Chapter 6
On Zen
The stranger asked me, upon seeing my beads, do you meditate? I replied, not sure what you mean, what exactly is meditation? He was baffled, and responded, you know, sitting still, breathing, and clearing your mind. Well, I responded, I am aware of my breath, and I use it wisely, I am aware of myself while I am sitting, standing, and in motion, and I am aware of how my nature is expressed, but I am not aware of any reason to consider all this meditation. You can not take something, so "is" and then wrap in ways it "is not", cloaking it in majesty, when in reality, it is child's play. He seemed offended, and so I then reassured him : focusing on breath is important, as well as finding rest. It just has nothing to do with awakening, cultivation, and virtue. That requires not rest, but momentum, action, practice, and proficiency. Far too many are resting far too much, and they have not earned their rest."
-VOLT, on meditation.
Introduction
I now arrive at the second term in the title of my treatise : Niō Zen, 仁王, Beyond Sissy Buddhism.
In chapter 5, on Niō (仁王), the main expression of my treatise was translated and given some coverage and insight. One can call such a treatment basic, and rather an overview.
In that chapter, the reader more than likely has begun to understand that my concept of Buddhism and the variables it is composed of is neither orthodox, nor mainstream.
That which is mainstream is that born from the essence of brute forces, and that of humans.
I used the character ren (人) to denote humans, and altered the expression of the character of ni (仁) to represent that of Maan, or Manu.
A quick explanation of this is warranted. That which is called human is bestial and primal. It is animal, endowed with abstract thought, yet still rather confined to a base nature that is hungry and aggressive towards acquisition of resources, but has little consideration of how they are acquired, sustained, defended, and that of what values to hold outside the realm of resources.
From humans, a mutation has occurred under the right conditions. These "mutants" are called Manu (仁). They have innate to them a more tamed nature, where the passions, the urges, and the hunger is not as strong. In the absence of this primary human condition of being urge based, the Manu has a mind more freed up for consideration, introspection, looking into their own nature and the nature of others, and that of contemplating a more meaningful, even if invented, form of existing.
It can be argued that the primal urges of humans were needed to survive primal conditions. The mutant Manu, however, would have been guided by curiosity, risk management, and innovation, versus mere reaction.
The urges of humans have them trapped with just that, a reactionary mind. The difference in Manu is that they have a mind to perceive and conceive, with the inclination to bring that conception to accuracy, testing and assuring its validity, and then developing strategies and tactics on how to implement their knowledge in the present condition of life, and in the future condition, an act of prudence as a virtue.
Manu is methodical, intelligent, systematic, curious, and adventurous, while humans are timid, emotional, reactionary, hungry, very dissatisfied, often malcontent, and practice mental evasion and post-rationalization of their actions and impact.
As I explained in Chapter 5, on Niō (仁王), I am using this character, 丨二, to represent the Core Investigation (CI) my treatise is concerned with. This Core Investigation (CI) (丨二) is not able to be found throughout the web, cyber space, or resting in some far-off temple with monks in their halls.
The reason why is because Buddhism, as an institution and an idea, with its 520 million members, is populated by humans, not Manu; this, 人 , not that, 仁.
If Buddhism is the doctrine 丨二, then it is a doctrine under the authority of 人 (ren), therefore making it a doctrine translated by the essence of 人. So then when you, as the reader seeker, move to engage a doctrine, you will have to first pass those having the authority, monopoly, or dominion over it. This is to say, there are gatekeepers to all doctrines, and 人 are the present gatekeepers to the Buddhist doctrine. The path then is blocked by 人丨二.
Now, this chapter is on Zen. Like all Buddhism, Zen is under the authority and gatekeepers of the masses, who are human, not Manu. I believe that at the core and root of all Buddhistic thought was that of Manu, and when they acted as gatekeepers, they did a poor job, and humans came in, took their momentum and philosophical forms, bastardized and butchered them to match the human essence, not the Manu essence.
Though for any with any clear thought, the Buddhistic philosophy is clearly not practiced by, or used by the masses for true attainment, but instead, is simply dressing a pig up as a prom date, with some makeup and gloss, and pretending it is something other than a pig.
