V (b) Analysis of States of Consciousness in the Tradition of Zen
7:33 AM Posted In Yogic Experience of States of Consciousness Edit ThisViews of Lin-Chi, Founder of Rinzai School of Zen
Similar view is held by of Lin-Chi, founder of famous Rinzai school of Zen, that the human being is bound by sequential cognition, a persistent tendency of one thought to the next. Whether a particular sequence is a rambling or a result of a vigorous logical exegesis, all these streams of discursive consciousness hide the real man behind it. He also held that whether the mind is involved, dabbles in an endless series of gross pleasures, or ambition, or seeks power, or fame, or pursues sublime spiritual doctrines, these chains of discursive thoughts veil the truth.
Wisdom, according to him, is not the product of some kind of discursive mentation but is the sundering of the chain, the stopping of the process. Thus, enlightenment will always appear suddenly, even though it involves long and careful preparation before it but it will always happens suddenly.
He used to warn his students against the subtle tricks of the discursive mind and the Ultimate Reality, according to him, is neither subjective nor objective but chains of thoughts attempt to make it one or the other. The real man or the universal mind, however, is beyond both. He held that Mind-reality is universal and omnipresent and each human being is that mind-reality in an individual locus.
The human nature hides the truth as much as it reveals the same. This means that the human being is both the universal mind-reality and the concrete person simultaneously. This is the paradox.
To realise that which witnesses everything in each individual, and that which is seen, the nothingness of the pure seeing without “I” or the whole process of an “I” seeing the world is to gain illumination.
For Lin-Chi, Mind-reality is not a metaphysical doctrine, or an article of faith or a goal to be attained. It is a fact in Nature and in Man. Nothing else is real. To understand it, is to experience it, and to experience it, is to live it. He says that one cannot think about it, for doing so, one objectifies what is not objective. Nor can one simply deny it for that subejctivises what is not subjective. Rather one has to be simple.
The true Man, according to him, is the man of no rank. The mind-reality is lost through conditionality and qualification as soon as one thinks about it and to give this Buddha Nature a form, or to associate it with an image is to impose conditionality, rank, etc. on the Mind-Reality. By doing so, is to confine and limit it within the shrunken thought of discursive consciousness.
He says, “Followers of the Way, this thing called mind has no fixed form; it penetrates all the ten directions. In the eye we call it sight; in the ear we call it hearing; in the nose it detects odours, in the mouth it speaks discourse; in the hand it grasps, in the feet it runs along. Basically it is a single bright essence, but it divides itself into these six functions. And because this single mind has no fixed form, it is everywhere in a state of emancipation…”
Wisdom, according to him, is not the product of some kind of discursive mentation but is the sundering of the chain, the stopping of the process. Thus, enlightenment will always appear suddenly, even though it involves long and careful preparation before it but it will always happens suddenly.
He used to warn his students against the subtle tricks of the discursive mind and the Ultimate Reality, according to him, is neither subjective nor objective but chains of thoughts attempt to make it one or the other. The real man or the universal mind, however, is beyond both. He held that Mind-reality is universal and omnipresent and each human being is that mind-reality in an individual locus.
The human nature hides the truth as much as it reveals the same. This means that the human being is both the universal mind-reality and the concrete person simultaneously. This is the paradox.
To realise that which witnesses everything in each individual, and that which is seen, the nothingness of the pure seeing without “I” or the whole process of an “I” seeing the world is to gain illumination.
For Lin-Chi, Mind-reality is not a metaphysical doctrine, or an article of faith or a goal to be attained. It is a fact in Nature and in Man. Nothing else is real. To understand it, is to experience it, and to experience it, is to live it. He says that one cannot think about it, for doing so, one objectifies what is not objective. Nor can one simply deny it for that subejctivises what is not subjective. Rather one has to be simple.
The true Man, according to him, is the man of no rank. The mind-reality is lost through conditionality and qualification as soon as one thinks about it and to give this Buddha Nature a form, or to associate it with an image is to impose conditionality, rank, etc. on the Mind-Reality. By doing so, is to confine and limit it within the shrunken thought of discursive consciousness.
He says, “Followers of the Way, this thing called mind has no fixed form; it penetrates all the ten directions. In the eye we call it sight; in the ear we call it hearing; in the nose it detects odours, in the mouth it speaks discourse; in the hand it grasps, in the feet it runs along. Basically it is a single bright essence, but it divides itself into these six functions. And because this single mind has no fixed form, it is everywhere in a state of emancipation…”
To Be Concluded...
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