Readable and filled with insight. The author gives readers clear instructions on how to perform zazen breathing and sitting meditation along with explanations of what happens physiologically and psychologically in the body during various states of Zen wakefulness and attention.
This book also filled an important gap in Western Zen literature: most writing about Zen teaches nothing about the actual practice of Zen techniques, instead dealing mostly with with psychological and intellectual aspects of Zen.
I'm grateful to this author for this generous, sincere gift of a book. Thank you!
Notes: [Warning: preposterously long. Do not read!]
Introduction (by A.V. Grimstone, who also helped edit the book)
1) Talks about how most of the literature about Zen that reached the West (see for example Alan Watt's book The Way of Zen) were mostly theoretical and cultural, lacking discussion of practical aspects of Zen training, even though training is foundational to the practice of Zen. "The first great merit of Mr. Sekida book, then, is that it tells us exactly how zazen is to be performed."
2) On practicing Zen in the real world: "To cast off the delusive way of ordinary consciousness while sitting on a cushion and a quiet room is only the beginning. The student must learn to live in the ordinary world, well yet retaining the quality of his experience of absolute samadhi. In his deeply interesting final chapter, as well as elsewhere in the book, Mr. Sekida discusses these problems in a way that helps us to reach an altogether more balanced picture of the aims of Zen training. For many, perhaps, there has been something unattractive in the notion, not infrequently conveyed, of the Zen student as a person who subjects himself to a prolonged, highly disciplined form of training, usually in the artificial conditions of a monastery, in order to undergo some kind of private, revelatory experience. The picture that emerges from Mr. Sekida's book is quite different. Zen training is a means of enabling us to live our ordinary lives supremely well. I think few readers will be able to resist the appeal of the sketch Mr. Sekida gives in his final chapter of the aged Zen master who has 'forgotten Zen and everything like that' and reached a condition of mellow harmony."
3) On escaping words, concepts, definitions: "The medium of our thoughts is language. Words are the means by which we handle reality. This ability to use words has been one of the main reasons for man's prodigious success as an animal. It is also, seemingly, the source of our troubles, for the ability to use words and concepts, while so plainly of enormous value, all too readily becomes hypertrophied. Unconsciously, we come to suppose that to give something a name is to gain some measure of control over it. We come to live in a world of words and thoughts, which takes the place of direct contact with reality. We say, 'There is a tree,' but do not really see the tree. Indeed as Iris Murdoch has put it: "Our minds are continually active, fabricating an anxious, usually self-preoccupied veil which partially conceals the world.' To see the world as it is we have to check this all too pervasive mental activity, to empty our minds, to relinquish what we imagine to be our verbal hold on the world."
Ch 1: Orientations
4) This chapter is a summary of what goes on in the book; also offers working definitions of zazen, samadhi, kensho and other terms (see vocabulary section below).
5) The author likens it to climbing mountains, some knowledge of climbing technique is essential; it is the same with Zen.
6) Early/beginner breathing/meditation practice would involve something like breath counting: "Quite probably you will look on this task with some contempt, thinking you can do it without any difficulty, but when you start you will soon find that wandering thoughts come into your head, perhaps when you reached about 'five' or 'six,' and the thread of counting is broken." (Note the standard midwit problem here: we already "know" what something will be like before actually doing it, and of course we assume the task will be both easy and beneath us.)
7) On the importance of posture and breathing, "...stillness of body engenders stillness of mind. Immobility is a first essential."
8) Immobility leading to "off-sensation" where you do not feel that your body is still (even though it is still) and the activity of the cortex of the brain becomes steadily less and less.
9) "The essential point we want to make at present is that it is the correct manipulation of the lower abdomen, as we sit and breathe, that enables us to control the activity of our mind. Posture and breathing are the key to concentration, to stilling the activity of the mind, and to entering samadhi. Stated so briefly, our conclusion may seem farfetched."
10) The "body and mind fallen off" state in which time, space, causation--all of which constitute a framework of consciousness--drop away as we still the activity of our mind. A condition of extreme wakefulness, an extraordinary mental stillness.
11) The ego as a succession of physical and mental events that are a function of our mind operating subjectively. The goal is to let go of a petty ego and eventually reach what we may call an egoless ego, you see everything and its true aspect; there is no hatred, jealousy or fear. It is a state in which you cling to or adhere to nothing. "Abiding nowhere, let the mind work." --The Diamond Sutra
12) "Zen training continues endlessly. The mean or petty ego, which was thought to have been disposed of, is found once again to be secretly creeping back into one's mind." ... "The Zen saying goes, 'The occurrence of an evil thought is a malady; not to continue it is the remedy.'"
13) On the Zen concept of emptiness: like holiness yet without attachment to it. When you are conscious of being a Buddha you are not truly a Buddha, because you are ensnared by the idea: every time you believe you are achieving something, even achieving emptiness, you must cast it away.
14) Mushin: no mind, no ego. "We think every moment, and an internal pressure is generated, and we lose equilibrium. And then we train ourselves to recover equilibrium every moment. The ego is built up from a succession of internal pressures. When the pressures are dissolved, the ego vanishes, and there is true emptiness."
15) On the difference between mere verbal explanations (or as the author puts it, "to resort to exhortation") versus the Zen student realizing for himself and practicing the practice. The ludic/midwit person will likely confuse talking about Zen practice with practicing Zen practice.
Ch 2: Zazen Posture
16) "Much patient practice and experiment may be necessary in order to learn how to sit well." (See photo)
18) On how easy it is to misjudge and fail to see problems and faults in one's own posture. "I stress this point because I myself for a long time failed to notice my own mistakes.... It is a fact that most of us know very little about our posture and we maintain quite faulty habits, both in zazen and also in ordinary activities."
19) "It is a fact that one can get into samadhi even sitting in an easy chair in a casual posture, and there are many examples of sick people, confined to bed, who have attained maturity in Zen. For most of us, however, it will help greatly if we follow as closely as possible the general principles of correct posture that I have described here."
Ch 3: The Physiology of Attention
20) One-minute zazen: "You will find that you really are able to inhibit thoughts from starting. You may feel the beginnings of some thoughtlike actions stirring in your mind, but that, too, can be kept under control. Repeated practice will give you the power to inhibit the appearance of even the faintest shadow of thought."
21) William James on the difference between "sensation" and "perception": sensation is the first and unarticulated thing in the "way" of consciousness, perception is our awareness of our sensation as well as articulated ideas about it: names. comparisons. propositions. etc.
22) The thought-controlling power of the wakefulness center of the mind "is sustained by the stimulation coming from the tension in the respiratory muscles of the abdomen, which do not themselves think, of course... So we may regard these muscles—or the tanden in general—as the root of spiritual power." In other words it all springs from breathing and posture.
23) This contrasts with the momentary wakefulness and inhibition of thoughts that comes when you make a movement, strike a hammer blow, etc., no thought occurs in your mind, while "...tension of the respiratory muscles of the abdomen can be maintained in such a way as to take possession of the wakefulness center for a much longer time.... to maintain continuous concentration of attention we have repeatedly to generate new tension in these muscles. This requirement forms the basis of the method of breathing in zazen that is described in subsequent chapters."
Ch 4: Breathing in Zazen
[This chapter contains essential general principles of breathing in zazen.]
24) 1200ml = residual lung volume (air still in the lungs that is not expelled even after all muscles of expiration are fully contracted). "The reason for this is that no amount of muscular contraction can completely collapse all of the alveoli and respiratory passages. This, incidentally, is why it is that in zazen practice we can exhale as much air as possible and then remain without breathing for a considerable period."
25) Tidal volume = ~500ml, this is the approximate difference between the inflow and outflow levels of air in the lungs during normal breathing (roughly 2300ml to 2800ml).
26) 2300ml is the volume of lungs under passive conditions. "Normal quiet respiration is performed almost entirely by the inspiratory muscles, and so this passive volume is equal to the volume of the lungs at the end of normal expiration. The horizontal line at the 2300-milliliter level we shall refer to as the horizon of breathing."
27) One can force approximately 1100ml of additional air from the lungs with contracting all the expiratory muscles as powerfully as possible. This extra air is the expiratory reserve volume.
28) Normal respiration is performed above the 2300 ml horizon alone and involves the tidal volume alone. "In zazen, expiration goes down below the horizon, and it is in this phase that most effort is exerted. It is this expiration below the horizon that is principally effective in bringing about samadhi, because it is here that the diaphragm and abdominal muscles are brought most strongly into opposition."
29) Two-phase inspiration: breathing in in the first phase through the diaphragm and abdominal muscles and at the same time allowing a lower abdomen to an inflate, the second phase above the breath horizon inspiration is performed by contracting the diaphragm.
30) The following chapters describe in more detail how these principles are applied to various methods of zazen practice.
Ch 5: Counting and Following the Breath
31) Three methods of breath counting
1) counting inhalations and exhalations to 10, best for beginners
2) counting only exhalations to 10, more advanced
3) counting inhalations only, good for beginners to train in inspiration but somewhat more difficult
32) On how easy it is to have a thought come into your head while being in the middle of counting, finding yourself involved with that thought for a while, then returning to yourself and forgetting what the count was, then starting all over... many readers find this hard to believe but it will happen to every beginner. "Any beginner who has tried this practice for the first time must
have experienced this failure and been surprised by his inability to
control his thoughts as he wanted."
33) Positive samadhi and absolute samadhi: samadhi is discussed in detail in Chapter 8, but at this stage we will introduce a distinction between two kinds of samadhi: positive samadhi is the kind of samadhi reached in counting breaths, it involves a definite action of consciousness. This is distinguish it from absolute samadhi, the "Nirvana state" that is foundation of all Zen activities.
