Zazen and Zen-Samadhi, from Bodhidharma to Hakuin

 In the Zen lineage from Bodhidharma to Hakuin, zazen, i.e., sitting meditation, has been described as the method of practice and zen-samadhi (Skt. dhyanasamadhi, C. 禅定, chanting, J. zenjo)  is described as the realization of practice.

Bodhidharma (5th/6th century)(From "Great Master Dharma's Discourse on the Nature of Awakening”):

            “If a person knows that the six roots (i.e., 6 sense organs) are not real, that the five accumulations (skandhas) are provisional names, and that seeking everywhere for their substance is necessarily to dwell without samadhi, then one should know that such a person expounds the words of the Buddha.  The sutra says, "A home in the cave of the five accumulations is called the courtyard of zen.  When the inner illumination is opened and unbound, then the gate of the Great Vehicle could not be brighter!" 

`           To not bear in mind all things (sarvadharma),  therefore, is called doing zen-samadhi (dhyana-samadhi).  If someone understands these words, then walking, standing, sitting, and lying down are all zen-samadhi.  Knowing the mind is empty is called the act of seeing Buddha.  Because why?  For all Buddhas in the ten directions, in every consideration there is no mind.  Not seeing in (by) the mind, is called the act of seeing Buddha.

            To unstingily renounce the body is called Great Charity (mahadana).  The samadhi of detaching from the various activities is called Great Sitting Meditation (J. dai zazen).  Because why?  Worldly people are singly directed toward activities, and the Small Vehicle is singly directed toward samadhi.  Namely, to pass beyond the worldly people and the sitting meditation (zazen) of the Small Vehicle is called the Great Sitting Meditation. If those who act with this realization, in all the various appearances, do not seek to release themselves and, in all the various illnesses, do not cure their own errors, then this is entirely the power of Great Zen-Samadhi.”

Dajian Huineng (638–713)  (From The Platform Sutra of the Sixth Ancestor, Chapter 5, “Sitting Meditation (Zazen)”):

“Learned and virtuous ones, what is called zen-samadhi? Outwardly, to be free from characteristics is doing zen. Inwardly, to not be perturbed is doing samadhi. Outwardly, if one attaches to characteristics, inwardly, the heart-mind is immediately perturbed. Outwardly, if one is free from characteristics, the heart-mind is immediately not perturbed. The root nature by itself is pure, by itself is samadhi. Only by seeing conditions and thinking about conditions is one immediately perturbed. If someone sees various conditions and the heart-mind is not perturbed, this is real samadhi. Learned and virtuous ones, outwardly, to be free from characteristics is immediately zen. Inwardly, to not be perturbed is immediately samadhi. Outwardly, zen, inwardly, samadhi, this is doing zen-samadhi.

Dazhu “The Great Pearl” Huihai (second half of  8^th century) (From “Discourse On The Essential Gate Of Entering The Way Of Immediate Awakening”):

Question:“For a man to cultivate the fundamental root, what method (dharma) of cultivation should be used?”

Answer, “Only by sitting meditation (zazen) is zen-samadhi quickly attained. The Dhyana Paramita (lit. Zen Gate) Sutra says, ‘To seek the noble intelligence (arya-jnana) of the Buddha, then zen-samadi is necessary.  If there is no zen-samadhi, thoughts and ideas clamor and stir and spoil good roots.’”

Question: “Say, what is doing zen, and say, what is doing samadhi?”

Answer: “To not give birth to false thoughts is doing zen. Sitting to see the root nature is doing samadhi.  That which is the root nature is your unborn mind.  In that which is samadhi there is no mind that responds to the environment and the eight winds are not able to stir.  For that which are the eight winds, benefit and ruin, defamation and honor, praise and ridicule, and suffering and pleasure are called the eight winds.  If like this one attains that which is samadhi, even if one is an ordinary man, one then enters the rank of Buddha.”

Hakuin Ekaku (1686 - 1768) (From Ode to Sitting Meditation (Zazen Wasan)):

As to the zen-samadhi of the Mahayana, 

There is just too much to praise.
The several perfections such as charity, morality, and such;

Chanting Buddha's name, confession and repentance, austerities, and the like;

The many good deeds and various virtuous pilgrimages;
All these are coming from within it.

Also, a person succeeds by the merit of a single sitting

To destroy one's immeasurably accumulated crimes.
Where then should the evil appearances exist?
The Pure Land is then not far away.

This last quote is most interesting because in virtyually all translations of Hakuin's "Zazen Wasan" the term "zenjo" (zen-samadhi) is translated as "zazen" in order to make it easy for English readers. The fact is that the term "zazen" only appears in the title of Hakuin's "Ode to Zazen" and nowhere appears in the body. Unfortunately that kind of attempt to make the idea accessible for English readers leaves out the very essential nuance that is the difference between zazen as the activity of sitting-zen and zen-samadhi as the realization.

These great zen masters all directly stated the relationship between zazen and zen-samadhi. Today we hear a lot about zazen, but the recognition and realization of zen-samadhi is hardly spoken of.

I assert that without the realization of zen-samadhi, there is no true zazen, no matter how much zazen is talked about as a practice.

The Dharma of Instincts and Skandhas

One person shared a story about feeling compelled to throw a rock at a squirell on a tree and feeling ashamed when the rock actually hit the squirrell. Another person replied:

The simplest explanation is that you were born with a hunting instinct.  You certainly weren't the first kid to do this.

