Toward Ch'an

 

From ramsis.bnw.PGN 

 

In China Root: Taoism, Ch’an, and Original Zen, David Hinton presents Ch’an as having it’s own standing, not as a cultural appropriation such as Ch’an Buddhism or as a predecessor of contemporary Zen Buddhism.  A longstanding Chinese tradition of Taoism [in early Chinese and the I Ching (12 c. BCE through Lao Tzu (6 c. BCE) into Neo-taoism) was attracted to Buddhism [Siddhartha Gautama 480 or 5th C. BCE influenced by a variety of practices] that migrated to China for a shared emphasis in meditation and contemplation as a core experience. In Hinton, Hui-neng [“Prajna-Able,” 638-713 CE] is referenced as a high point of Chinese Ch’an, rather than as the ‘sixth patriarch of Zen Buddhism,’as well as Ch’an beyond Hui-neng, such as Huang Po [d. 850], Han Shan [8-9th century], Blue Cliff Record [1040].

Fung Yu-Lan, in A Short History of Chinese Philosophy, writes,

…the theoretical background of Ch’anism had already been created

 in China by such men as Seng-chao and Tao-sheng. Given this 

background, the rise of Ch’anism would seem to have been almost

 inevitable, without looking to the almost legendary Bodhidharma 

as its founder [256].

There are two phrases that often occur in Ch’anism. One is, “The very 

mind is Buddha,” the other, “not-mind, and not-Buddha. Shen-hsiu’s 

poem is the expression of the first phrase, and Hui-neng’s of the 

second [257].

Emphases in Ch’an

I

Presence, not emptiness

Hui-neng’s experience expresses a realization based on a Chinese model that is fundamentally different from an overriding Buddhist view of ‘emptiness’ that is metaphysical. A Ch’an orientation of ‘presence’ that is a quite ‘full,’ all encompassing empirical, all-encompassing ecological dynamic.

Presence is simply the empirical universe, the ten thousand things 

in constant transformation, and Absence is the generative void from 

which the ever-changing realm of Presence perpetually emerges.

[David Hinton, Awakened Cosmos: The Mind of Classical Chinese Poetry, xii] 

Hinton focuses on terminology, particularly in Zen Buddhism that conflict with a Ch’an perspective.  In China Root, David Hinton concludes with Appendix: Lost In Translation, pp.137-158, with an examination of the near absence of Ch’an’s conceptual framework in 39 brief sections. Hinton suggests that translators of Ch’an texts misunderstood the conceptual framework of Chan and so introduced metaphysical concepts/abstract terms that are “entirely foreign to empirically based Ch’an understanding”[CR, 138].

 In Ch’an, “There is the deepest form of belonging.” [David Hinton, Hunger Mountain, 4] The focus is not on an interior state of perception or consciousness as a result of looking at or sensing a color, sound or movement. 

Presence is “manifestations of yin and yang…the two basic principles

 of energy whose interaction drives the dynamic cosmos [HM, 24]. 

In Chinese, the I exists only as an absent presence [HM, 24]. 

Presence only, of events that do not end in themselves but rather, too nuanced 

…belong to something more than themselves [HM, 3]

 

…in constant transformation, appearing and disappearing…[HM, 3-4]. 

While one may dismiss original Chan may be over-old and therefore less developed and archaic, it has interesting symmetry with contemporary ecology and quantum mechanics and quantum field theory. Form is more ‘one flavor’—an ever-changing, entangled(?)  yin-yang balancing exchange.

2

Presence experiences, not personal self experiencing

How is Chan ‘presence’ experienced? So what is perceiving? Hinton writes of 

…the wild cosmos perceiving itself. A fact Prajna-

Able suggests when he calls empty mirror-mind the ‘original 

source-tissue face . . .that’s been gazing out since 

the very beginning of things.” [China Root, 67]

In original Chinese, there are no personal pronouns. Identity is transpersonal. There is no looking at, no looking out. That which experiences is a conscious universe.