34) On the value of returning to breath counting even after moving on to other exercises and becoming less of a beginner. Kind of like a kata that you'll return to again and again.
35) On "following the breath" meditation: "Instructions for following the breath are very simple. Follow each
inhalation and exhalation with concentrated attention. At the
beginning of your exhalation, breathe out naturally, and then when
you reach a point near the horizon of breathing, squeeze the
respiratory muscles so as nearly to stop breathing. With the epiglottis
open, the air remaining in the lungs will almost imperceptibly escape,
little by little. At first this escape will be so slight that you may not
notice it. But presently it will become noticeable, and as the
exhalation goes below the horizon you will find that the air is being
pushed out intermittently. If you regulate the escape of air in a
methodical manner you will advance more effectively toward
samadhi. The longer the exhalation, the sooner you will be there.
However, a very long exhalation must necessarily be followed by
short, rather quick respirations, to make good the oxygen deficiency
that results."
36) On wandering thoughts: "They are of two kinds. The first type is that
which appears momentarily and disappears as quickly. The second
is of a narrative nature and makes up a story. The first type may be
subdivided into two: (1) noticing someone coughing, the window
rattling, birds chirping, and similar disturbances that intrude
momentarily from outside; and (2) the momentary thought that
springs up from within, so that we think, 'Now I am getting into samadhi,' or 'I am not doing well today.' This sort of thinking does not disturb one's getting into samadhi very much, and as samadhi progresses, such thoughts gradually disappear of themselves.
"The second type of wandering thought is the sort of narration that
occurs in daydreaming, in which one thinks, for example, that one
had a conversation with certain people and one is once again
absorbed in the situation. While the body is apparently sitting in
meditation, the mind is getting angry or bursting into laughter. This
type is quite a nuisance. Now, it is to this type of thought that one
very often falls a victim when practicing moderate exhalations. Every
so often one comes back to oneself, notices the wandering thoughts,
and plucks up concentration to control the fantasy. But eventually
one finds that one’s power is too weak. How can one get out of this
condition? There is no way other than by generating tension in the
respiratory muscles by stopping or almost stopping the breath. If now
you were to use the vocal cords and inwardly say 'Mu,' you would
find that a greater strength is thrown into the abdomen and mental
energy is increased. That strength and energy give you the power to
control wandering thoughts. However, you are now working on Mu,
rather than following the breath, and that forms the subject of the
next chapter."
Ch 6: Working On Mu
37) The first stage: solely dedicated to checking wandering thoughts. Breathing is through the mouth with a mouth slightly open. You may count breaths or say "Mu" inwardly, silently. Both are effective for checking wandering thoughts for beginners to practice.
38) The second stage: breathing is through the nostrils. Silently you say the word "Mu."
39) "Mu" means "nothing" and is the first koan in zen. Note however you are not "investigating the meaning of nothingness" rather you are to take Mu "simply as the sound of your own breath and entertain no other idea" (see the next note).
40) Good example here of how "trying to figure it out" actually leads you away from figuring it out, how insight cannot be grabbed at or pursued, it ensues: "It is true that your teacher, who has instructed you to work on Mu, may repeatedly say to you, 'What is Mu?' 'Show me Mu?' and so on, but he is not asking you to indulge in conceptual speculation. He wants you to experience Mu. And in order to do this, technically speaking, you
have to take Mu simply as the sound of your own breath and
entertain no other idea. Only intensely keep on saying 'Mu' and when you are successful in this practice, quite without any philosophical speculation, you will one day come to realize the answer is already given, and you will clap your hands and burst out into a great shout of laughter. If, on the other hand, you start trying to think of the meaning of Mu you will lose touch with immediacy and be left all at sea, drifting about bewildered among conceptual ideas. At the start, then, simply keep on saying 'Mu.'"
41) The bamboo method of exhalation: "bamboo method" is the name because like a bamboo trunk has excessive joints or nodes, "so exhalation is stopped now and then for a little while, giving short pauses." There are many methods of doing this, work out your own, "do it as if you were pushing repeatedly at a closed door that will not open, saying, 'Mu-u-u-u-u.'" Gradually you will develop your own style.
42) "Why do we practice this kind of breathing?"
1) to make the tanden replete with power
2) "to send repeated stimulation from the tendon to the wakefulness center of the brain... we inhibit the occurrence of thoughts and so bring about absolute samadhi."
43) "The bamboo method of exhaling is nothing more than a device for controlling wandering thoughts. Anyone who has practiced zazen will know how difficult it is to control wandering thoughts. We suggest that if you use the method just described you will find it somewhere easier to bring them under control."
44) "The reflecting action of consciousness": the author noticed a condition of absolute stillness in his mind which by definition is an action of consciousness, yet it did not disturb his approaching samadhi at all. "...the experience was a great thing for me. I made a springboard of it and was able to take a further step ahead."
45) Off-sensation (see photo below): Sitting in zazen posture, with our exhalations going
down below the horizon of breathing, a new sensation—we call it offsensation—quite naturally starts to set in, because you are now
mentally going down into the soundless depths of the sea, so to
speak. Apart from the tanden, all parts of the body are relaxed and
motionless. Off-sensation naturally follows.
"Off-sensation is not numbness. If you want to move your hands or
arms you can do so, and normal sensation returns. But if you let
them remain immobile, the position of your hands, arms, and body is
not felt. Awareness of the body’s existence comes from stimuli
arising in the skin, joints, viscera, and the proprioceptors in the
muscles. If the skin is not touched, no stimuli arise from it; if the
joints are not moved, no signals come from them. And in zazen
posture these sensations easily drop away. But certain
proprioceptive signals keep on working and continue to give a
certain vague, generalized feeling of existence, even when the
tension of the muscles is kept neither too strong nor too weak and
when the muscle tone throughout the entire body is kept constant.
This sensation is different from any ordinary, everyday one. It is felt
as a generalized internal and external, somewhat painful pressure,
pervading the whole body. One feels as if one were clad in heavy
armor. The pressure becomes stronger as samadhi deepens. In
actuality, it is probably a very weak sensation, but just as the sound
of a nut falling at midnight in the heart of the mountains resounds
throughout the hills, so the pressure is felt to be strong, since all
other sensations are minimal.
"...However, as samadhi deepens still further, all such awareness of
wakefulness, of strong spiritual power, of the feeling of the entire
body’s rather painful pressure, will die away, and genuine offsensation appears. That, in reality, is the falling off of body and mind."
47) The eyes and visual attention: "Zen teachers almost always advocate keeping the eyes open or half open in zazen. We are indeed usually advised strongly against zazen with the eyes closed." Practice with closed eyes "leads to sleepiness and wondering thoughts. This is admittedly good advice for beginners. Personally, however, "I always close my eyes when practicing zazen. In my experience, when the eyes are open the mind naturally looks outward. If I want to direct my attention inward I have to make a deliberate effort to exclude the visual sensations received through the eyes. Closed eyes spare me the difficulty and facilitate inward attention."
48) Two kinds of attention: abstract and sensory. The former operates independently of the sense organs, the latter employs them. "In zazen practice, sensory attention is more effective than abstract attention. The latter tends to become exhausted rather quickly. If you simply work abstractly on Mu, you will rather quickly be overcome by wandering thoughts, but if you use your visual attention to look into yourself -- and more precisely, to look into the tanden -- you will reach a state of awareness of your existence itself. And you will also find that you are steadily getting into absolute samadhi. Profound silence envelops you. It is as if you were going down to the depths of the sea, ultimately to settle on the bottom of it."
49) "Auditory attention naturally tends to be outwardly directed. When you listen to the ticking of a clock, your mind is directed toward the sound, and this leads to positive samadhi. Visual attention, too, is normally directed outward. Only when you close the eyes can you direct attention completely inward."
50) Bodily attention, and the focusing and concentrating of visual attention to your palms, or to your arms, for example, with an accompanying thrill-like sensation in different parts of your body
51) The third stage: "In this third stage, the periods of breath being
almost stopped get longer and longer, breathing becomes softer and
gentler, and presently the moment will come when it seems that no breath is stirring. You are not strongly stopping the breath and the epiglottis is not closed (that is to say, you are not stopping the breath by using the chest). You are doing all the manipulation with your abdomen, and exclamation comes about mainly by occasional yielding of the diaphragm. Even in this condition, the reserve volume is being gradually used up. But a considerable time elapses before the reserve volume is exhausted: forty, fifty, or sixty seconds or even more. And then inhalation will spontaneously occur in its turn."
52) "In this third stage, samadhi has already begun. You are doing only one thing, which is to look into the tanden with undivided attention. Although no thought occurs, a bright illumination seemingly lights up the mind."
53) On "conceptual thought" and "piling up concepts upon concepts," this is another interesting example of the ludic way of learning something, that in Zen is the exact wrong way to learn, it is an obstacle to learning: "I said above that when you begin saying 'Mu' you are not supposed to try to think of the meaning of Mu but to take it as the sound of your breath. And if you only will work on intensely saying "Mu,' you will eventually find that the meaning was given long ago. On the other hand, if you engage in conceptual thought about how Mu to be understood, you will merely pile up concept upon concept, and there will be no end to the job. I repeat, when you once come to have a certain experience of samadhi you will find the meaning of Mu has long been awaiting you."
54) You cannot grasp insight directly, just like you can't grasp water in your closed fist, it must "ensue": "I would go so far as to say that you should not seek after so-called kensho. If you really realize absolute samadhi, there was already genuine kensho in that experience. We shall have more to say on this topic below."