The simplest explanation is usually simplistic.  Every person is born with every instinct. But as I read the original story there wasn't any hunting goinng on there.

In the context of psychological motivations, from the perspective of Analytical Psychology there are five primary instincts:

(1) hunger (feeding)

(2) sex (reproduction)
(3) action (fight, aggression, progression)
(4) reflection (flight, reflex, regression, digression)
(5) creativity (construction, imagination)

All five are necessary for and result in our survival, though they can be viewed in a hierarchy of neediness, sense of demand, or biological imperative in terms of our survival.   Most of our behaviors show a combination of instincts, and it is very rare for an act to be solely influenced by only one instinct. For example, "hunting" is a combination of the hunger, action-aggression, and creativity instincts.  When one instinct predominates in a manner that suppresses the others our behavior becomes obsessive or addictive. 

The instincts are the physical "muscle" or "force" that powers the psychic structure that culminates in consciousness, which in Buddhism is called the Five Skandhas.  As such they are inchoate in the First Skandha called "Form" and become more differentiated and coherent in our awareness as they are embodied in the mental "structures" or inherent patterns of personality of the other skandhas. 

From another perspective, each of the five instincts is the physical analog of the 5 Skandhas so that Form is analogous to feeding, Sensation is analogous to sex, Perception is analogous to aggression, Mental Formations is analogous to reflection and Consciousness is analogous to creativity. That is, in each skandha the corresponding instinct becomes the dominant influence. In the same way that the instincts do not operate alone, none of the skandhas functions in a vacuum without the presence and activity of the other skandhas. However, at any one time there is usually a dominant instinct and skandha active, so that sometimes the dominance is only a just noticeable difference and at other times the dominance is overwhelming in awareness and obscures the actual ongoing presence and activity of the others. 

The reflective instinct is the key to creativity just as the 4th Skandha is the threshold to the 5th Skandha of consciousness. The reflective instinct is the source of our self consciousness and comes out most primitively in the flight response when we feel the overwhelming need for self protection, as a flight response is the "bending back" (re-flexis) from the perceived danger. Reflection is also the source of our self-awareness or self-consciousness as it functions to bend back awareness to create (i.e., in conjunction with the fifth instinct) the image of our "self" in the first place. 

This bending back manifests in the mutual reflectivity of the Sixth and Seventh Consciousnesses, first to create the self-image which at first becomes enchanted with externalities and then, when ripened, there is the turning back (paravritti) of awareness itself from the glamour of objects to see through the subjectivity of the self-image to the treasure at the source of our awareness. As Zen Master Dogen said, we are usually reaching out to or advancing toward objects to confirm them on the basis of our "self," and this is the natural delusion that is technically called the Seventh Consciousness attending to externals.  When the turning around or bending back (paravritti) of awareness occurs it takes place in the deepest part of our consciousness called the Eighth Consciousness or Storehouse or Treasury (alaya) Consciousness.  Then the myriad things are no longer objectified as being confirmed by the self-image but their sensory data-stream returns to the source in the alaya and awareness perceives its own oneness in what Dogen calls satori. 

Here’s how D.T. Suzuki describes it:

The Manas is a double-headed monster, the one face looks towards the Alaya and the other towards the Vijnanas. He does not understand what the Alaya really is. Discrimination being one of his fundamental functions, he sees multitudinousness there and clings to it as final. The clinging now binds him to a world of particulars. Thus, desire is mother, and ignorance is father, and this existence takes its rise. But the Manas is also a double-edged sword. When there takes place a "turning-back" (paravritti) in it, the entire arrangement of things in the Vijnanakaya or Citta-kalapa changes. With one swing of the sword the pluralities are cut asunder and the Alaya is seen in its native form (svalakshana), that is, as solitary reality (viviktadharma), which is from the first beyond discrimination. The Manas is not of course an independent worker, it is always depending on the Alaya, without which it has no reason of being itself; but at the same time the Alaya is also depending on the Manas. The Alaya is absolutely one, but this oneness gains significance only when it is realised by the Manas and recognised as its own supporter (alamba). This relationship is altogether too subtle to be perceived by ordinary minds that are found choked with defilements and false ideas since beginningless time.

Zen Master Hui Hai, The Great Pearl, when describing the many names for formless Mind said,

As the Suchness to which all phenomena ultimately return, it is called ‘the Tathagata Treasury’.

Understanding this complexity of the phenomena of mind in its functioning of the instincts and skandhas is not for the purpose of better understanding but for the purpose of not attaching to understanding.  The one supreme Buddha vehicle of sudden direct awakening that does not rely on understanding leaps over the dull and sharp understandings of ordinary people and sages to see one’s own nature.

The Man in the Moon

A poem for the full moon of August 12, 2011.

The Man in the Moon

Zen Master Hui Hai, known far and wide as “The Great Pearl,” said,
“The moon is reflected in that deep pond, catch it if you like.”

Reaching to grasp the moon in the pond,
Stirring the ripples and making 10,000 more reflections,
and still coming up empty handed.
Reaching for “not-reaching” stirs up reflections on reflections.

Throwing our life into it
Falling head over heels into the pond,
Sooner or later we discover with a great laugh
The one who is facing the pool.

 Isn’t this like Paul Simon singing,

“I have reason to believe

that we all will be received

in Graceland”?