The 3rd Zen patriarch, Seng Ts'an, wrote,
鈥淭he Great Way is not difficult for those who have no preferences.
When love and hate are both absent, everything becomes clear and undisguised.鈥� (Hsin Hsin Ming, Richard Clarke, transl)
Letting go of preferences and letting go of attractions and repulsions; these are meditation skills. Seng Ts'an is pointing out that only in meditation is life without difficulty. He points directly to basic Zen meditation; a meditation without preferences, without opinions, without judgements; even about enlightenment or delusion. Where ordinary mind is not other than enlightened mind. Where, with exquisite gentleness there comes to bear in our life the influence of openness, receptivity and their vehicle, kindness. But also where the mere recognition of a dualistic structure does not imply a one-way flow or a hierarchical relationship between the elements. Rather, a back-and-forth relationship exists.
There are, indeed, two kinds of people in the world; those who think there are two kinds of people in the world and those who don't. For example [with apologies for the awkward syntax due to the neutralizing of masculine nouns and pronouns], 鈥淲hen the ordinary person is enlightened he or she becomes a sage. When the sage is enlightened she becomes an ordinary person.鈥� This is an old Chinese saying, from the Tao Te Ching, I believe, thus probably pre-dating the arrival of Buddhist thought. Encountering this sense of an intimate, dynamic relationship between two states of being that to others might be inherently adversarial, did not alienate Buddhism. But, on the other hand, don't many of us think that the ordinary life is inferior to the enlightened one? Do we not often speak of enlightenment as a kind of crossing over to another, better shore? Indeed it is a common and ancient metaphor for the salvific virtues of Buddhism itself.
Ordinary, deluded, worldly existence is typically full of suffering while the other shore (sometimes called nirvana) is devoid of suffering and much more pleasant. This is an early Buddhist view and it is not so different from the more familiar notion of a heavenly realm, the potency of which we are frequently reminded as young people kill themselves (and often others) to get there. It is an inherently dualistic construction which is infused with preferences and desires. Or, to put it more mundanely, the pursuit of a distant, happy goal; a future of security and satisfaction. It is a powerful pull to set up the eternal at the expense of the ephemeral. Even in Buddhist thought, which teaches that only change is eternal, full enlightenment is classically a one-way event.
This fractious view did not entirely prevail in Buddhism, though. The saintly ideal of the Bodhi-sattva (means awakened being) began to gain energy, especially outside of India. In this evolved version of the raft metaphor, the enlightened person would not leave 'samsara' (ordinary life), despite having severed all binds; and chooses instead to remain in delusion and help others to build their rafts or whatever. This shift in ideals of saintliness away from the personal marks the emergence of the Great Vehicle (maha-yana) paradigm shift in Buddhism, and Zen is the most refined Asian expression of that initial insight. It is also a template for personal growth and evolution and is predictive of how Zen meditation can impact an ordinary life. Human happiness is directly tethered to being of service to others. The most accessible vehicle of service is to stop being heedless with regard to others.
Practice continues, even after enlightenment, and all relationships continue to evolve. Ordinary mind is not other than enlightened mind. The implications of this point toward a far less adversarial world view without giving up on common sense. There is right and wrong, the basic template for common sense, but in Buddhist thought 'right' actions evoke gratitude and 'wrong' behaviour is met with kindness.
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Wayne Codling听is a former Zen monastic and a lineage holder in the Soto Zen tradition. He teaches Zen style meditation in various venues around Victoria.
You can read more articles from our interfaith blog, Spiritually Speaking
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