Ch 7: The Tanden
55) Recall from Chapter 3 "the notion that the tension of the muscles of the body has a close relationship to one's spiritual condition, and that the tanden is of utmost importance to the Zen students in the development of concentration and spiritual energy. We shall take up this topic once more and consider further examples."
56) First look inside yourself, try and reflect on yourself and catch hold of the mind... "When you try to do it you are puzzled as to where you can find the mind. Perhaps you turn your attention to the
interior of your head, but you find no response there. Or perhaps you
look inside your chest, or at the heart: again, nothing comes of it,
even if you hear your heart beating. It seems you cannot locate your mind anywhere. However, if you are determined and continue this introspection intensely, you will eventually find yourself stopping your breath, and then for the first time you will feel something spiritual arising within you. When you began to stop your breath, tension inevitably developed in your tanden and drew your attention, and it was in looking into your tanden that the tension of your mind became apparent."
"In according such importance to the tanden we do not question that it is the brain that thinks, plans, and gives orders; but what carries out the directions of the brain is, in the first place, the abdominal muscles structure, together with the diaphragm. If they do not go to work, no scheme is translated into action." [Interesting idea, to look at this region of the body as sort of the "basal ganglia" of the body.]
57) "The process is the same with emotional expression: laughter, anger, and sorrow cannot manifest themselves unless the abdominal muscles are convulsed."
58) On the central importance of breathing and of proper posture in the control of one's thinking: "The head knows, or comes to learn, that it cannot govern by itself, so it circumvents the problem and resorts to contracting the respiratory muscles, and thus contrives to control itself. I do not know what the psychology and physiology of our day have to say about this topic, but my own experience in zazen tells me that it is absolutely impossible for an ordinary person to control his thoughts without taking up a good posture and giving an appropriate attention to the respiratory muscles of the abdomen. The art of breathing in zazen is to maintain this tension. Our contention, then, is that controlled respiration generates spiritual power, and that attention, which is actually spiritual power, can never be exercised without tension in the tanden."
59) On sumo: "Why do they get down on all fours before starting? The simplest way to find out is to try it yourself. Squat down on your hands and feet, as though you are a lion about to spring on its prey, and stare at your imaginary opponent with a lion's spirit. You will find that a strong force develops in your hips and lower abdomen. Repeat this three or four times - then you will learn something."
60) "Now sit yourself in zazen posture and imagine that you are a football player making vigorous dashing movements. You will find yourself tensing your entire body, and specially the abdominal muscles. But the tension is of only momentary duration, and if you want to continue to practice you will have to give the abdomen repeated contractions. In imagination, then, you are repeating the dashing movement on the cushion. After four or five repetitions of this you will find you have to stop to inhale. If you inhale in one movement, the tension developed will be largely relaxed, but if you first make a short inhalation by inflating the lower part of the abdomen and then continue to inhale by expanding the upper region of the abdomen (inhaling into phases, as we have previously described), you will be able to maintain much of the tension. It is quite an ascetic practice to continue such a strenuous effort for twenty or thirty minutes. But when you have gone through such self-imposed torture to the end, you will emerge to find in your abdomen a kind of strength, both physical and spiritual, such as you may never have experienced before. You will find yourself sitting on the cushion with the spirit of a sovereign. It is simply because your tanden has been filled with vitality." (See photo below.)
61) On "sesshin" and monasticism in Zen: "The solemn atmosphere of sesshin in a monastery drives the student into a frame of mind like that experienced on the battlefield and makes him do things that seem ridiculous and even insane to the ordinary man."
62) "[The brain] does not know how to manage wandering thoughts unless the respiratory muscles intervene to help it... The tanden has no conscious functions, but when it functions as one end of the spiritual circuit of the brain, it acquires spiritual importance."
Ch 8: Samadhi
63) "Rinzai Zenji's four categories are as follows:"
(1) Man is deprived; circumstances are not deprived.
(2) Circumstances are deprived; man is not deprived.
(3) Both man and circumstances are deprived.
(4) Neither man nor circumstances are deprived.
64) The first category is a situation in which one's mind is absorbed in outward circumstances (e.g.: the surgeon so engrossed in an operation that he didn't notice an earthquake happening); this is a type of samadhi: "...we are at every moment absorbed in that moment's action or thought." Voluntary versus involuntary attention (a flow state vs something far more passive, like watching a football game). We are forgetful of ourselves and we are not self-conscious about our behavior, emotions or thought. Outer circumstances occupy our whole attention.
65) On true self mastery-based samadhi versus false samadhi: "...even when the inner man is forgotten, he is not forsaken." False samadhi lacks this self mastery from the outset: examples would be "fighting samadhi," "hating samadhi," "jealous samadhi," worrying, dreading, upsetting samadhi, etc.; none of these have "the guidance of self-mastery. These are not true samadhi as understood in Zen."
66) See also "animal samadhi," a lower state than man is capable of; beautiful, can also be attained by some under the influence of drugs and greatly attractive to weaker characters, "a retrogression to the primitive life." "Not losing self-mastery but at the
same time being involved in external conditions is the real meaning
of 'Man is deprived; circumstances are not deprived.' In this state
the inner man is simply inactive."
67) The second category ("Circumstances are deprived; man is not deprived.") denotes inward attention while we work on mu or practice shikantaza, where a certain self-ruling spiritual power dominates the mind, circumstances are forgotten, no outward concern appears. This is inward samadhi, "and it is what I have called absolute samadhi, because it forms the foundation of all zazen practice." This contrasts with the positive samadhi of the first category, which looks a lot like a flow state.
68) One the third category: "A discussion of this category must be preceded by an explanation of self-consciousness."
69) The reflecting action of consciousness: "Self-consciousness appears when you notice your thought, which immediately precedes your noticing it, and then you recognize the thought as your own."
"If we do not perform this noticing action we do not become aware of our thinking, and we will never know that we have been conscious at all. We may call this action of noticing our own thoughts 'the reflecting action of consciousness,' to distinguish it from general introspection. I take some trouble to identify this reflecting action of consciousness because, as will be seen, it plays an important role in dealing with topics in zazen."
70) "Now, when one is in absolute samadhi in its most profound phase, no reflecting action of consciousness appears." This is the third category ("both man and circumstances are deprived").
71) "In a more shallow phase of samadhi, a reflecting action of consciousness occasionally breaks in and makes us aware of our samadhi. Such reflection comes and goes momentarily, and each time momentarily interrupts the samadhi to a slight degree. The deeper samadhi becomes, the less frequent becomes the appearance of the reflecting action of consciousness. Ultimately the time comes when no reflection appears at all. One comes to notice nothing, feel nothing, hear nothing, see nothing. This state of mind is called 'nothing.' But it is not vacant emptiness. Rather is it the purest condition of our existence. It is not reflected, and nothing is directly known of it. This nothingness is 'Both man and circumstances are deprived,' the condition Hakuin Zenji called 'the Great Death.' The experience of this Great Death is no doubt not common in the ordinary practice of zazen among most Zen students. Nevertheless, if you want to attain genuine enlightenment and emancipation, you must go completely through this condition, because enlightenment can be achieved only after once shaking off our old habitual way of consciousness."
72) "What is the difference between sleep and samadhi? Samadhi never loses its wakefulness."
73) On kensho: "Kensho is nothing more nor less than your recognition of your own purified mind as it is emancipated from the delusive way of consciousness. ...when your mind is projected to the outside world in the form of, say, the sound of a stone striking bamboo, or the sight of blossoms, and the sound or the sight strikes the door of your mind, you are then greatly moved by this impression, and the experience of kensho occurs. You seem to see and hear beautiful things, but the truth is that you yourself have become beautiful and exalted. Kensho is the recognition of your own purified mind in a roundabout way."
74) The fourth category ("neither man nor circumstances are deprived"): this is the condition attained in the Zen student's maturity. "He goes out into the actual world of routine and lets his mind work with no hindrance, never losing the 'man' he has established in his absolute samadhi. If we accept that there is an object in Zen practice, then it is this freedom of mind in actual living."
75) "True positive samadhi achieved through Zen practice ultimately resolves itself into this fourth category."
76) On the problem of achieving a Zen state in our actual lives as busy people occupied by problems in the world: "A man may practice zazen and make certain progress in absolute
samadhi and be successful in establishing the “man” within himself.
Then a new problem will arise, that of how he can exercise this man
in his actual life in the busy world. When sitting on the cushion doing
zazen he can attain samadhi and experience the man, and can
realize that the man is really his absolute self. But when he comes
out into his daily routine and eats, talks, and is active in his business,
he often finds he has lost the inner man. He wonders how he can
manage to maintain the man in himself in his daily life."
77) "Circumstances are rampant; man has no place to settle down in his mind. Where has the man gone who was described as 'not deprived' in the second category?"
78) "The student may now change his attitude and, returning to the
state of the first category, try to be absorbed in outward
circumstances. But he finds this, too, very difficult. While sweeping,
he cannot become sweeping itself. In other words, he is unable to
forget all other things besides sweeping, as the surgeon was
absorbed in his operation. Of course, when he sees a football game
he becomes absorbed in it. But this is a case of passive, involuntary
attention, in which anyone can be excited and shout, forgetting all
other things, including the inner man. There can be absorption in
fighting, absorption in dissipation, absorption in amorous passion, all
with the inner man forsaken. The victim is at the mercy of outer
circumstances. This is false or superficial samadhi. The samadhi of
the first category is not this sort of thing. The missing ingredient is inner control, jishu-zammai."
Ch 9: Koans
79) Emotional understanding vs logical understanding and the need for both to have truly "confirmed" understanding: "When the student has caught hold of Mu in absolute samadhi, he is told to recapture it in the light of reason. What has been intuitively known gives rise to subjective conviction, but it should be illuminated by reason so that an objectively confirmed understanding is achieved."
