Part one is here.
In his masterful book The Practice of Zen, Garma C. C. Chang tells us that a Chinese term for Zen is “the teaching of Mind.”
This, he adds, “is probably the best summary of all that Zen stands for, for what it teaches is the way to a full realization of Mind.”
Okay. But what does this actually mean?
Chang answers with a simple framework that takes us straight to the heart of Zen — a model of the human mind with three layers.
First is the “outer” layer — our subjective experience of thinking and feeling.
When asked to define who we are, many of us instinctively point here: “I” am the sum of my beliefs, memories, desires, fantasies, and emotions — all the contents of “my” mind.
This is our first mistake, says Chang. Zen teachers dismiss this layer of Mind — the subject matter of most Western psychology — as relatively uninteresting. Zen points instead to depths beyond the ever-changing and chaotic content of this first layer.
The second layer of Mind, says Chang is awareness. At this level we simply notice content of the first layer.
This level of mind is not stained by anything it observes. In The Lazy Man’s Guide to Enlightenment, Thaddeus Golas says it well: “The awareness of confusion is not confused. The awareness of insanity is not insane.”
Ajahn Sumedho describes awareness as the spacious aspect of Mind. He explains it with an analogy:
Consider an empty room. This room has space for anything that enters or leaves it. People come and go. Objects are placed in the room and then removed. But the space inside the room is neutral, never harmed by any of this commotion.
Self-awareness is like this. It “contains” all mental content. It offers infinite and impartial space for any thought or emotion to arise and pass.
This level of Mind is sometimes called “cosmic consciousness” and described as the end of the spiritual path. In Zen, however, it still lies within sangsara, the realm of suffering.
Zen practice breaks through to innermost core of Mind — emptiness. Chang calls it “perfectly free and thoroughly nonsubstantial illuminating-Voidness.”
The Heart Sutra, chanted daily in countless Zen monasteries, describes it:
…form does not differ from Emptiness; Emptiness does not differ from form. That which is form is Emptiness; That which is Emptiness, form.
This is a paradox, and we can unpack it.
When we look at a person or object, what we ordinarily see is physical form — what we can see, hear, touch, taste, and smell. All this seems so obviously real.
But according to Zen, all forms are completely empty. They both exist and do not exist.
This sounds like gibberish until we remember one thing.
When the Buddha described things as empty, he meant that they don’t exist permanently and independently. All forms are interconnected. No person or thing exists separately, apart from everything else. And, all forms are constantly changing.
Consider your own existence. In order for you to stay alive, certain conditions must be met. You need food and water, or example. You also need an atmosphere filled with oxygen and temperatures that neither too hot nor too cold.
In short, you are deeply embedded in the world. If the conditions that sustain human life cease to exist, then so do you. You arise mutually with other people and countless aspects of our environment.
Emptiness is clearly different than nothingness or non-existence. We exist and are empty. In fact, said the Buddha, it is precisely because we exist that we are empty.
It’s one thing to get this on an intellectual level. The point of Zen practice, however, is to drive this insight deeply into every cell of our being.