Expert: Joe McSorley - 7/17/2005

Question
You say "The heart of Zen is to 'see things as they are' here and now".  So what is it that one sees in the here and now?  Please describe this heart of zen.............?  

Answer
Zen is approached by people in two ways; as something to study and as the hopeful answer to an existential crisis.  There are traditions and techniques that are called Zen today and to be a Zen priest one must master these things.  This is a system that can be studied and learned and what is known as Zen. I have seen this myself in Zen monasteries where the members use it to replace their traditional church or use it to have a sense of community.  Here they learn to be Zen Buddhists by practicing prescribed rituals and exercises including meditation and chanting.  This is what they know Zen to be; a series of practices that compromise what is called Zen Buddhism.
 The other way people approach Zen is to end an existential crisis.  There are those whom come to Zen in great crisis because other things have not helped and if they are fortunate enough to find a good teacher then there is hope.  In one the first stories of Zen in China  Hui Ka did not come to Bodhidharma to study a system or to learn a religion or philosophy.  He came because he was in pain.  Bodhidharma did not tell him to sit and meditate or offer any techniques nor did he lecture or try to ‘teach' him something, instead, he demanded that Hui Ka face the moment.  When Hui Ka approaches he says, “My heart/mind is not at ease”, he did not say he wanted to study something, he wanted to solve a crisis.  Bodhidharma says “ Hand it to me that I might appease it”.  By doing so he is not describing anything or creating any cognitive image; he is forcing Hui ka to answer in the here and now, without the dualistic mind or egoistic thought.  This is the heart of Zen to face the moment and actualize it as your self.   It cannot be described for this makes it an object of human consciousness and misses the point.  Chuang tzu once said ‘ to use anything other than a finger to describe a finger is useless' and it is in this light that to attempt to describe the' here and now' would immediately miss the point.  Traditional terms for awakening or to ‘see things as they are here and now” include moksha (liberation), nirvana (extinction), satori (spiritual enlightenment) and samadhi (to direct towards or one mindedness).  My teachers called it non-dualistic duality and timeless time.  There are some scholars who spend countless hours debating whether or not they are talking about same thing yet what does this achieve?  So there is no way to adequately describe it.  Zen is called' that which is lying beyond words and letters' and this too implies that it cannot be grasped or described by the mind.  Those who have awakened have exclaimed things like ‘finally I see” or “ all this time I had a nose on my face' or ‘empty of all things, I am now full” and countless other expressions.  For myself, personally, these exclamations did not help much and tended to confuse me as I tried to find meaning in them.  If you've never been able to see what can someone with sight possibly describe to you that will have meaning? That is why the heart of Zen is the true self- actualization of awakening and not just the study or practice of awakening.  It is clear that that practices of Zen from zazen to koan practice do yield positive results when practiced properly and have great value.  It is when these things are practiced as ‘being what Zen is” that they fail.  To overcome dualistic consciousness, to be fully alive free from birth and death, to realize awakening mind and body fallen off is the heart of Zen that lies beyond descriptions.
  I hope this has helped you.  Take care,
         Joe