80) "Piling up concepts" vs connecting concepts to our lived experience: "An objectively confirmed understanding of Zen must be
embodied in certain concepts and ideas. There are two ways of
manipulating concepts: (1) it can be done as a purely mental
exercise, in which we pile concept upon concept, or (2) it can be
done by connecting every concept to our own actual experience. The
former method means building up construction upon construction,
like a tower of Babel, ending in total confusion; the latter is
analogous to cultivating an orchard or a rice field, in which every
plant is firmly rooted in the ground. It is this method that we adopt in
Zen. Whatever type of koan we may be working on, we do not treat it
as a matter for abstract intellectual study. It has to become part of
us. How is this done?"
81) "Thinking neither of good nor of evil, at this very moment, what is your Original Nature? To tackle this topic by resorting to ideas or concepts you have learned from books and philosophies is of no avail. What you have learned is borrowed from others and does not originate in your own experience."
82) Take the koan and work on it by reciting, exerting all your mind, using the bamboo method of breathing, take it syllable by syllable, word by word, and say it with all your attention.
83) "The infiltration of a nen-thought [see Chapter 10 for more on the idea of nen] throughout the brain produces a wonderful effect. At our ordinary
reading speed no such infiltration normally occurs. But it does
sometimes happen when you read the work of a poet you particularly
admire, or read the Bible, dwelling on every word and taking ample
time over it. On such an occasion you may be reading word by word,
carefully and with deep appreciation, and suddenly the passage will
seem charged with infinite meaning, seeming almost to come as a
revelation from heaven. Anyone who has ever read the Bible with
devoted piety must have had such an experience. We call this sort of
reading “language samadhi,” and it is this that we must achieve
when reciting a Zen koan."
84) "Kensho is an event in positive samadhi, in which consciousness is in touch with the outer world."
85) On the idea of suspending every involvement of the personal ego: the Zen view of eliminating the habitual way of consciousness, see works of Husserl in the To Read section below, see also chapter 14 about the nature of phenomenological reduction.
86) "A monk discovered his Original Nature when he saw peach blossoms in full bloom." Note the enormous contrast between this and looking at things "in the context of equipment" where the consciousness is closed to the purity of the object itself. "In absolute samadhi, on the contrary, this habit of consciousness falls away, and one looks at the external world with unblinkered eyes. Then everything is found to be emitting a brilliant light."
87) "A monk, sweeping the grounds of a Patriarch's tomb, realized his own nature on hearing the sound made by a pebble that flew from his broom and struck a bamboo trunk."
88) "The experience of Kensho is very commonly associated with seeing, hearing, touching, and other sensory activity."
89) More on seeing reality as mere "equipment"" "The habitual way of consciousness makes us look at things mechanically and think them dead."
90) Unborn: "A monk was struck by the word 'unborn,' and that solved for him his long years of doubt." Unborn is an abstract word, and "there are many abstracts Zen terms, but they all represent the concrete experiences of Zen students and monks find in them vivid expression of their attainment."
91) On working on a koan (practicing "kanna"): reciting each word with utmost attention, with language samadhi; let each word infiltrate your head, taking time reciting it. "Then this enigmatic saying will become wonderful and lead you to a certain understanding of reality, which is in a constant state of flux."
92) Beating the drum: "A monk asked Kasan, an old Chinese Zen teacher, 'What is the condition of a truly enlightened man?' Kasan said, 'Beating the drum.' The monk asked again, 'What is the true teaching of the Buddha?' Kasan answered, "Beating the drum.'" On the idea of not being "bedeviled by conceptual thinking." "When you beat a drum or strike a match and light a candle - if you do it in genuine positive samadhi, in that moment you are realizing your existence."
93) More koans:
* The sound of firewood tumbling down.
* "Dragging a stone, carrying soil"
* "What is sweet is sweet, what is bitter is bitter"
94) Once again, getting away from conceptual thinking, piling concepts onto concepts. These ideas do not live in the domain of declarative knowledge: "You can know existence only by directly feeling it, not by indirectly speculating about it. This is the fundamental truth of Zen."
95) "There is a koan that asks, “Why
has Bodhidharma no beard?” Bodhidharma is taken to represent the
pure Dharma. He is generally pictured with a beard. But this koan
says Bodhidharma has no beard. Its real intention is to say the true
Dharma has not only no beard but also no eyes, no nose, no mouth,
no face, no hands, no legs, no body." See The Blue Cliff Record (Hekigan Roku): "Blind, deaf, and dumb, it is absolutely insulated from conscious activity."
96) In some sense you must lose your life in Zen, meaning you must "cast away what consciousness has accumulated since childhood, that is, your illusory ego."
97) "In absolute samadhi it is rather easy to let go your hold, but in the world of active life, to let go the hold on one's ego is difficult. You tell yourself not to hate others, to quench the heat of anger, to be free from temptation, to kill the desire for fame, power, vainglory, and so forth, but you cannot follow your own precepts. You cannot even take off the beard, much less eyes, nose, mouth, and face itself. But a truly enlightened man has no face when he speaks, negotiates, and discusses the serious problems of life. He has nothing to hold to, in the midst of the busiest activity of consciousness. In the midst of the burning flames of life he keeps his mind as serene and shining as the lotus flower in the fire."
Ch 10: Three Nen-Actions and One-Eon Nen
98) "Man thinks unconsciously. Man thinks and acts without noticing. When he thinks, 'It is fine today,' he is aware of the weather but not of his own thought. It is the reflecting action of consciousness that comes immediately after the thought that makes him aware of his own thinking... By this reflecting action of consciousness, man comes to know what is going on in his mind, and that he has a mind; and he recognizes his own being."
99) "These two kinds of actions of consciousness are both called nen, a term which we introduced in the previous chapter and which we may approximately translate as 'thought impulse.' The nen alternate with each other, from moment to moment, and we may feel as if they were arising almost simultaneously. But nen-actions that occupy the stage of consciousness come forth one at a time. There may be many impulses thronging about behind the scenes, eager to make their appearance on the stage. Every nen-action has its fringe, and these subconscious impulses may make us feel that several actions of consciousness are proceeding parallel to one another. However, the mind's mode of operation is such that there is only one actor on the stage at a time, and the focus of consciousness is upon that one alone."
100) "A rigorously trained mind may occasionally be able to detect a subconscious impulse [say for example rage or jealousy] and dispose of it before it springs up into the level of consciousness, but even in that case the impulse comes first, and perceiving it comes after. When you experimented with one-minute zazen, you probably occasionally found something like a premonitory wriggle of nen arising in your otherwise blank mind, and also an inhibiting action following it like a shadow."
101) On first, second and third nen:
First nen is the uprising of an unconscious outward-looking action or emotion: rage or jealousy or a feeling. Second nen is the reflecting action of consciousness, "I am angry." These nen-thoughts can intermix and become entangled. "This makes a person feel that, while thinking, he hears a voice within him that knows his thinking and gives advice to him. For instance, whole roaring with anger, one may find another voice whispering in one's ear, 'Don't get angry! You mustn't lose yourself in a fit of rage!'"
102) Third nen is another reflecting action of consciousness that follows second men, it is a further step in self-consciousness which consolidates the earlier levels, it is thinking "I know I noticed I had been thinking x."
103) Thus we have first nen, second nen, third nen, third nen, third nen; because all the awarenesses (the acknowledgments of ourselves becoming aware) are all third nen.
104) Our minds, however, are complex and dynamic and the sequence is not a neat diagram (see figure 24 and 25 in the photo below of page 111), as a new third nen can arise to summarize observations along a line of different nen series. "...this
integration results in a unified experience of self-awareness.
Everything preceding is integrated into the stream of consciousness
and passed along, with new impressions, to the next third nen."
105) See also figure 26 (in photo above) where in zazan practice there's no interruption by the self-observing second nen or the self-conscious third nen.
106) "All this explanation is intended to portray the working of the mind when left to itself. The discipline of zazen encourages absorption in one nen, for example, in Mu." This induces a steady succession of first nen actions with no reflecting upon them in the form of a second nen and no self-consciousness in the form of a third nen. "Gradually this develops into the condition, which we shall discuss later in this chapter, called 'one-eon nen.' This, in fact, is nothing more than another term for absolute samadhi."
107) An example of a factory whistle blowing at noon: First there is the "pure sensation" (perhaps a slight shock or startle at the sound), then "ordinary sensation" (a recognition of the sound, which would be a second nen), then a third nen which integrates the first and second nen into a perception, including cognitive references made to knowledge you already have stored up as conceptions. Thus the sound is recognized as that of the noon whistle.
108) "If you say that you do not find in yourself anything like a reflecting action of consciousness when you hear a sound, try listening to the tick of a clock and see whether you can be so wholly absorbed in the listening that you are forgetful of yourself. If you cannot, and you must acknowledge that you could not throw yourself into the action of listening and become listening itself. The reflecting action of consciousness was active, tenaciously whispering in the ear of your mind. It is next to impossible for a person who is not trained in zazen to throw himself voluntarily into the condition of listening itself."
109) On subjectivity, a word that is meant to illustrate the subject based perceptions of the individual: you perceive things without full perception of yourself perceiving. "...we use the term
'subjectivity' here simply with reference to the subject thinking or
doing. Whether one thinks in a subjective or an objective way (that
is, independently of one’s own self), one is thinking in one’s
subjectivity. Subjectivity takes notice of other things but never of
itself."
