50. Trusting Mind Quartet 2: Trusting Mind, Period

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Who said it was yours?
What if they are all liars?
Who you gonna call?

The Hsinhsinming, the longest of the three Ch’an chants in the Zen liturgy, occupies three pages in the layout of the service manual, while Sandokai fills only one page, and Hokyo Zammai requires two. This gives you a rough idea of the variability of these three ancestors’ differing manners of expression, and their relative loquaciousness, in communicating The Great Matter to their contemporaries, over spans of almost exactly one century apiece. One suspects that someone suspected that their audience would also include future generations. Otherwise, why write it down? Although it is hard to imagine that they might have imagined folks like you and me studying them diligently, ensconced in our modern milieu.

You may recall that we left off the prior podcast close to halfway through, in my formatting of the poem:

If you do not discriminate between coarse and fine you will not be tempted to prejudice and opinion. To live in the Great Way is neither easy nor difficult. But those with limited views are fearful and irresolute; the faster they hurry the slower they go.

Setting aside further commentary on discriminating, prejudice and opinion, and the likely progenitor of our contemporary trope, “the hurrier I go, the behinder I get” (shout out to Zen Master Lewis Carroll), note that where the first line assures us that the Great Way is not difficult for those who have no preferences, here the Master is revising that difficult enough idea, with the even less dualistic point that it is neither easy nor difficult. It depends upon whether or not you are fearful and irresolute. Well, punk, are you?

Clinging cannot be limited;
even to be attached to the idea of enlightenment is to go astray.
Just let things be in their own way
and there will be neither coming nor going. Obey the nature of things
and you will walk freely and undisturbed.

We see a lot of mindfulness acolytes these days preaching the gospel of not clinging, “just noticing,” et cetera. We might be forgiven for pointing out that some seem to be clinging to these fixed ideas, like the hapless survivors of the Titanic, clinging to furniture and other debris from the sinking vessel. If the very apostles of non-clinging cannot let go of their own clinging, what hope is there for the rest of us great unwashed? We are all noticing all kinds of things, all the time, for all the good it does.

Letting things be in their own way seems absolutely un-American. If there is anything we are good at, it is messing with things, rearranging the deck chairs. Trying to perfect the innately imperfect, shaping the world and everything in it to our niggling, humanocentric ideal of conforming to human need, as the living and breathing, “chosen” representatives of the gods, or God, on earth. The notion that if we can finally relinquish this stubborn idea of ultimate control, we will “walk freely and undisturbed” begs credulity, smacking of the Taoist ideal. But that “there will be neither coming nor going,” as a result? “Coming and going” is usually a generic stand-in for being born and dying. Merely letting go of O-C behavior, means that we will be free of birth and death? This is the old Hinayana ideal, to escape the wheel, slip the surly bonds of earthly existence. For Mahayanists, it seems a moot issue. Who cares?

When thought is in bondage the truth is hidden for everything is murky and unclear. The burdensome practice of judging brings annoyance and weariness. What benefit can be derived from distinctions and separations?

The unspecified implication is, in bondage to what? One might presume, to any kind of clinging, to ideas as well as the sensory, and other attachments, that bedevil us. The murk, and lack of clarity, is in one sense built in, and therefore not our job to clean up. But allowing thought — and by extension consciousness itself — to be forever mired in it, is definitely our responsibility. Who you gonna call?

The bit about judging bringing annoyance and weariness is, ironically, the favorite line of one of our senior teachers. Ironic, that is, in a paean to the relinquishment of all preferences. I insert the verb “making” in the last line — as in making distinctions and separations — which, again, seem built-in. But we tend to make way too much of them.

If you wish to move in the One Way
do not dislike even the world of senses and ideas.
Indeed to accept them fully is identical
with true Enlightenment.
The wise man strives to no goals
but the foolish man fetters himself.

Aha! So there it is. At long last, is our get-out-of-jail-free card. We do not have to turn our back on the sensory realm, and our cherished ideas, in order to be Zen-cool. The empirical method is saved, hallelujah! Seriously, this means that Zen is not, and never has been, anti-intellectual. It just puts the thinking tool at the disposal of the higher intellect. If we establish any lesser goals, they simply become foolish fetters, inhibiting the process of going after the gold ring. And missing the free ride.

There is one Dharma not many; distinctions arise from the clinging needs
of the ignorant.
To seek Mind with discriminating mind
is the greatest of all mistakes. Rest and unrest derive from illusion;
with enlightenment there is no liking and disliking.