Buddhism, like all world religions, had to become mediocre and washed of its difficulties and substance, so as to become all-inclusive, popular, and somewhat profitable.
Zen is the worse of these. Zen, as a doctrine (人丨二), has been made perhaps the most ridiculous of Buddhist rendering there is. Some accuse it of being anti-intellectual, and I disagree, because no intellectual would truly fall for it. So it houses those "fake-ass" Western hippies, artificial spiritualists, and yoga charlatans who declare stretching has somehow become spiritual. So then Zen, like yoga, has been wrapped to say that mere breathing, sitting still, and trying to trap thought, or let thought flow or go, is now a spiritual act. They dress up in monk's garb, shave their head, and sit facing a wall, or sit in a chair, and try their hardest to don their best act, their best expression of serenity and "no mind".
Charlatans are funny, if it was not for how many minds they corrupt with their nonsense. Zen, like other Buddhistic thought, has the Manu essence buried in it. If you enter into a "meditation" hall and kick over the hippy Zen master, then mentally draw a circle around where you stand, and sit there with all your might, then you have practiced more Zen in that moment than that soft and effeminate monk has practiced the entirety of his pathetic life.
Now, this will offend soft and effeminate Buddhists, and when it does, a point is proven. Bodhidharma is the character said to have helped bring Zen to China, as Chan Buddhism, and then with the mixing of Taoism, it came to be the transmission of Zen throughout the world, seen (kind of) today.
Well, Bodhidharma would have kicked over the monks of today, and with might, slammed himself down in their space, "mean grilling" all of the monks in the room. This was his nature as a Manu, where wrath would come to the lazy, the idle, and the masquerading pathetic charlatans garbed in monk's robes. He whipped the monks of Shaolin into action, hardness, and mental focus, and he did it with an element of Zen, and that of the Vajra sense and essence, not found anywhere in Zen today.
Like I revealed in the first chapter, the nature and essence of interpretation is founded upon them doing the interpretation, and their own nature.
Zen is all about ontology. It is an ontological answer to Buddhistic thought. There is no Zen without looking into one's nature, and there is no Buddhahood without the mastering of one's nature, and there is no state of being awakened that is not that which implies awakened to one's own nature, and the origin and nature of the manifested, and that of other beings.
Zen is not anti-intellectual : its gatekeepers are, and this is because their essence is human, not Manu, and their minds are not suited for ontological/identity recognition, and instead, they seek to escape this world of bodies and thought, and make themselves an empty creature of little thought, and little character.
This chapter is about defining Zen from the essence of Manu, an essence closer to mine than that of the human essence. I am of the belief that the Buddha was of Manu essence, possibly Ratient, and that many moved the Manu natured philosophy about, trying to find it a safe home, away from human mediocrity and subversion. Many branches of Buddhistic thought were born from these constant pursuits of reformation and quality control. Vajrayana was one of them, it failed. Zen was one of them, it failed. And Niō (仁王) was one of them, and it had yet to be born.
I am not a reformist. I know why they failed to preserve the right essence. Their error was the inability to distinguish between 人 (human) and 仁 (Manu), and the ever so rare 王 (Sage).
Coming into Buddhistic thought with the nature of the third (王, or Sage) combined with the condition of today's modern sciences, data stream and access, I have not erred in this ability to distinguish between the kinds of hominins that walk this Earth. I will not err in the same, because I will demonstrate the difference, and declare that this Zen is 仁 Zen, that this Zen is Niō (仁王) Zen. You do not see the character 人 (ren) within that title, however, it is the root character of 仁 (ni). It is the root, because in 仁 and 王 is the primary aspect of being a hominin, but that primal element is tamed, and made use of for advantage, and is not the master framing the entire use of the mind and its motivations.