110) More on subjectivity: "As the eye cannot see itself, so subjectivity cannot observe itself. When it is observed, it is converted into an object, and another subject must be viewing it. That which thinks, 'It is fine today,' is thinking in subjectivity and is not aware of itself. Only when it is illuminated and reflected upon by the subsequent reflecting action of consciousness is it recognized and identified as the subject that thought, a moment ago, 'It is fine today.' But it has already been turned into an object by virtue of the fact that it has been reflected upon and objectified by the reflecting action, which is itself now acting in subjectivity."
111) "Unconsciousness necessarily accompanies our behavior in the moment of the act, because this is the intrinsic character of subjectivity."
112) More on the third nen: recollection and memory: For example the third nen fully integrating and experiencing music by virtue or mechanism of a successive series of first, second and other third nens. "Each third nen integrates the proceeding impressions of the composition up to that moment and hands them on to the next third nen, together with new impressions of the succeeding sounds."
113) "The clarity with which the third nen can go back to grasp direct impressions of the past in their living phase depends on the innate quality of one's consciousness, and also on its particular condition at the moment. When the consciousness is tired, the sphere of its illumination becomes narrow and dark. You can readily notice this in your reading. When tired, your hold is uncertain, and repeated reading does not bring you a clear grasp of the meaning. Next morning you are surprisingly dynamic in your grasp of line after line, which you read through with refreshing clarity."
114) "Recollection, self-criticism, imagination, intention, and speculation that do not belong to the reflecting action of consciousness are all first nen. We said elsewhere that the first nen looks outward. But it also looks back at one's past thought or objectified self, which has ceased to be pure ego."
115) On forgetting details: imagine a traffic accident, where the whole accident is grasped on the spot via the third nen, with the cooperation of the first and second nen actively still at work; the scene is retained clearly. "But we cannot hold the immediate past in its living phase for long. We soon transfer it to the second phase of memory formation. In this process of transfer, a new first nen will look at the scene of the accident that is projected by the third nen, and the process will form a circuit from the first series of three nen to the second series and then to a third series, and so on." This is the second or intermediate phase of memory formation.
116) "Before the 'sudden realization,' great men toil in immense labor."
117) One Nen, One Eon: "One-eon nen is the fundamental form of all other nen-actions." "From a certain point of
view we called it jishu-zammai, the samadhi of self-mastery; from
another point of view, pure existence. Pure existence, jishu-zammai,
one-eon nen—whatever term we use for it, this phenomenon makes
its appearance in its pure form in absolute samadhi, clearly
separated from other nen-actions. We put special emphasis on this,
since this state forms the starting point for the reconstruction of the
habitual way of consciousness."
118) Note that in ordinary life you can see one-eon nen in other manifestations: anger and an angry ego, deluded and deluded ego, and so on.
119) Psychological time and absolute samadhi: When engrossed in a task or in the thick of battle you were forgetful of time, there's no reflecting action of consciousness to order events or recollect the prior event, so it is one constant present. "From these examples we may deduce that psychological time is created by the frequency of operation of the reflecting action of consciousness."
120) "Our ordinary consciousness has been brought up and domesticated to live and behave in a world that is fenced in by the limits of time, space, and causation. These distinctions have given rise in turn to the world of opposition and discrimination in which we ordinarily find ourselves."
121) "'No man, but causation' is a Zen
saying, meaning that all phenomena result from the succession of
cause and effect, and that there is no entity that can be called a self."
122) There is no constant self: "There is no constant self. It may make you dizzy to reflect that nothing remains of your childhood of twenty or fifty years ago... Link after link of cause and effect have been handed down to the present, and there is nothing to be called a person. There is nothing to hold onto, nothing to cling to."
123) On the eternal present, the eternal now: "You feel assured and at ease with your present existence, and do not deplore the person who is clad in your clothes and who moved about in them yesterday, and in the days before yesterday, when you understand that the fact that exists can be found only in this moment. Moment after moment this existence succeeds itself and constantly changes."
124) Number 32 from the Mumonkan: "'He treads the sharp edge of a sword. He runs over the steep ridge of an iceberg.' Every moment is the sharp edge of a sword. A slight misstep proves fatal. Every moment you are creating yourself; your thought is of your own making and it affects all your succeeding thoughts; it decides the trend of your mind toward integrity or weakness.... There can be no evasion, no excuse for inattention to the duty of this moment. We have only to think for a moment about this to see that this is a fact almost too obvious to need pointing out, yet hardly anyone has called attention to the simple truth and grave reality."
125) Relating what we've said so far about nen to the concept of the ego: "Nen is an action of subjectivity, the behavior of the ego. When one becomes aware of one's own nen and recognizes it as one's own, self-consciousness appears. To recapitulate, in the action of consciousness we have found three phases: (1) the first nen, which looks outward, working unconsciously; (2) the second nen, which illuminates and recognizes its immediately proceeding first nen; and (3) the third nen, which illuminates all its preceding nen, integrating them into the stream of consciousness. Correspondingly, we can trace three phases of pure ego: (1) the phase that unconsciously thinks or desires--the ego that looks outward and does not recognize itself; (2) the phase that recognizes the unconscious phase that immediately preceded it--the ego that recognizes its preceding ego; and (3) the phase that operates self-consciously--the ego that recognizes the first and second phases of ego as oneself. It is meaningless to ask which of these phases is the real ego. Each nen is the action of subjectivity, and when it appears it constitutes one's real ego of that moment. No ego recognizes itself directly, as we have seen; it is recognized by the following reflecting action of the ego."
126) On how the ego lies and fools us: "It may happen that a person will refuse to acknowledge a certain desire that he has because he pretends to himself that he has another nobler one. The desire is banished from the surface of his consciousness. However, such an ignored or unacknowledged idea will remain in the subconscious and in time may break forth. Perhaps one had a secret or open wish--to obtain a situation, an object, or a lover, shall we say but--for some reason one denied oneself or gave up the idea."
127) On how a repressed or denied desire later comes back with a vengeance: "Thus, some desires are not given the respect they demand. They are the egos that, consciously or subconsciously, think and wish but are not illuminated by the second and third nen, or, if illuminated, are not duly evaluated; or if evaluated, are greeted with alarm, hurriedly hushed up, and sent down into darkness, remaining as an unresolved internal pressure in the depths of subconscious. Such a pressure, like a bomb exploding in a strongly fortified building, sometimes displays a devastating and totally unexpected force. Faced by this phenomenon, we may ask whether this explosion is not the real ego. The answer is that it was a real ego when it first appeared, but it was ignored or defeated in the competition with other egos. When it appears once more, it is again the ego of the present."
128) Acceptance of the nature of ego: "The vital thing that we must clearly understand is that the ego has no consistent phase. Existence is a continuous mutation. When it has appeared, it has appeared; when it has gone, it is gone. If laboring under a delusion, it is a deluded ego; if angry, an angry ego; if in rebellion, a rebelling ego. If mentally ill or neurotic, it is a deranged or troubled ego... As it mutates, it has no definite phase. As it is empty, you can say there is no such thing as ego. But as it is vividly here in this moment, you must say, 'There it is.'"
129) "Anger, sorrow, hatred I'll leave their effects behind, and they build up layer upon layer of mood."
130) How zazen practice help rid the mind of pressure, suffering: "Zazen is the practice of dredging the layers of internal pressure. 'Empty the mind' is the Zen phrase for this dredging. Afflicted minds have practiced zazen from the earliest times to rid themselves of their sufferings."
Ch 11: Existence and Mood
131) What is existence? A tentative answer: "mood is the keynote of existence." "Living vitality is a characteristic of the body, and mood is a
psychosomatic production. The most exalted existential life is the
refined mood stemming from a purified wisdom--a wisdom that in
Zen tradition is likened to the lotus flower blazing like a diamond in
the heart of a fire. We shall consider later where this purified wisdom
originates. With regard to the living vitality, I repeat my conviction
that it comes mainly from the body itself, and in particular from the
tanden. When the tanden is filled with strength, we are filled with
spiritual power, and we may find ourselves saying, 'I am on the
throne of existence.'"
132) "Everyone, without exception, has narrowed his world by his own doing... Almost all people suffer from the narrow world and have it, brought about by their delusive thought. For the most part, unfortunately, they are not aware of this."
133) A too-narrow world; navigating reality with too narrow a scope (in this case "I wish I could solve my problems, if I could I'd be fine" which merely produces more suffering, more illusion): "Some people try to resolve their problems of life by a sort of guesswork. They think that if their problems are solved, they will be saved. But so long as they are still imprisoned in their narrow world they are just like an insect that gets indoors by mistake and dashes itself against the window or the ceiling, tiring itself out, suffering helplessly."
134) "There is no such 'I'": "Some people ask, 'What am I?' and struggle endlessly with that question. But their presupposed idea about this 'I' is the very factor that creates their narrow world and drives them into a mood of estrangement from others. There is subjectivity in one's thinking as long as one thinks at all. However, this 'I' is the product of illusory thinking. There is no such 'I.'"
135) Mood: "Man lives in his mood as long as he lives. Even the experience that we have in the depths of absolute samadhi--which we call the experience of pure existence--is permeated by a mood that forms, as it were, its identifying color: a mood of annihilation. We
recognize it when we come out of absolute samadhi as an
immediate memory of its retreating form."
136) The author, as a child in first year school, did a beautiful calligraphy character, and many years later as an adult looked back and asked with wonder, "Did I do this? Now I could never do it." He was in a state of samadhi when he did this as a child, the whole world faded away around him... Then his teachers and his family began to show interest in his work, giving him encouragement, having him do special practice, etc., and the entire practice of calligraphy became extrinsically impelled rather than intrinsically. "The more they admired me the worse I wrote."
