Teaching You Zazen 19: Know Yourself

2007/12/16 13:23:13

This title is an ancient Greek maxim. Of course, this phrase is also a massive trap. Before this statement can hold, there are at least three prerequisites: First, that there exists such a knowable thing as "yourself." Second, that your own cognition possesses some mysterious power capable of knowing yourself. Third, that knowing yourself is fundamentally different from not knowing yourself — that is, knowing yourself grants a power that transcends not knowing yourself.

Of course, none of these three prerequisites can be established by that which claims to "know yourself." In fact, isn't not knowing yourself also a method of knowing yourself? Tell me, what godlike entity can distinguish between the superiority or inferiority of knowing yourself versus not knowing yourself? Note — this has nothing to do with any agnostic roulette wheel.

Even more obviously, once one assumes the transcendent status of "knowing yourself," the question of how to verify that your cognition of "knowing yourself" is so-called correct constitutes yet another supreme con game. You can play God and presuppose a model, declaring that cognition conforming to this model is correct — for example, a religious, scientific, or similar sort of model. Unfortunately, there are billions of people in this world, and billions of fans for each different model, and fans are bound to fight each other. What we call "culture" and "common sense" are merely the results of blood and iron.

When we worship Yan Huang as our so-called ancestors, we are merely presupposing acceptance of the effectiveness of Yan and Huang's blood and iron against non-Yan-Huang clans. Behind every culture lies blood and iron. Those so-called cultural masters are merely perpetuating the legacy for a group of so-called victors after blood and iron, while piggy-backing their own legacy in the process — and of course, getting some fame, fortune, food, and even genital-related issues resolved along the way.

Toward any culture or knowledge, first strip its skin and pull out its bones — whether it's called Chinese civilization, Marxism, Greek, Roman, Indian, Babylonian, British, American, German, Russian, or even the art of the bedchamber, atomic bombs, or grand unified field theory. You are not a slave to any culture, much less cannon fodder for any culture.

But more importantly, you are not a slave and cannon fodder to yourself.

The greatest people in the world can conquer everything, can negate their present moment, can stride across heaven and earth — yet they are still nothing more than slaves and cannon fodder to themselves.

Zazen transcends all the greatest acts in the world. Why? Because the very starting point of zazen is to stop being your own slave and cannon fodder.

You are enslaved and used as cannon fodder by your things — this is the first layer of bondage. Such things include science, civilization, religion, knowledge, fame, fortune, emotions, and everything else. Ordinary people bustle about their whole lives doing nothing more than being enslaved and used as cannon fodder by their so-called things. Note: this ID is not opposing such behavior. In reality, the karmic force of these behaviors is immense, at least within the trajectory of humanity. Without scientists being enslaved and used as cannon fodder by science, could atomic bombs capable of killing all of humanity have appeared? There wouldn't even be condoms. Without religious figures being enslaved and used as cannon fodder by religion, would so many devout believers be tormented by God? Would so many people wage wars and become cannon fodder for so-called religion? Without artists being enslaved and used as cannon fodder by art, would so many people culturally gesture and pontificate, spraying saliva about humanity, nobility, truth, goodness, and beauty?

It is precisely through the karmic wheel of this first layer of bondage that we have our current Brave New World and the continued beauty and worldliness of this Brave New World.

But even if you break through all the first-layer bondage, you are still in bondage — because you are still in the deeper bondage of being enslaved and used as cannon fodder by yourself.

The most laughable are those who talk about freedom. You can never even escape yourself — you are forever within your own circle. What kind of freedom is that? Your circle is nothing but an ant nest. Don't think your world is vast — ants also think their nest is the greatest world there is.

Zazen is your zazen. The one sitting is, and can only be, you. "You" — it's merely a word. Strip away this word, and what do you have left?

The nonsense about small self, big self, no-self — that's all just linguistic masturbation within the first layer of bondage. Language draws a circle in your brain, and fools then go around playing small-self, big-self, no-self games — all of which are nothing more than fabrications of consciousness.

You possess nothing — not even the pretension of possessing nothing. Yet you seem to possess everything of yours — for example, your body, your knowledge, your fame and fortune, your world, and so on. But how can any of this be connected to this you who possesses nothing?

You need not search for yourself. You are you. Everything you can find is merely your things. How can a you who possesses nothing have any connection with your things?

Why do you possess your body? That's merely a biological process — the resultant force of a long chain of biology-related karma. Why do you possess your knowledge? That's merely the result of social and cultural transmission combined with your own karma — the so-called knowledge you've learned is merely the outcome of a long chain of historical-cultural karma churning away. Why do you possess your fame and fortune? That's merely the result of your karma and collective social karma churning against each other. If you're not tossing about in this web of collective fame-and-fortune karma, where would your so-called fame and fortune come from? Even if a pie falls from the sky, it's because this web of collective karma already includes the entertainment game of pies falling from the sky, and your karma just happened to appear at the right time and place.

Everything of yours is nothing more than the result of various karmic forces interweaving. Beyond this, your everything cannot be anything at all.

You are nothing. You float up and down in the web of karma. All your actions, consciousness, language, and everything else simultaneously constitute component forces of this karmic web. You are being played by the game and are in the game.

Even when you put on airs and say you want to do zazen, you are being played by karma and are in the game.

For example, you come to this ID's place, hear the word "zazen," get conned by this ID's articles, and then the force of that con combines with the karmic force of your psychological structure to produce the thought that you want to do zazen. Then this thought continues to con you, intensifying with each passing moment, gradually producing greater karmic force compelling your body to sit in zazen. Then you are simply being played within this stream of karmic force, and you are in the game yourself. If there's a religious sentiment as a component force, you might even go around being a missionary, generating an even greater component force.

You come to read this ID's zazen articles and then do zazen — that's all there is to it.

Whether this ID is good or bad, virtuous or evil — those are merely images drawn in your mind by the resultant force of your psychological structure's component forces and this ID's textual component forces.

You produce the image that this ID is a great person, and then this image becomes a component force that continues to con you. Likewise, you produce the image that this ID is a terrible person, and this image also becomes a component force that continues to con you. When you think this ID is a great person, you think everything this ID says is wonderful; when you think this ID is a villain, you think everything this ID says is dog farts — and then you produce various behaviors, creating your own new karma. That's all there is to it.

All the images you produce in your mind — what do they have to do with this ID? All the images produced in your mind about everything of yours — what do they have to do with you?

You possess nothing.