"In Kauai, last year, I was at one of the beaches, and the rain was coming down hard. A charlatan monk was sitting under a tree with a purple umbrella, and effeminate purple sandals. He was looking for a passerby to lay his stakes in the ground for his tent, because, he declared, for him to do so was against the rules of a Buddhist monk, due to the harm it could cause. I went over to this monk and issued up a challenge to his essence and nature, asking him why he was a monk, and what is a monk. As I stood there speaking to him, I had no umbrella or tool to shelter me from the rain. I stood in the rain, letting it pour upon me. The timid, docile, and soft monk noticed something odd was happening. The rain drops were hitting my skin, but they were beading, gathering, and falling off of me. In essence, I was not getting wet at all. His eyes grew big, and his mind began to think more of this Man before him, whose questions were clear and full of insight, and most of all, had some field around him causing the water to bead away, as if protected by the invisible cobra who protected the Buddha. The monk proved in the questioning that he was not concerned with cultivating or developing a mind characterized by being awakened. He was instead resting in the rules and guidelines of a monk's life. To him, monkhood meant a bigger and more exact daddy and mommy to guide his everyday decision making process. With his rules, he was free, because he did not have to face the fact that he did not know how to think, and how to develop his life force. In the absence of self-power, he surrendered all power to an idea. He could not get past the fact that the rain was rolling off of me, and I asked of him what could be the possible reason. His answer was that I must be protected from the elements because of my immense insight. I decided it was time for me to let him in on my little secret of the beading water : I had simply, that morning, smeared a great deal of shea butter upon my skin, as I do every morning, and sometimes at night. The shea butter is quite repellent to water, and beading was the natural reaction between the nature, the identity of the butter and the identity of water. Identity is everything, and nothing is without identity. His costume did not match his identity, but in failing to know his identity, he could not identify what his path ought to be in life, so he took the one that looked the most impressive. He was denying himself life, because he had no science for living. This, I would come to know over the week of running into him in Kauai, and partaking in hours of discourse."
-VOLT, on fool-rus, those charlatan gurus
Treating Zen is like treating a sickness. Meaning, to speak on something so popular and considered so familiar is to have to enter into the fray of the minds of those admirers. These minds are sick. They are sick in entering into a system they declare is non-conceptual, and ought to have no word in development. This is not simply lacking in the essence of Manu : this is in fact even being sick as a human.
A human has innate to its nature that of abstract thought. Abstract thinking is not an option or a voluntary action in humans. It is automatic, it is necessary, and it is the way the mind runs, no matter what you wish for the mind. To seek to escape this, and/or label it wrong, problematic, or the source of suffering is simply sick, as it is not looking into one's nature that is occurring, but it is denying one's nature, resisting one's nature, and seeking to negate what can not be negated.
This treatment of Zen is conceptual. All thought is conceptual. All humans and beyond actions are born from conceptual holdings, and/or conceptual contemplation. There is no aspect of a human and beyond Sense of Self and Life that is outside of conceptual. The entirety of human and beyond thought is symbolic. The emotions themselves and the urges are felt, but when the human feels them, the human assigns meaning to them in a post-rational format, therefore, moving through conception to seek to figure out the cause, or at least, invent their own sense of the cause and effect.
The human mind and beyond (that means the Manu and the Sage) function with the same root operating system. It first, with the employment of the senses, perceives, then the mind is stimulated into automatically constructing a phantasm of the perceived, or that is, a recept. Then from this recept (not the percept), the abstract reasoning faculty draws away, pulls from, that is to say, abstracts from the recept generalizations, attributes, and characteristics, and forms an idea of these things, and this idea is called the concept.
For many reading this, this will be the first time this process is explained. I have met Zen admirers who have uttered the notion of Zen being outside the conceptual, and I have asked them to prove up on their understanding of the mechanics of conceptualizing, and to then explain how there can be any mental function of humans and beyond that is not conceptual. Easy to say, their sense of ontology and epistemology was lacking, and they had no clue about the words and ideas they espoused to.
As an investigative and experimental behavioral philosopher, I can be called a scientist. Now, I am not a reductionist scientist, in the sense that I do not believe that identifying the nature of the parts is always the way to identify the nature of the whole. This sense of the whole is a valid sense. But the wholeness of a thing is defined by the set of attributes and characteristics it expresses, in this of the corporeal realm. This means that there is not a hidden otherly thing to be sought after. The essence, the nature, the identity of a thing lies in its characteristics, not its invisible soul.