137) On viewing the world as so much "equipment." Not just treating our relationships with things as "equipment" but also treating our relationships with other people as equipment. See I and Thou by Martin Buber for much more on this topic, the I-It relationship vs the I-Thou relationship... it's a fascinating synchronicity that I happened to be reading these two books at the same time. In a lot of ways they are the same book.
138) We will see this koan again in Chapter 13, but I've cut and pasted it here as a good example of using a tool sincerely, and not as mere equipment:
A monk traveled a long way to see Nansen and
found him cutting grass by the roadside. He asked, “What is the way
to Nansen?” Nansen answered, “I bought this sickle for thirty cents.”
The monk said, “I do not ask about the sickle, I ask the way to
Nansen.” Nansen answered, “I use it in full enjoyment.”
139) "The man who said for the first time,
'Brothers are the beginning of strangers!'
Must have begun to say it
With a breaking heart."
140) What happens to us when we treat the world, the people around us, and the objects that surround us as "equipment": "Fighting against the world, fighting against his loneliness, fighting
against himself, man has lost the sense of richness of his childhood.
Everything is looked upon in the context of equipment, assessed in
terms of its utility and serviceability. The cup on the table is simply
for carrying tea to the lips (while the tea master, acting in the spirit of
Zen, passes his hands lovingly over his bowl, gazing at it untiringly
with aesthetic affection). The bee that flies across the sun does not
catch the adult’s eye, because it has nothing to do with him (while to
the eyes of a child the flight, like a meteor shooting across the Milky
Way, is infinitely beautiful). He shows no interest in the falling leaves
(while a child is immediately caught up in the falling itself). His
vividness of sense and mood has died out, replaced by a conceptual
way of thinking. He is an intellectual being and has killed the
precious sense and mood of childhood."
141) "Zen students also find things truly existing when they come out of absolute samadhi, and in that moment the phenomenon of kensho occurs. With ordinary adults, however, there is only a conceptual understanding of men and things. They do not see things as they truly are."
142) "A monk asked Ummon, a great Zen master, 'What is the samadhi
in particle after particle?' Ummon answered, 'Rice in the bowl, water
in the pail!'"
143) On reciting a Zen koan with the keenest concentration, looking into each word with the keenest attention, repeating it many times. "Do not think it silly to do such a thing. At first, four or five repetitions may produce no effect. Do not be disappointed even if that happens, or question the value of the exercise. Continue it patiently."
144) On whether to "explain" koans to beginning Zen students, also the paradox of "knowing" a koan: "Some Zen students who value tradition may scold me, saying I have revealed a secret of this koan prematurely and thereby harmed budding Zen students. But have you really realized this koan by reading this commentary? If you suppose you have, you are mistaken. To repeat, all intellectual, conceptual understanding is simply dead understanding."
145) On a Nisei girl who was interned in California, who moved back to Japan and struggled from the betrayal of internment, etc. "...her strong internal pressure (gidan) never stopped knocking from within at the door of her mind, demanding to be resolved. This constant gidan is strongly encouraged by Zen teachers. Knock at the door and it will be opened." ... "However, quite suddenly she experienced what we call a 'turning of the mind.' All her problems were solved, and she stepped forth into the world of unity."
146) "In the world of opposition one must serve oneself first, otherwise one will not survive. Thus, a discriminating ego is inevitably born. The habit of regarding others as equipment develops naturally, as we have explained earlier in this chapter... The fact that men do not really recognize each other, that they therefore treat each other as equipment, makes them confront each other as enemies... 'Being-in-the-world' [ed: let's call this the egoic/false self] takes the world as an enemy
that wants to persecute him and, if possible, eliminate him. To cope
with this, his ego develops the habit of returning blow for blow. This
is essentially the mood of an adult who has become a slave to the
habitual way of consciousness." See this idea once again in Martin Buber's I and Thou.
147) The world of children is where we can cast off this mood. "Can we not cast off this mood? We can. There is another world of
mood, different from that of the adult’s world. It is the world that we
have tried to depict in this chapter, the world of children. When I
described this as an idyllic world, perhaps some readers identified it
with the romantic vision of pastoral poets and dismissed it as being
no more than a subjective dream that could never become a reality.
That is not so. The experience of zazen tells us that there is a certain
stream of mood running continuously in our minds from babyhood
through to our adult life. If a Zen student reaches pure existence at
the bottom of absolute samadhi, he emerges and finds this stream... The more accustomed to it you become through zazen, the more often you will return to the mood of your childhood, and the more frequently you will be visited by the mood in your daily life. When you first become aware of it you may well be struck chiefly by its strangeness. Some will ignore it. You will catch hold of it firmly only if you are determined to find a way out of your spiritual deadlock."
148) On figure-ground illusions and perceptual confusion; likewise the mood of childhood versus the mood of the adult: how they can interchange with each other, unless the "ego shell" blocks this change.
149) "Adults all carry ego shells on their backs. Their lives are narrowly confined, as if they were living in a fortress under threat of attack. To secure himself against the enemy's onslaught, man takes on heavy burdens. He experiences great suffering--all the troubles, difficulties, strife, worry, and solitude that come from confining himself in his ego shell. He is unconsciously asking for help of some sort; he craves deliverance from his burdens. He is, in fact, surfeited with his own ego."
150) Saul on the road to Damascus, where he spontaneously resolves a tremendous amount of internal strife.
151) The author uses the reversible image as a metaphor for our internal opposition and internal struggling that can be resolved, sometimes instantaneously: "Very often we find that at a time of deadlock in life a new idea strikes us and a new perspective begins to open up. If only we wait, after the rain comes fair weather."
Ch 12: Laughter and Zen
152) "A Zen saying goes, 'If your understanding is the same as that of your teacher, you take away half of the teacher's worth: when your understanding surpasses that of your teacher you are worthy to succeed him.' Doing the same thing that one's teacher does will lead only to a decline in the teaching."
153) See also Bergson's theory of laughter and Schopenhauer's "short but fine passage that deals with laughter."
154) Laughter from the point of view of Zen: laughter as a means of liberating internal pressure that comes from nen.
155) Ichi-nen: the "one thought impulse" like a mother fighting to protect her child against the tiger; there's only one thought in her mind, that of protection; a concentrated persistent intention.
156) All nen give us the urge to discharge pressure somehow, even the thought "it's fine today" gives us the pressure to grab someone and ask them "isn't it fine today?"
157) "Zen takes up the slightest action of the mind and makes a great matter of it."
158) "Laughter is one of the great masterpieces of humanity. We invented it to dispose of internal pressure." "I may be made the victim of a practical joke and get angry, but if I can objectively realize the joke of it and laugh with others, my anger will be dissolved before I am aware of it, as if it were secretly replaced."
159) "Laughter draws us close together in intimacy, because our egos are dissolved. The ego shell falls off in the laugh."
160) "To join others and laugh at one's own expense is an abandonment of one's ego in a society."
Ch 13: Pure Existence
161) "We have spoken rather easily in this book of the zero level of consciousness, though it is admittedly no easy matter for the
beginner to reach this state. There, exhalation is almost stopped,
and after a long silence a faint breath stealthily escapes, and then a
slight inhalation occurs. This is the third stage of zazen practice (see Chapter 6 [pages 78-79]). At this time neither first, nor second, nor third nen stirs. What dominates is an inwardly voiced sound, 'Mu,' or its natural modification, 'n. . . ,' which characterizes the depths of samadhi. Here we encounter the purest form of existence. Traditionally is called Original Nature or Buddha Nature; we can also call it 'one-eon nen.'"
162) "There is a koan that runs: 'Pick up the silent rock from the depths of the sea without getting your sleeves wet, and bring it to me.' The silent rock is yourself. You are asked to pick yourself up from the depths of the sea. But first you will have to find yourself at the bottom of the sea, where eternal silence reigns, with no time, space, or causation and no difference between yourself and others."
163) "The activity of consciousness, contrary to expectation, conceals the real nature of existence and represents it in a distorted way."
164) Spring has come round.
A thousand flowers are in their lovely bloom.
For what? For whom?
--Hegidan Roku, Case 5
(The idea here is that flowers don't bloom "for a reason." Existence itself is beautiful, the flower is beautiful and cannot be otherwise. "It is beautiful simply because it is beautiful." "Existence produces its own beauty for itself, and appreciates it by itself.")
165) Thrownness: See the concept from Heidegger's Being and Time. The basic mood of being/existence, where we are "thrown" into this world, "thrown" into existence with all of its frustrations and sufferings.
166) "The animal lives its life blindly; it entertains no doubts. The child, too, lives its life wholeheartedly, because it accepts the positive nature of existence. Only the adult is uneasy, because he has consciousness, which never feels at ease until it has seen through the secret of its own existence. To ask what is the meaning of life is to inquire about the aim of life. But think, does the sun shine with an aim? Has the baby come into the world with an aim? Existence only exists. It is impossible for it to be otherwise."
167) "The delusive nature of consciousness comes from the fact that it necessarily belongs to the individual ego and serves the ego's individual needs. It cannot go beyond this individuality; it cannot think apart from the individual ego. This blind attachment of consciousness to the individual ego brings about topsy-turvy delusive thought, from which stem (1) the world of opposition between oneself and others, (2) the craving for a constant imperishable ego, (3) the unsuccessful groping for existence, (4) vain searching for the root of the ego, (5) a sense of life as being uneasy, uncanny, or even dreadful, and (6) the eventual dejection of the feeling of thrownness."
168) On man's potential to fuse his existence with that of others: first with his mother and family, but later with his lover, and in highly developed cases with friends and even strangers. "Zen takes this foundation to be the beginning of everything."
