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From: simmonds@demon.siemens.com (Tom Simmonds)
Newsgroups: soc.religion.eastern
Subject: Re: Zen Buddhism
Message-ID: <14702@phoenix.Princeton.EDU>
Date: 20 Mar 90 14:14:50 GMT
Sender: mukund@phoenix.Princeton.EDU
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Approved: mukund@phoenix.Princeton.EDU

> meuer@poincare.geom.umn.edu

>> me

>>Historically, Buddhism began in an environment that was predominantly
>>Hindu.  The idea of Atman ( or 'Higher Self") is central to Hinduism.  The
>>Buddhists saw this as a concept which had to be transcended in order to
>>experience 'tathata', so they contradicted it with a counter-concept of
>>'Anatman' or 'No-Self'.  The purpose was tho eliminate an obstacle to
>>Zen experience.  It was intended to jolt people out of what was then the
>>predominant conceptual model of reality.
>
>Tom (or anyone else), could you elborate on Anatman?  What does it
>mean that there is "No-Self?"  I have almost no exposure to Zen and
>this is new to me.  Doesn't all of our conscious experience tell us we
>each have a "self?"  If fact, isn't conscious experience itself an
>experience or even a definition of the self?  If I experience
>consciousness, am I not a self?  If not, what am I?

Well, I suppose a Zen Buddhist would say something like: 'There is no
Anatman, either'.

The Mahayana doctrine of Anatman is an abstruse topic.  I'm not sure I
can really do it justice, but I'll try.  (By the way, D.T. Suzuki wrote
an excellent book on the subject entitled "The Zen Doctrine of No-Mind")

The 'reality' of Zen experience is what Suzuki called "the no-abiding mind"
or "mind of no abode", which is a mind free of fixed concepts.  That includes
concepts of fixed identity, such as a 'self' or 'ego-substance'.  It is
a mind that does not cling to ideas, but rather flows through its transform-
ations in an uninhibited and unlimited manner.  It is supposed to be the
ultimate freedom; the liberation from the wheel of karma; or the Buddha-Mind.
(Note that this does not mean a mind which has ceased thinking and
experiencing, but simply a mind free of *attachment* to concepts).

There is a type of meditation in which the 'Self' is conceived as a pure,
universal substance which is obscured, or polluted, by the senses and 
thoughts.  The object of the meditation is to quiet the mind and to wipe
away the 'dust' of thought, so that the 'Self' can be seen in it's pure,
undefiled nature.  According to Hui-Neng, the Sixth Patriarch of Ch'an,
a mind in this state is "purity bound", it is attached to an idea of a
fixed identity (one of purity) and to the dualistic concepts of purity
and defilement.  In order to attain the ultimate freedom, those concepts
must be abandoned.  When there is no clinging to an idea of a 'Self' of
any kind, and also no clinging to the idea of 'No Self', that is the "mind
of no abode".

As long as you hold onto the cessation of thoughts and the attainment of
some fixed state of 'purity' as a goal, and as long as you hold onto
a concept of a 'Self'; as long as you think you know what IT is, you
haven't attained IT.  In fact, the harder you strive, the further away
you get.  Striving is not flowing freely.

As I tried to say before, it is not that Zen insists that the 'Self'
doesn't exist, it's just that the IDEA that it does exist is an obstacle
to freedom.

This is tied in with another Mahayana concept: that of "Sunyata", or
'emptiness'.  It is based on several Buddhist sutras which state that
there is no 'existence' and no 'non-existence'; that they are empty
or meaningless concepts.  The Buddha-Mind is beyond all such concepts 
and is not limited by them.

...
>>a set of bounds.  A Zen Buddhist seeks to remain open to all experience,
>>whether or not it fits into some rational scheme.  Conceptual schemes come
>>and go, but conscious experience rolls on.  'Tathata' is viewed as being
>>unlimited and inexhaustible, hence there is no model which can accurately
>>describe it.

>Does Zen make a distinction between reality and a conceptual model
>that describes reality?  It seems obvious that a conceptual model is
>not the same thing as reality and therefore can not be complete.  But
>does Zen teach that the underlying reality does not exist at all, or
>only that our conceptualization of it will never be complete?

I think it does make that distinction, but it goes further than
just saying that conceptual models are necessarily incomplete.  Since
Zen holds that reality can be experienced directly, or that it IS
direct experience, and since no conceptual model is a true representation
of it, it views conceptual models as obstacles which cause us to superimpose
preconceived, fixed ideas, and hence false bounds, upon what is essentially
free and unlimited.  In short, they lead us in the wrong direction and
distract us from reality.  Of course, reality is what it is, free and
unlimited, whether we hold onto concepts or not.  The only difference is
between having ideas that confuse the issue or tossing them away.  The idea of
an 'underlying reality' is one such concept.  I guess one way to say it
is that Zen urges us to let reality flow on freely and stop trying to
'fence it in' with our concepts.  This is not an intellectual endeavor,
it is a way of living, which has no need of concepts like 'reality'.

Fa-Yung, one of the Chinese patriarchs of Ch'an Buddhism said: "The
only way to achieve Buddhahood is to let the mind be free to be itself."