Some Mistakes on the Zen Way

Form is emptiness,
emptiness is form.
Form is exactly emptiness,
emptiness is exactly form.

Heart Sutra

I was talking with a friend about some of the pitfalls on the Zen way. And I thought perhaps some of what we discussed could be of use for others who also walk this way.

Our conversation turned on two issues, closely related. One issue is the samadhi junkie. The other turns on several misunderstandings about shunyata, at least as what it means in Zen.

Samadhi is a term for various states of deep silence. Those who travel the path of exploring the mind deeply learn that the only way to achieve absolute quiescence is to be dead, the brain is in constant motion, and therefore thoughts will rise. At the same time there are deep silences, where the noise falls to a level that if one isn’t paying close attention, looks and feels mighty close to all sense of distinction falling away into the deep sea.

And, it feels good.

In Zen those who romance the experience and chase after it are called samadhi junkies.

Did I mention it feels good?

Those who embrace the cloister and have rigorous meditation schedules encounter the seductive qualities of deep silence with some regularity. Those who live outside the cloister generally have these experiences in retreat.

And samadhi states are seductive.

Some Zen teachers will go so far as to say one cannot experience awakening without samadhi. Others resist going quite that far but will still insist that samadhi is the seedbed and without it waking to who we are is extremely difficult.

I beg to differ.

While I think samadhi states are lovely things. They are things. They are states. They are not the leap beyond self and other. At best they’re a taste of the leap beyond other. Good, but not the summun bonum.

And critically, over the years I’ve noticed how people are often seduced into thinking samadhi states are awakening. I hope I’m missing it, but I sure seem to hear Zen teachers preach this misunderstanding of what oneness is a little too often for the good of those trying to sort out the way.

Which brings us to the misunderstanding of shunyata. Now “misunderstanding” is inevitable, once a word is spoken, we’ve stepped away.

In addition there are all sorts of shunyatas being pitched.

I’m only interested in Zen’s shunyata. And Zen’s shunyata is identical with the world of differentiation.

Now the world just is. All this distinction and joining takes place in the human mind.

The human mind is a lovely thing. And dangerous as a snake.

Our ability to divide the universe gives us power. Lots of power. To slice and dice and to look at things from different angles is amazing. In the Hebrew scriptures we are told the ancient story that when people ate of the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil, that is when they could divide the universe, they became as gods. True enough… Actually, just plain true.

The universe divides and plays out in a great wave of relationships. Seeing this and how it happens, or at least getting good approximations, gives us godlike powers.

The problem lies in “reificiation,” our inclination to take a moment and to try and make it permanent.

This is the clinging that the Buddha, or at least Zen’s Buddha, warned us against.

We try to hold on to that which is in motion, and only hurt follows.

So, we learn the arts of opening up.

Among the mistakes along this way is rejecting the world, which is just another shutting down. This is one aspect of the path of pernicious oneness. (There are several. Another is confusing the ego with the cosmos. But that’s for another rant…) This pernicious oneness is a rejecting the reality of differentiation in favor of the reality of oneness.

But there is no oneness separate from differentiation. It is just another differentiation, although, again, a useful one. At least as providing a glimpse of that bigger.

And that glimpse has associated states, samadhi.

And it feels good.

And it lures one into deeper and deeper states.

Tasty. Lovely. Inviting.

But all states, just states. And therefore subject to shifting and changing. And to those who cling to them, just one more deadend…

The koan about stepping away from the top of the hundred foot pole isn’t about stepping away from our sense of separation into emptiness, rather it is about stepping away from our sense of emptiness.

One more step.

Always one more step.

It is the real invitation of Zen, to complete freedom.

A freedom that is like a poem, haiku or sonnet. It is found within a specific structure.

That structure is you.

You in all your glorious messiness. You clinging and crying and hating and fighting and loving and singing and dancing. All of it from bedroom to kitchen to toilet. All of it.

But, never clinging to any one thing.

Never rejecting any one thing.

Always, always opening hand and heart.

Always opening the hand of thought.

Always, returning to the beginning.

So, is this a call to reject sitting in Zen? No.

Is this a call to reject samadhi states? No.

Is this a call to reject the experiences, the flashes of insight into shunyata? No.

This is a call to open ourselves up.

And never to stop.

To discover for ourselves what sages across time and culture have all proclaimed in many different languages, to find the auguries of innocence, as our western sage, William Blake sang it.

To see a World in a Grain of Sand
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand
And Eternity in an hour.

Then one will be walking the way of Zen…