169) "Ego centralization" versus "ego decentralization": imagining placing oneself in other positions and observing things from different viewpoints; the ability in imagination to change the relationship of one's ego to all kinds of different states of affairs, decentralizing its egocentric views both emotionally and intellectually. Contrast this to the (egocentric) idea of making use of others in the context of "equipment."
170) "Zen understands a being as it is, and not as equipment... If only you can realize the existence in an ugly duckling, you will find the ugliness suddenly turns, to your surprise, into illuminating beauty. Zen finds brilliant exemplification of existence in delinquent people. It
recognizes existence in the animal, the plant, the stone. Zen
declares that matter and mind are one. It accepts things as they are."
171) On the subjectivity of existence, and the "use" of it. What is "use" after all? See this koan about the "way" to Nansen: "A monk traveled a long way to see Nansen and found him cutting grass by the roadside. He asked, 'What is the way to Nansen?' Nansen answered, 'I bought the sickle for thirty cents.' The monk said, 'I do not ask about the sickle, ask about the way to Nansen.' Nansen answered, 'I use it in full enjoyment.'" Note the puns here: the way "to" Nansen vs the way "of" Nansen; this koan is also about ego decentralization: the sickle is not separate, it is not "equipment." Pure existence can never be in the context of equipment.
172) "I use it in full enjoyment." In other words, there's no thrownness.
173) Samadhi from heavy labor. "But if you work in a state of positive samadhi, you experience a purification of both body and mind. If you cannot experience this purification, and you find the work to be forced labor, then thrownness appears."
174) Once you experience existence ("when existence is cognized") only the first step has been taken.
175) Zazen practice involving "many years of tears and sweat." "No peace of mind can be obtained unless it is fought for and one with our own body and mind."
176) Again on piling up concepts: some things simply cannot be explained in declarative knowledge form: "Zen literature abounds in poetical or word-transcending expressions, which may appear to be rather remote from the kind of approach to Zen that we have advocated in this book. Such expressions have come into use because when one wants to demonstrate directly the true nature of existence, one finds that ordinary conceptual description is inadequate."
177) On how Heidegger misses the boat with his book Being In Time, treating many of these issues as equipment, trying to penetrate it directly with language, later in his other works he seems to change his approach and speaks more like a poet; Katsuki Sekida's perspective on Heidegger is interesting here.
178) On language samadhi via koans and other Zen sayings: "Language samadhi figures a great deal in Zen. We touched on the fringe of it when we spoke of Ummon's 'Rice in the bowl, water in the pail.' What a splendid world the Zen student finds himself in when he penetrates Zen phrases and verses, for instance those of the Hekigan Roku or Mumonkan."
Ch 14: Pure Cognition and Kensho
179) "He goes about without even a shred of clothing" as a metaphor for being one stripped of all worldly attachments as well as being fully rid of "topsy-turvy delusive thought."
180) Jo Hoshi, his farewell poem when meeting death by execution (for religious religions he refused to obey an order of the ruler of the state):
"The four elements have originally no master;
The five aggregates are essentially empty.
Now I confront the sword with my head;
Let's do it like hewing the spring breeze."
181) "Examples of pseudo-kensho and even genuine kensho can be found in William James's Varieties of Religious Experience."
182) Interesting way of thinking about cognition from the standpoint of nen-thought: "Descarte's 'cogito ergo sum' seems to be commonly accepted without question. But 'I think' is the action of the first nen. If it is not recognized by the reflecting action of the second and third nen, no cognition of it occurs. One must say, 'I recognize my thinking, therefore I know I am.' ... To put it another way, each nen action is not conscious of itself; unless it is noticed and taken up by a succeeding action of reflection, it is not known at all. Thus, we do not directly catch hold of our own nen or mind. In reality, a posterior nen is already pursuing a prior one."
183) "In order to recover the genuine cognitive faculty, we must accomplish Zen restoration. This is the process of liberating the first nen (sensation) from the control of the third nen, and the third nen from the control of egocentric individuality. As long as this egocentricity persists, we cannot see existence in its pure form. The Zen student trains himself to eliminate his egocentric, individual ego, returning to a condition of absolute mental nakedness."
184) The more I read Eastern thinking the more it just seems like Western thinkers just don't get it. Too much intellectualizing, too much focus on words, semantics, causation, naive empiricism and declarative knowledge. They just don't get it.
Ch 15: Kensho Experiences
185) "'In a moment too short to measure the universe changed on its axis and my search was over.' This is a typical comment of one who has just experienced kensho."
186) "In absolute samadhi, time, space, and causation drop off. And when consciousness comes out of a deep samadhi, it takes time to recover its framework of cognition (time, space, and causation), and the ego is not immediately identified... If the ego is placed in unfamiliar circumstances, its reaction to the environment seems slower than when it is in familiar surroundings. This is because certain subtle interrelationships are usually established between consciousness and a familiar environment... To catch consciousness when it is deprived of its framework of cognition (time, space, and causation) gives one some understanding of what might be called the world of superconsciousness, where there is no ego. Many a Zen student experiences this when he deprives himself of sleep, as in a severe sesshin. And such an experience dimensionally widens his zazen and the capacity of his consciousness."
187) "In the child's mind, time and space are not yet firmly rooted as in an adult's, and cognition outside the ordinary framework of consciousness often occurs."
188) Quite a beautiful discussion of the kensho experience of a "Mr. M": "'I have pondered deeply and have reached a conclusion. I do not want to become great and extraordinary in zen, as one might once have hoped for oneself... I, such a common man, want only to live quietly and do for others what I can, living my remaining years like a myōkōjin [good and pure person] or
a mokujiki-jōnin [a sage who eats raw food]. I do not want kensho. As for the problem of life and death, I do not find in myself much attachment now, and I do not attempt to do such strenuous zazen as before. If wandering thoughts come, let them come. I rather enjoy them.' ...He had reached an advanced condition. If I were to try to make some comment on his words it would involve a long discussion. For the present, it would be enough to quote some Zen sayings: 'I do not seek holiness or enlightenment.' 'I do not avoid dirt, nor want to get rid of attachment.'"
Ch 16: A Personal Narrative
189) The author describes his early life, his fear of death, also his entry into a Zen temple for a sesshin.
190) "Zen is not, in my view, philosophy or mysticism. It is simply a practice of readjustment of nervous activity. That is, it restores the distorted nervous system to its normal functioning. And it must be pursued earnestly."
191) On the author's first experience of samadhi; his first moment of emancipation and wakefulness "Consciousness does not understand at this stage how or why, but it suddenly finds itself relieved of all its earlier agonies. And when consciousness becomes aware of this liberation, rapture comes overwhelmingly."
192) This chapter is probably worth closely rereading if I ever continue forward in this domain, or if I ever attend a sesshin one day.
193) He tries to recapture his kensho experience; trying to grasp water in his fist: "I decided to take a new step and make a frontal attack on absolute samadhi... If only in those days I had known how to conduct my body and mind, I should have been spared the hardships I underwent. It took thirty years before I began to feel as if I had attained a tiny understanding of Zen." (!!!!)
Ch 17: Stages in Zen Training
194) A discussion of two classics of Zen literature: the traditional series of pictures called "In Search of the Missing Ox" and the "Five Ranks or Situations of Tozan."
1) Starting the search for the ox: The ox is one's own true nature, to search for the ox is to investigate this true nature, "Now imagine a youth standing at the door of Zen in search of his true nature: he is at the stage of starting the search for the ox."
2) Finding the footprints: Practicing zazen and reading Zen literature, he has acquired a certain understanding of Zen, though not yet kensho. "Now he is confident that if he follows this path he will eventually reach his destination."
3) Catching a glimpse of the ox: An early instance of a kensho-like experience. "Now in the third stage we have a situation analogous to that in which a beginner in painting finds his work admitted, by a lucky chance, to an exhibition of the highest class. His painting is, of course, excellent, but it does not prove his ability as an artist. Everything depends on his future endeavors." A lucky leap forward, a step of progress, yet there is a trap in the illusion that you think you're better at this than you are.
4) Catching the ox: Kensho is confirmed but the man "...cannot control his mind as he wishes... He is exhausted by the struggle against his passions and desires, which seem uncontrollable." In fact, because he cannot control his mind well or consistently, his moments of kensho seem more like the cause of new afflictions!
5) Taming the ox: "After great struggles the ox has at last begun to be moderately tame."
6) Riding the ox home: "The ox is now tame and obedient. Even if you let go of the bridle, it walks quietly homeward, in the evening calm, with you sitting peacefully on its back."
7) Ox lost, man remaining: "Now kensho, enlightenment, even Zen
itself are forgotten. No matter what holy feeling or marvelous state of
mind you may experience, the moment you start to concern yourself
with it and become conscious of it, it starts to be a burden.
Let events happen as they may, and simply let them stream by.
When things have happened, they have happened; when they have
gone, they have gone. The moment you settle down to some fixed
view of things, decay is already setting in. "Abiding nowhere, let your mind work."
8) No ox, no man: A new stage where both man and ox are forgotten. This stage corresponds to "both man and circumstances are deprived" (see pages 93-94) where your ego and circumstances vanish.
9) Returning to the source: When you emerge from the state of "No ox, no man" you find you have simply returned to the source: you find the same old world you saw yesterday. "The hillsides are covered with cherry blossoms;
the valleys are full of spring flowers. But each of the flowers has its
own face and talks to you. The things you see, the sounds you hear
are all Buddhas." The stage is in some ways identical to the third stage of "Finding the ox." "There is a Zen saying, “Ever shuttling from beginning to end.” Your
attainment is deepened by repeatedly coming back to the start, to
the state of the beginner, and then retracing the path along which
you have progressed. In this way your maturity becomes unshakably
firm. Even Hakuin Zenji tells us that when he was over sixty he had
his satori over again."