In early Chinese language, personal pronouns are essentially absent. Living more directly in the landscape, there is no outside, no looking at. There is no self that is perceiving. That which concretely exists is a field model rather than a world of objectified parts. This is demonstrated in David Hinton’s Awakened Cosmos, where Tu Fu’s poems are published in original Chinese with Hinton’s English translations next page, side-by-side, embellished with personal pronouns. 

[Chinese calligraphy of TuFu’s poems are represented on one page, with Hinton’s translation of the calligraphy underneath. The follow is a sample of  the title and the first three lines of Hinton’s translation that appears underneath each character of “Over Night at Master Illume’s House,” Awakened Cosmos, 48, where “minimal grammatical space functions like the empty space in paintings:

overnight   illumine   master  house

staff   tin   how   arrive  here

autumn   wind   already   moan   such

rain  tangled  deep   courtyard   chrysanthemums…      

Chan insight into ‘Emptiness” is Presence in fullness with everything being explicitly sensed on every dimension from cosmic to micro in a process of yang and yin, and empty of permanence where this there nowhere for dust to finally or permanently alight’ [after Hui-neng]. Presence is more being-ness as universe that is inseparably inclusive—field-like—rather than separable/objective. In Zen Buddhism, The sense of  The Whole World is a Single Flower [Seung Sahn] or (2)’s “…Yet here now, at this moment, at this place, /the whole world is blooming…[Zenkei Shibayama, A Flower Does Not Talk]” realize inseparability. And yet, the descriptions of ‘true nature’ is strongly metaphysical and abstract [as noted earlier, see Hinton’s Appendix in China Root] rather than than the Ch’an ideal of presence as noted above.

Secondly, there is emphasis on the individuation. In monastic practices, there is a clear effort to ‘polish the mirror’ to ‘awaken to one’s true nature’ through a strong practice of ritualistic sitting, chanting, special eating, clothing vs. simple presence ‘just this.’ Zen Buddhism has carryover of aspects of a long-standing SE Asian root tradition of pre-and post-Buddhism such as a conceptual/metaphysical framework of karma, samsara, reincarnation into the wheel of samara where, based on karma in ones life, a person transforms into one of varied states of life, such as a god with powers yet dilemmas, a hungry demon, animal, human, etc. 

To escape the ‘wheel of samsara,’ an individual passes through repeated reincarnations with the goal of finally attaining release from the ‘wheel of samsara’ in rare instances. The written record, composed long after Siddhartha’s ‘awakening,’ recounts his past personal reincarnations after awakening (up to 100,000 reincarnations) with a few described in the Jakarta Tales [3rd c. CE], for example, as a king, outcast, diva, or animal, each having a particular virtue that would be recalled by Gautama Buddha in his teachings, such as a life as a woodpecker kindly and bravely removing a bone from the throat of a lion].

In Zen Buddhism, this carryover framework from Asa root SE Asian Indian perspective will appear in zen discussion of karma and reincarnation as well as in off-the-wall’ statements such as, for example, in a Korean Soen master’s video statement that the cause of so many people now on Earth is the increased destructive human activity that cause violence to nonhuman lifeforms leading to reincarnation to the rare level of human life. 

As with most religious traditions with often identical patterns, Zen Buddhism is fraught with metaphysical specialness that is ascribed to individuals typically long after the lives of ‘venerable’ adepts, such as special birth or sudden arrival at birth by wizened monks who name the infant (as in the case of Hui-neng), a capacity for miracles, the rebirth of deceased

venerable from past monastic lives as well as every human, and /or the capacity for special powers such as diffusing typhoons as well as even ‘signs’ of specialness post-death, anticipating and finding jewels in the cremains and bones and mummified bodies of venerable adepts.

