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by Ernest Wood
WHEN the Buddha wished to allude to the final achievement or
attainment of human life he spoke of
nirvāna, a "blowing-out." This means that in that experience, there will be an absence of our familiar limitations known as body and mind. Even the mind is for us an object of knowledge. The field of our knowledge can be divided into objective and subjective. Both are within the field—both the knower and the known, the subject and the object.
Buddha's doctrine was that only in the presence of knowing are "subject and object" to be seen. Mind with its reasoning activity—its logic—generally considered as the subject, is in reality only an instrument. It does not know. 1 Behind or beyond this mind is
what among Chinese Buddhists came to be called Essence of Mind. It is Bodhi, Wisdom. If a man could put aside the error or delusion of the-self-as-mind there would be the elimination of object and subject relation from his experience, and then—nirvāna.
It was always held that only man can perform this feat, because he—not the lower animals—has mind as
reason. Of course, there was lower mind, or instinct, in the animals, but this was accumulated knowledge—recognition and memory. And every idea or mental picture in this store of knowledge was accompanied by feeling and therefore by desire. In modern terms we would call this collection the subconscious mind, instinct. The sub-conscious mind could not be regarded as merely a matter of bodily habit. The body is always changing its particles. The incoming particles cannot be regarded as possessing the habits which have been learned by the outgoing particles. So even the continuity of its form is carried on by the "sub-conscious mind"—not by any powers of the body. This continuity governs not only the bodily reactions to environmental impacts, but also the emotions and flow of mental pictures, or association of ideas. So there is instinct. Buddha called this complex of continuity the
skandhas.
Man has something more than instinct. He has reason, although it must be admitted that very often he acts by instinct, and reason is often if not generally far from its maturity and power.
The height of reasoning or thinking is meditation, called dhyāna among the old psychologists of India. In a boat, instinct would tell us to row, but reason would tell us to put up a sail, until even the putting up of a sail passed into the sub-conscious and reason led us further to install a motor. Whatever our problem, reason will improve our reaction, but reason demands time—we must think the matter over, consider the nature of water, of boats, of many things involved, study their relations in mental pictures, and then, after this process, which takes time, the problem is solved. Meditation is the complete mental review of the materials of the problem and the study of their combination. It is applied to ordinary material problems and to the most abstruse psychological and philosophical ones.
But this does not tell the whole story of meditation. If properly carried out it ends up with intuition—something you did not know before, and have not found in the world. This is sometimes called
prajnā. This intuition is not reason, but is direct perception, and the state of the mind in which this
prajnā or intuition is in power is called samādhi, which literally taken means completely in agreement or order.
This experience by direct perception is called in China and Japan a satori. But I am running ahead. Let us first look at the way in which the mind gets knowledge for us.
Mind is called "sixth sense." By mind we get to know things not available to the senses of hearing, touching, seeing, tasting and smelling. It can operate in three stages, and usually does—through testimony, reasoning and seeing for ourselves. Someone comes into the house and says there is a fire on the mountain; this is supported by reason, because there is smoke; then we can go and find the fire—and perhaps put it out. So there is testimony and then reasoning and then direct perception. This applies in religious matters. Buddha says he has found joy and knowledge; it is reasonable; we are to go and find it.
When the dhyāna or meditation process was carried into China by the famous Indian "missionary"
Bodhidharma, it came to be known as Chan, and a little later when it had found its way to Japan the word was further modified and became
Zen. Zen is Japanese meditation-yoga.
It is not to be thought that in either India or China the results of dhyāna were merely improved subjective experience. In India the fruit of
samādhi was viveka or discrimination, which means a new valuation. This is stated emphatically by Patanjali in his
aphorism no. ii 28, which describes the final effect of the performance of the eight Limbs of Yoga, culminating in
samādhi. 2 This is not a perfection of the subjective, but a transcendence of the subjective conception of the subject-object relation. Subject and object now live together in the Knowing or Consciousness in a new way. Subject-self is overcome. It was a piece of Ignorance, a five-branched tree of ignorance.
In the case of Buddha we have exactly the same teaching, when avidyā, ignorance, is given as the final "fetter" to be cast off, as shown in our previous chapter. This was essentially ignorance or error about self or the subjective entity.