10) In town with helping hands: He mingles with the world. He goes barefoot. He cares nothing about how he dresses. All this symbolizes his mental nakedness. His only thought is to bring joy to others.
195) Then the author reiterates these 10 steps in the context of a series of steps in attaining samadhi:
1) The beginner is first initiated in how to sit, how to regulate his breath and regulate the activity of his mind. At the stage he is naive, compliant, and intensely impressionable. He treats everything with gravity, everything makes a strong impression in his mind. "...this is very important and precious, although he may not realize
it. It is much superior to a poor, commonplace kensho." "This beginner's mindfulness should never be lost, all through your training. Unfortunately, many students do lose it later on, substituting for it various 'meritorious' achievements to which they often attach great importance. The Zen student is supposed to leave the meritorious region and enter a meritless one."
2) His mind begins to become quieter. "He realizes that zazen may be a means of quieting a disturbed mind." He is surprised by the difficulty of the apparently simple practice of counting the breath, he feels he is far from genuine kensho.
3) He occasionally experiences a kind of samadhi but it is unstable. The author also distinguishes here between "ladder Zen" (a step by step advance in progress) and sudden direct satori.
4) You'll have a major experience of deep samadhi, and when you emerge from it "suddenly you will find heaven and Earth come tumbling down." The habitual way of consciousness has dropped off and you are now awakened to a new world. That is kensho: ken means seeing into something, sho means one's true essence.
5) "Once the ox was caught, you thought you had it for good. But it was not so... There is no remedy but to try again and again."
6) A discussion of the bodily sensations and the process of entering samadhi. "The skin reacts very sensitively to this novel experience. A thrill-like sensation that runs through the entire body is experienced." Here the student has achieved maturity and enjoys the freedom of his body and mind.
7) Shikantaza reigns ("just sit" meditation). "You pay no particular attention to breathing, posture and so on... On the plane of the normal activity of
consciousness, working, talking, even riding in a jolting bus, you do
not lose your positive samadhi. Formerly you and samadhi were two--were separated. You attained samadhi with effort. You were
working on a dual system. But now this is not so. 'Man' is
dominating. The realm of the mind has been brought under man’s
rule. Hence, 'Ox Lost, Man Remaining.'"
8) "No-thought" samadhi, a pitch dark world of absolute samadhi: "No Ox, No Man"
9) The activity of consciousness starts up once more with a cleansed condition of mind where the condition of kensho has become permanent. "You find Buddha's face wherever you turn your eyes." "Until yesterday you took great pains to develop the solemn state of absolute samadhi and fiercely checked all activity of consciousness. Now you let consciousness gaily open into full bloom."
10) "Finally the world of antagonism has dissolved; the habitual way of consciousness has totally dropped away. You no longer wear the
old ceremonial dress. You go barefoot, with chest bare. Everything is
welcome. Wandering thoughts? All right! This is the Buddha’s great
dhyāna (meditation) in the busiest activity of consciousness. You
enjoy perfect freedom of playful, positive samadhi."
196) On the pathos of life and on the pathos of certain realizations that hit us as we grow up: when we first realized that we will die; when we first realized that we would lose our loved ones. These are important critical moments in childhood.
197) See also in adulthood how we feel a kind of homesickness, a kind of yearning, that infiltrates our whole being--something we cannot quite catch hold of.
198) On the dilemma between the frustrations of actual life and the separateness distinction and hostility that result from this frustration versus love (of our fellow men, of life with all its frustrations, of this time we get on Earth, etc). Is this dilemma our human fate? "Constant practice and experience of absolute samadhi give you the vision that enables you to see Buddha nature with your naked eyes."
199) Tozan's Five Ranks: (This has to do with "matters after enlightenment," with the cultivation of holy buddhahood)
First Rank: Mirror of Wisdom: everyone has this, but it's veiled because of our topsy-turvy delusive thought, in absolute samadhi the veil is cleared away. This condition constitutes Tozan's First Rank.
Second Rank: The Wisdom of Equality: you transcend the limits of the world. You cannot stay in the darkness or thoughtless condition of absolute samadhi, you must return to the world and live in positive samadhi.
Third Rank: "Coming from Sho": first we alternate between the first and second ranks but then eventually we arrive at a synthesis of the two phases which is represented by the Third Rank, where we abolish entirely the dualistic ideas of sho and hen, and return to simply existing.
Hen in sho,
sho in hen,
coming from sho
Fourth Rank: Perfection in Hen: "The Fourth Rank is reached when you acquire maturity in both understanding and demonstrating Zen truth. It is in this rank that
your consciousness is polished and emits a shining light, like that of
jewels. The activity of your consciousness is developed into a living
masterpiece."... "For the person mature in zen, comparably exquisite actions and postures arise spontaneously, without artifice. His consciousness and his every action shine like jewels in the fire."
"Every person and everything around you, and their appearance, manners, and gestures, which reflect themselves in your eyes, are nothing but Buddha and Bodhisattva. The person who is sitting in front of you, though he may turn into your enemy and fall upon you, can never be hated when you have insight into his life."
Fifth Rank: Perfection in Integration: "As a great river empties itself at last into the ocean, leaving no trace behind, so the mature Zen master forgets all his merits and achievements and seems to return to the old state of blessed ignorance." "He unites everything, sitting quietly by the fire."
200) You will cycle through these ranks: the first to the second, third, fourth and fifth, and then coming once more back to the first. Each rank gains in profundity with each repetition.
1: Hen in Sho
At dead of night, with no moon,
Meeting, yet not knowing each other,
You have a vague memory of old days.
2. Sho in Hen
At dawn the old woman finds the ancient mirror,
Immediate and intimate, but nothing particular;
There’s no need to search for your own face.
3. Coming from Sho
In emptiness is the way found, pure and clear;
Don’t mention the name of the emperor;
You have the universe under your sway.
4. Perfection in Hen
Two swords are crossed; the spirits of the warrior—
Like a lotus flower shining in the fire—
Soar high, penetrating through space.
5. Perfection in Integration
Falling into neither u nor mu, who can join the master?
While others strive to rise above the common level,
He unites everything, sitting quietly by the fire.
201) The author ends the book with famous episode of the Sixth Patriarch, Hui-neng, who experienced a sudden illumination when hearing a man reciting a sutra containing the phrase "Abiding nowhere, let the mind work." He then traveled to see the Fifth Patriarch, completing his training so rapidly that he incurred the wrath and jealousy of all the other monks; then chased by a monk named Wei-ming, to whom he said: "'When you think neither of good nor of evil, at that very moment, what is your Original Face?' The words went penetrating through Wei-ming’s mind. In an
instant, he realized his own nature. He was illuminated throughout
his entire body. There can be such a critical moment, when one’s
mind is completely converted. It happened to Saul of Tarsus on the
road to Damascus. Persecution, internal strife--and then there
comes conversion. One’s old way of thinking is totally swept away.
When Wei-ming cried out, 'Lay brother! Lay brother! I have come for
the Dharma, not for the robe!' his mind had already been converted,
and the Sixth Patriarch’s words were able to have their effect."
202) "Bodhidharma has no beard, no eyes, no nose, no mouth, no face, no hands, no legs, and no body."
Vocabulary:
Samadhi: a state of intense concentration achieved through meditation, where the body and mind are "fallen off"
Positive samadhi: like a flow state, you're engrossed in an outward activity
Absolute samadhi: inward self mastery-based samadhi
Jishu-zammai: self-mastery
Kensho: "realization," to look at oneself and the objects of the external world in the context of pure existence, "satori" (literally: ken "seeing" - sho "essense"; thus "seeing the essence").
Gidan: the “ball of doubt” that fuels a monk's drive to practice and to attain enlightenment (literally "ball of doubt").
Zazen: sitting meditation
Sesshin: a period of intensive meditation (zazen) in a Zen monastery. While the daily routine in the monastery requires the monks to meditate several hours a day, during a sesshin they devote themselves almost exclusively to zazen practice
Shikantaza: "just sit" meditation, not requiring an object or breath. Doing only zazen whole-heartedly or "single-minded sitting"
Nen: "thought impulse"
Kanna: to work on a koan in zazan training, "seeing into the topic"
Mushin: no mind, no ego
Thrownness: a concept from Heidegger where we are "thrown" into this world, "thrown" into existence with all of its frustrations and sufferings, as opposed to experiencing life and reality in a state of samadhi.
Reading List:
Katsuki Sekida: PDF copy of Zen Habits: Methods and Philosophy
**Philip Kapleau: The Three Pillars of Zen
Alan Watts: The Way of Zen
Daisetz Suzuki: Introduction to Zen Buddhism
Daisetz Suzuki: The Training of the Zen Buddhist Monk
Daisetz Suzuki: The Awakening of Zen
Daisetz Suzuki: Manual of Zen Buddhism
Robert C. Zaehner: Mysticism: Sacred and Profane
Arthur Waley: Zen Buddhism and Its Relation to Art (essay)
**Iris Murdoch: The Sovereignty of Good
Dogen Zenji: Rules of Zazen
Edmund Husserl: The Essential Husserl: Basic Writings in Transcendental Phenomenology
Setcho: The Blue Cliff Record (Hekigan Roku), trans by Thomas Cleary ("one of the greatest Zen classics")
***Zenkei Shibayama: Zen comments on the Mumonkan
Henri Bergson: Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic (copy on archive.org)
Heidegger: Being and Time
William James: Varieties of Religious Experience