the lineage, and that lineages are
meaningless, but somehow important among Zen practitioners.
For me, Zen is the above definition,
and a means to end the struggle of people right here, right now.
(I'll go with “struggle” as the translation of “dukkha”
rather than the more common “suffering”). Most importantly, Zen
practice is a means to
end the struggle. We take the Bodhisattva vows, study Sutras, debate
endlessly, get involved in semantic arguments, and do and say lots
of things, which quite often miss this point. Zen is no more/no less
a skillful means than any other school of Buddhism, and quite
possibly any and all other traditions that by-and-large are concerned
with the well-being of their fellows.
But for whatever reason, Zen monks
asked the “What is Zen” question...and “What is Buddha,” and
“Why did Bodhidhama come from the West,” and so on. And that's
when they might get a pithy answer like “Mind is Buddha,” or
“Ordinary Mind is Buddha,” or maybe hit with a fly-whisk, a
shout, a raised finger, and whatever the expedient means the Master
might have deemed appropriate at that moment. So many fingers, but
how much moon?
Here's
the moon: From Bodhidharma on, it is said that realization of one's
True Nature is to be Awakened. And to realize Awakening is to have
the struggle snuffed out. And at one moment, that could be to
maintain a peaceful equanimity in the face of all situations, or it
can be not struggling against moments of struggle. And, most
importantly, it is “How may I help you?”
“Zen”
is admittedly a noun today. To me, “Zen” is a verb, and
definitely not an adjective. And it's not a part of “The Zen
of....” But it is also all these things. The practice of Zen
Buddhism is the practice of saving all sentient beings, but does that
actually mean
anything? It is the realization of the interconnectedness of
everything, the interdependence of everything, the impermanence of
everything, the emptiness of everything.
But it
is also the individuality of everything, that feeling
that I am me, and that I really can't imagine the world going on
without me. It's thinking about my job that “they really have to
pay me to do this, because otherwise....” It's greed, ignorance,
anger, aversion, all the afflictions. It's fighting against all this,
and it's ending the struggle of all this...in this moment. I've heard
(yet another) statement that Zen practice is to directly experience
reality form moment to moment, in the here&now.
And if
your reality is a feeling of instant awakening, or of confusion, of
disgust with even more paradoxical statements that confuse you, that
is wonderful! Be totally confused, be thoroughly disgusted, be fully
awakened, but then let them pass into impermanence, watch them come
and go, then feel fully whatever comes next. And, if you can, do it
without judging about what it is to have those feelings. Then, maybe,
see the moon, and see the fingers. See the fingers are
the moon! And not the moon. But just see! When I write about Zen,
that's not Zen (noun). But when I write about Zen, that is Zen
(verb).
Then I
try to put it all down, have breakfast, wash my bowl, brush my teeth,
go to work, say, “Man, they really
have to pay me to do this,” then come back home...and while I'm at
it, save all sentient beings. And yeah, there are no beings, and no
saving to be done, but screw that. That as a concept isn't reality
any more than those beings I think are separate from me, and no less
real either.
May
all beings be happy...by whatever means necessary.