*********

NOTE: The Zen Buddhist  abstraction and individuation are different than the Ch’an orientation that finds a different sense that Hinton translates and describes in ‘presence.’ A sense of cultural appropriation of Ch’an into Zen Buddhism and, simply, this sense of ‘presence’ as it appears in Chan is worth a strong look. My apologies to David Hinton for any misinterpretation. This post is ultimately my reaction to his work that I found refreshing and seemingly more core when it comes to approaching the intent of early classical Chinese and the non-pronoun vision to realize that which is authentically present.

The No-Mountain Of Zen

 painting: Advayam (P., non dual) cloud-hidden, whereabouts unknown

For most, the term ‘zen’ references the capacity to find the ‘zen moment’ which is to say, is calmness when all around you leans toward the chaotic. The goal is to find the zen of basketball or to breathe calmly in the chaos of flight cancellations so that it’s really not about ‘zen’ at all. Such a view, hides ‘zen’ and corrals it in a facile attempt to tamed it down from remaining an irritating problem [effusive, ineffable, meta-physical] to something kind to us. There, we can continue to struggle whether we want a side- or middle part in our hair and which might best fit in to that which is culturally happening.  Far more than calmness, serenity is a dusty [with no place for dust to finally alight], tangible luminosity, “…a certain light,” non-meta-physical, emanating from everything that is more akin to the wondrous capacity that ‘zen’ references.

With some calmness, the sense of grasping ‘zen’ is not resolved. Myriad books are written about ‘zen’ in attempts to offer a hold on that which lies beyond words, and yet, all tend to sum in a sense of ‘what zen is Not’ rather than giving the ‘answer.’ To ‘get zen’ seems an intense trial up a likely impassable mountain to reach a summit that disappears in the clouds, whereabouts unknown.

And yet, the true summit doesn’t sit at the top of a mountain or even a mole hill. It is already inherently attained as mindfulness meditation Jon Kabat Zinn posited, “Wherever You Are, You Are Already There.”

Even though already there, there is a ‘mountain’ that appears in thought and emotion that is essentially contrived of words. We become our words, and our identity is commonly expressed in words.

Words cut up thought and emotion into parts in a broad variety of directions. When words integrate, they describe fittedness within a stage set of objects and events.

There is a mountain comprised of layers of words. In the foothills, where we are likely to remain stuck forever, there are the pronouns of I, we, you, they, me, him, her, them. Who am I ?The more immersed physically in the landscape, such as in indigenous society, the less apartness and the less power of pronouns, and the less strong force they hold in daily life.

Glimpsing ‘wholeness,’ higher up the terrain of words, seem to introduce a ‘softness’ into thoughts and sensations such as sound and color and form. There may be a quite rational ‘ecological’ sense of how as the Earth’s seasonal tilt opens the cherry tree’s blossom suggest that events are inseparable, so that The Whole World Is A Single Flower.

Still, “What is the sound of a single hand?” leads up a challenging mountain trail comprised of the term ‘sound.’ For the adept-to-be, there may be a loosening here. Words become more fluid so that sound and color and form become intermixed rather than as comfortably separable as they are in the everyday. For example, the possibility of something like ‘seeing sound’ may open. At first, this seems a false trail or maybe, finally, the ‘true’ answer. Still, delusion or a step forward? 

While there is a new sense of ‘freedom’ in thought and emotion, words are likely to still carry heavy weight and it countries to feel in thought and emotion as if we are walking up a mountain rather than having arrived at a Zinn “There.” Words still cling to the body for ‘safety,’ still seem to come from an inside the body looking out at sensations, still seem to require a lot of dusting off to see with any clarity.

To attain ‘zen essence’ is to step though the veil of ‘mountain’ and even ‘mole hill’ where

“The mouse eats cat food, but the cat bowl is broken.” Here is There, and more than this, to where it may be realized that there never was primarily  a ‘you’ that is perceiving.

**Perhaps a coming post, Toward Ch'an, that will precede this post in this Zen Za Wild Grass blog the near future will be of interest.