The one Dharma, of course, has to be divided into many, in order to present it in words. Raising a finger or throwing a whisk to the ground may demonstrate it completely, for those who have the eyes to hear and the ears to see. But seeking it with the thinking mind is like a dog circling its tail around the room, looking for the ideal place to plop down. It can continue forever, or at least for as long as there is life in the dog. May as well settle down right here and now. If we cannot rest in our unrest, we are badgered by illusion. In our own enlightened self-interest, we can give a “like” even to our natural state of unrest.

All dualities come from ignorant inference.
They are like dreams of flowers in air:
foolish to try to grasp them.
Gain and loss, right and wrong,
such thoughts must finally be abolished at once.

Inference is a cut above mere interpretation. It implies that we have given this some thought. Which in itself is an interesting proposition. Is thought really something that can be given? Both interpretation and inference, even after much thought, can be based on ignorance. In fact, we cannot possibly know all there is to know about any given set of circumstances, so our mental machinations are always based on a preponderance of ignorance. Tip-of-the-iceberg stuff. Grasping at flowers in air is the stuff of dreams and romance. Foolish, but irresistible, when driven by hormones and other born-of-body-mouth-and-mind influences. There may be nothing to gain, and nothing to lose, but we have the right to be wrong. Abandoning such thoughts is perhaps more practicable than the idea of abolishing them.

If the eye never sleeps all dreams will naturally cease. If the mind makes no discriminations
the ten thousand things
are, as they are, of single essence.
To understand the mystery of this One-essence
is to be released from all entanglements.

Even dreams of flowers in air will naturally cease, if only the eye never sleeps. Makes me want to take a nap. Which eye is in question, here? The mind’s eye, in making no discriminations, takes in the unity underlying the appearance of the ten thousand things. We see what it means, so to say. Phenomena beget noumenon, and vice-versa. The last line may represent a questionable choice on the part of the translator, as surely the mystery of this “one-essence,” hyphenated, surpasseth all understanding. Being released from all entanglements suggests that it must be very lonely at the top.

When all things are seen equally the timeless Self-essence is reached. No comparisons or analogies are possible in this causeless, relationless state. Consider motion in stillness and stillness in motion; both movement and stillness disappear.

Does not say that all things are seen as equal. Seeing them equally is in the eye of the beholder, not an assertion of some sort of universal equality. If timelessness is reached, it must occur at this time, and it must have always been present. If so, spacelessness, which is not even a word, must also be reached at the same time. This comprises a sincere attempt to point to the singularity of Zen, that personal spacetime in which all the known laws of reality, all the marks and parameters of conscious awareness, collapse inward of their own mass, so to speak. The center cannot hold. That this has always been so means that it cannot be the effect of a cause, even of “first causes,” such as the Word. Nor is there in it any kind of relationship, such as that of the soul to God. The example of mokurai, “motion in stillness and stillness in motion,” may be the root source of Matsuoka Roshi’s liberal use of this term. In the context of emptiness, change, or nonduality, they merge, in a binary dance of mutuality.

When such dualities cease to exist Oneness itself cannot exist. To this ultimate finality no law or description applies. For the unified mind in accord with the Way, all self-centered striving ceases.

Here, there is no break in the flow of the message. Taking us full circle, Master Sosan makes it clear that he is not merely asserting “oneness” as the ultimate reality. Would it were so simple. No oneness, no twoness. You cannot simply pay your money and take your choice. The ultimate finality is not final, not even determinate. It is in flux. “Seeing into the flux of arising, changing, abiding, and decaying,” as Master Nagarjuna, 14th in India, would have it. This is undefilable, not reducible to ordinary laws or descriptions. But — and it’s a big but — somehow this does the trick. “Self-centered striving ceases.”

Doubts and irresolutions vanish and life in true faith is possible. With a single stroke we are freed from bondage; nothing clings to us and we hold to nothing. All is empty, clear, self-illuminating, with no exertion of the mind’s power.

Here the flow is once again uninterrupted, and waxes effusive. As self-centered striving ceases with the ultimate finality of realizing no-self, just so any remaining doubts, and irresolutions. Which is also not a word in English. But we all know what it means. Vacillation. Pussy-footing this way and that, all around the problem, rather than facing it squarely. It turns out it is built into the way the mind works. True faith then becomes possible as the exercise of action, in the face of nagging self-doubt. Liberation in the midst of the bondage, and nothing to grasp, in the clinging. In the absence of exertion of the mind’s terrible power to discriminate, all becomes empty, clear, and self-illuminating. No need for task lighting.

