Teaching You Zazen 17: What Is Zazen

2007/12/2 14:10:18

Nowadays, people and books that love to talk about zazen are extremely common, falling into roughly these categories: First, parrots who copy a few Buddhist encyclopedias and philosophical pamphlets and think they know what zazen is. Second, those who speculate about it from the standpoint and practice of heterodox paths. Third, those who fabricate nonsense from so-called "scientific" perspectives. Fourth, those who treat zazen as a life game — part of refined leisure alongside flowers, moonlight, chess, calligraphy, and painting. Fifth, those who treat zazen as training for supernatural powers and great dharma techniques — confusing "supernatural" with "neurotic."

Regarding the first type: those who compile Buddhist encyclopedias and philosophical pamphlets are just pitiful wretches scratching out a living within various ideological games. They don't even qualify as decent bookworms. What caliber of person would feed on their garbage? Regarding the second: trapped by ignorant attachment and stuck at various stages without self-awareness, they end up painting cakes to satisfy hunger. The third: falling into the same six-sense trap as science, drawing a prison on the ground and locking themselves in it. The fourth: quite a few famous people and renowned teachers fall here — they are the most adept at beguiling people, but they're merely creating bad karma. The fifth: those who seek attainment are all deluded. With their pilfering mind refusing to die, they'll never find a way out.

So what is zazen? The character "打" (dǎ) has two meanings: first, to smash and destroy; second, to build and construct. The character "坐" (zuò) originally depicts two people sitting on earth, representing a way in which humans come to rest — extended to mean "dwelling" or "staying." Therefore, literally speaking, zazen (打坐) means to smash and destroy, then rebuild, one's place of dwelling and staying — one's foothold.

For ordinary people, their current state of being is one of scatteredness — this is the state, the foothold where ordinary people dwell and stay. Ordinary people spend their entire lives dwelling in this scattered foothold, this scattered state, right up until death. Note: this isn't referring solely to consciousness or mental activity. The scattered state in which ordinary people dwell is not limited to consciousness and thought alone — it encompasses all human activities. This state is uniform across all: scatteredness.

Everyone's zazen begins from this dwelling, this staying in the scattered state, this scattered foothold. And the first task is to smash this state, this foothold, and build a new state, a new foothold.

For those who have studied a bit of quantum mechanics, the following description may be easier to grasp:

The tremendous gravitational pull formed by a person's individual karma and collective karma constrains everyone's movement to a lowest-level orbit — the orbit of the scattered state. Ordinary people all orbit around similar trajectories. Although each person's specific mode of existence or specific karma differs, the orbital state they circle is the same: the scattered-level orbit.

Zazen is like an electron absorbing a greater energy, thereby escaping the constraint of this lowest orbit and jumping to a higher orbit — the orbit of the "coarse abiding" level. For each person, this escape process from the original orbit is first a destruction of the original orbital state, then a construction of the new orbital state. This is the process of zazen.

Of course, the coarse abiding state is not the highest orbital level. Beyond it lie various levels of orbital states that will inevitably be encountered during the zazen process. Likewise, this orbital jumping does not always proceed in one direction — there are different levels and distinctions later on, which anyone who practices zazen will inevitably encounter.

Of course, zazen is, in essence, a direct confrontation with life itself. Which orbit, which level you can jump to requires deadly serious effort — it's not a matter of flapping your lips.

Based on this ID's assessment of the states described by many so-called renowned teachers, many of these so-called renowned teachers haven't even reached the state of coarse abiding. They're just spinning around in circles within consciousness — utterly useless.

Note: this smashing and building must be accomplished. That is to say, someone might accidentally, like a blind cat stumbling upon a dead mouse, jump to another orbit. But that's useless. What's required is accomplishment. "Accomplishment" means being able to jump over at will. In modern times, this is almost unheard of. In ancient times, it was common — it was called "departing while seated or dying while standing." When you no longer wanted to play in humanity's scattered state, you'd just leave — saying goodbye and instantly transitioning to whatever life-state you chose.

But one must be very clear: this is not the ultimate thing. Even if you truly can depart while seated or die while standing, playing games with birth and death, you are still within birth and death.

Of course, this orbital-escape process does not necessarily have to be accomplished only at the time of death. Moreover, this process is not unidirectional — one can completely return from a higher state to a lower one. For example, if you feel that your current skin-bag and karmic manifestation are unsatisfactory, you can reincarnate into a new one and come back. Of course, the prerequisite is that during the process of entering the womb, you must not become confused. Generally speaking, entering the womb without losing awareness is far more difficult than departing while seated or dying while standing.

You must understand: zazen is not some trivial business of cultivating so-called thinking or calming your mood. Such trivial business — when birth and death come, it's worth jack squat. The minimum requirement, the bare minimum, is to accomplish at least this: when birth and death arrive, you must be able to control that orbital jump and escape the entanglement of birth-and-death karmic force.

If you can't even meet this minimum requirement, then your zazen has been for nothing. You might as well go jerk off instead.