It is natural that the method of practice of the Chan and the Zen should be somewhat different from that in India, as befits the racial types of China and Japan. The method is well described in
The Sūtra of Wei Lang, translated by Wong Mou-Lam, 3 and in Christmas
Humphreys' Zen Buddhism, 4 and in several books by Professor D. T. Suzuki.
Before we turn to the practices of Zen it is necessary to say that the fundamental conceptions associated with it are also found in the old Tao-ism of China, coming down even from Lao
Tsu, who lived about the same time as Buddha. Buddhism became blended with this. The difference was that Buddha desired not to give a name to
nirvāna, as that would almost inevitably lead to some mental idea of it, which would then stand in the way of the transcendental experience. Even the idea of transcendence does so.
In the old teaching there was Tao, the motionless, master of all, both the subjective and objective sides of Nature, including man. It could equally be called the absolute motion, which, passing through every point of space in every direction in every moment of time, becomes the ever-present soul of all motions, but is motionless from the standpoint of the subject-object world. 5
From Tao come yang and yin, the active and passive sides of Nature, light and shadow. In man the two elements appear as intellect and instinct. The instinct-flow is natural, outward-going, but the intellect-flow, which is "backward-going, reversed, turned round," can become so pure that it gains release, when things are recognized but not desired.
The Secret of the Golden Flower, translated by Richard Wilhelm, gives the lay-out of principles, and is a splendid source-book for this study.
Introspectively, all can see that knowledge and desire go opposite
ways. Desire draws man into complicated experiences, bringing problems which can be solved only by the intellect seeing things as they are, untainted by desires concerning them. The path of yoga, in this field, thus means knowing or seeing without desire. There is, of course, knowing, or consciousness, in both cases. The animal is highly conscious, but instinctual; in man the consciousness is becoming intellectual; in the
bodhisattwa (which means one whose intellect is pure, or whose very nature is intellect) we have man on the verge of
nirvāna, or Tao. In all three cases feeling and knowledge go hand in hand. Where there is pure knowledge, the feeling is love—love without desire, full consciousness and approach completely without antagonism. This is the
Zen outlook, whatever terminology of China or India, of Tao or Buddhism may be used. The practice of meditation in this field is "seeing without desire." And the height of it is reached when there is direct perception, intuition in which reasoning stops. There is no
desire for logic to stop; it does so naturally when its function is fulfilled; then intuition appears.
If we compare the art of China with that of Greece we find that one is more the product of imaginative observation, the other of introspectional observation. The word imaginative here means image-making. It is less creative and more contemplative. If the poise of the Chinese has the relative proportions shown in diagram A, that of the Indo-European is relatively somewhat as in diagram B.
It is to be understood, of course, that while this rotary motion is the same for all sane minds, the standard or evolutionary status is individual. In the individual there is growth through use or exercise, whereby each of the three elements is advanced in ability. Taking this into consideration, it will be seen that the movement is spiral as well as rotary.
The difference of different minds, and races of men, is a difference in the proportions and status of these three. I have cited art here because art is yoga in action, action free from the taint of desire and utility or use. It gives us a peep-hole into the mind. So the meditation-systems of China did not develop on very introspectional lines, as meditation in Europe has done.
In The Secret of the Golden Flower a form of meditation is given in which a superphysical self is built. Intellect or the light of seeing is to be freed from the instinctual, is to build a body of its own. This is done by stopping the flight of thoughts—concentrate, but quickly pass into contemplation; when contemplation
It is to be understood, of course, that while this rotary motion is the same for all sane minds, the standard or evolutionary status is individual. In the individual there is growth through use of exercise, whereby each of the three elements is advanced in ability. Taking this into consideration, it will be seen that the movement is spiral as well as rotary.
It falls into flights again, renew the concentration. This "circulates" the process—brings it into circle, not
drives it round, but puts an end to wandering off. As in India, attention is to be given at first to the body—body comfortable, breathing rhythmic, senses quiet. Then one listens within, to the no-sound, listens to the silence. Thus within the heart another "body" is gradually built up, which is a spiritual body.
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