Here thought feeling knowledge and imagination are of no value. In this world of Suchness, there is neither self nor other-than-self. To come directly into harmony with this reality just simply say when doubt arises “Not two.”

“Here” — meaning at the nexus of spacetime, the singularity of the “eternal moment,” as Sensei called it — our usual tricks, trinkets and trash are of no avail. “Sitting without relying on anything,” as Master Dogen puts it, in the spare reductionism of Zazenshin. “Suchness” explained socially: neither self nor other-than-self. Thus no possibility of acting selfishly, or selflessly. But this does not mean “all is one,” in the vapid simplemindedness of New Age thinking. “Not-two” is the most we can say about it, just as zazen is the most we can do about it. Coming into harmony with it is, again, the Tao raising its winking head.

In this “not two” nothing is separate, nothing is excluded. No matter when or where, enlightenment means entering this truth. And this truth is beyond extension or diminution in time or space; in it a single thought is ten thousand years.

Again no break in the flow, but we must chew this over in digestible bytes, b-y-t-e-s. We like to say there is no difference between us, can’t we all just get along? But Zen says we may not be truly separate, but vive la différence! Otherwise, how boring! Zen is all-inclusive in its social embrace, and mostly in its intellectual grasp, through we would beg to differ with certain belief systems afoot in the world. However, an enlightenment worthy of the name will include this inclusiveness. That it is beyond extension or diminution in time or space is another testament to the nobility of the Four Noble Truths. Like the noble gases, they are inert. They do not change with circumstances, causes and conditions, even when approaching the event horizon of your friendly local neighborhood black hole. A single thought encompassing ten thousand years is a bit more difficult to allow. Until you sit through a long retreat. Or consider Buddha’s thought of enlightenment. How long did that take? How long did it last?

Emptiness here, Emptiness there, but the infinite universe stands always before your eyes. Infinitely large and infinitely small; no difference for definitions have vanished, and no boundaries are seen. So too with Being and non-Being.

Yeah, yeah, you can have your emptiness. What about this thing in front of your face? How far out does it go? How far in does it go? “So minute it enters where there is no gap. So vast it transcends dimension.” Oops, wrong poem. Spoiler alert. Down the rabbit hole, do we come out the other side? How big are you? How small? Here, have a bite — b-i-t-e — of this cookie, and find out. Not only no preferences at this remove, not even any differences, because not even any definitions, any more. Nor any boundaries, between the undefined. All made up, notes crumpled up and tossed in the cosmic wastebasket, the dustbin of futile ideas. But even Being and non-Being? Note the capitals. Denotes something big. The existential question, source of much existential angst. For Sosan it is a casual, throwaway line, like a Borsht-belt comic’s outdated groaner.

Waste no time in doubts and arguments that have nothing to do with this. One thing, all things, move among and intermingle without distinction. To live in this realization is to be without anxiety about nonperfection.

Wait a minute — we just learned that we cannot actually waste time, let alone on such trivial concerns. But of course the old man means “meanwhile” (shout out to Master Colbert) — up until, and when, we finally get this. The “this” in question is not only the most important issue in life, it is the issue of life itself. Meanwhile, keep on moving on, disperse while intermingling, nothing to see here, all distractions are equally without distinction in this regard. Living large — livin’ la vida loca — begins with jettisoning the very idea of nonperfection, with its excess baggage weighted down with anxiety. Travelin’ light.

To live in this faith is the road to nonduality, because the nondual is one with the trusting mind.

Okay — so as we come to the end, we are stretching less and less to mean more and more, like the drawn out ending of a romcom movie. The characters predictably depart and say their goodbyes in reverse order of their billing and onscreen time — first, the bit players and character actors, and, finally, the romantic leads. The trusting mind is the star of this show. Its romantic partner is nonduality. Together they make a lovely couple, and live happily ever after. Finally, just before rolling the credits, the denouement, the climactic, closing scene, a dramatic, uplifting summation of all that has gone before:

Words!
The Way is beyond language, for in it there is no yesterday, no tomorrow, no today.

The audience applauding, the curtain falling, slowly trudging out of the theater, exchanging smiles, wise and knowing looks, heads nodding in melancholy assent, all are mute, knowing that there are no words to describe, no concepts to capture, the wisdom of the Way. However, in doing so, they may be forgiven for imagining that what they have learned today will survive until tomorrow, and will not be relegated to yesterday. In other words, the tyranny of language has already begun to reassert itself. The popcorn was unusually good, though.