This is not to say there is no soul/self, though in Buddhism, this is what is expressed and translated over to English. However, I have yet to see English translations rendered by humans (and mostly nihilistic hippy humans) ever portray the wording and meaning of Buddhism without their tainted mental sickness playing a role. There is certainly a self, this is not an illusion. But the persona of the self is often a construct and is composed of a great deal of illusion. This, the matter of character and its falsehoods and illusions, is more accurate to the intellect of the Buddha, not matters of the soul and self, but that is not for this treatise.
If there is a soul, and if there is a substance called self, and self is not that which is individually manifested, the actor/agent of action, then that matter is not meant to be explored with language, symbolism, and logic.
What do I mean?
The spiritual realm may well exist. Too, there may be other dimensions of reality. If this was found to be so, reality would not be considered to have changed, but instead, one's understanding of it would change.
Reality is real, but this is not to say one has a real sense of reality. These are the issues. The whole brain in a vat way of thinking comes off seemingly intelligent, but it is not, when it is proposed to raise doubt or skepticism. How do you know we are not brains in a vat in some lab being stimulated by a machine to conceive of this world and reality?
The answer is simple. For starters, he who affirms something to be so has the burden of proof. No one has proven to me I am a brain in a vat, receiving shock stimulation, and not this mind in a body. Furthermore, one can think clearly that even if I was this brain in a vat, I do not have to deal with that condition, and see no sign of it, yet this condition my mind is playing upon requires I make decision aimed at sustaining and furthering this life. Therefore, that I must make decisions, one's decision process must come to be informed. Any information and consideration that does not cultivate and/or help develop my science and art of decision making is irrelevant to thought.
If my body is attached to a machine feeding it energy, and what my mind conceives of is false, this would be irrelevant. Being told this and convinced of it would change nothing. I would still need to make decisions in regard to navigating this realm of conception.
There are many humans who are born innately against themselves, due to some clock of nature declaring they are defected and ought to check out. This leads them to low self-esteem, mental illness, and the desire to end their suffering, that they equate to life in general. For them to state this can not be real, that is, reality is an illusion, would make sense, because they were not stacked with, or bred into physical beings suited for living. They were born with death as an answer because nature is cruel, from a moral standpoint.
However, I was born with the innate desire to not only live, but to strive for quality of living, and eventually and hopefully, tech permitting, immortality. I have been given by nature every advantage for living. I was made brilliant in mind, gifted with insight, and given a physical form of a Warrior able to carry and protect my mind, and perhaps, my soul, into who knows where.
Sense of Self shapes Sense of Life, and Sense of Life shapes your philosophical inclinations, if any of human thought could be called philosophical with sincerity.
In this breakdown of Zen, I will dig deep into the history of the terms. There is no Zen outside of terms, and no terms that are not concepts. It is absurd to think of anything as inconceivable, and then declare or set out to practice it.
If the Buddha was awakened, then he would have known to not promote and speak of inconceivable things. He would have known that it is foolish to affirm a thing that can not be demonstratively proven. It has been well-thought-of that he was a man of demonstration. The trouble is that the life sciences and arts are not so easy to demonstrate, because they are on the matter of intrinsic value, versus that of transitive value. I will not deviate now to explain this, as I have already strayed far too much.
But in essence, you can not have demonstrated for you something you, yourself, can not come to embody, and make sense of through your own essence, when the entirety of the thing in question is concerned with essence.
Zen is that thing entirely concerned with essence, one's nature, and the cultivation and development towards the embodiment of Buddha essence. Buddha essence is the goal of Buddhism, and Zen is a set of considerations that tries to get one there through the discovery, first, of their own nature, and then hacking that nature.
This, perhaps, has never been said about Zen, and that is, perhaps, why my Vajrapani has been in full force as of late, and taking control of my direction in production.
There was a science of life in Zen, but it was more questions, curiosities, and investigations, not sure things and conclusions. I will now present that science, and make ready for the reader the access to those approximations to truth that my Vajra analytical mind can illuminate, sword in hand, coiled dragon ready to unravel.
Niō (仁王) Zen is Zen under Niō (仁王), not Niō (仁王) under Zen. This means it is not the human essence and nature here defining Zen, but it is the essence and nature of Manu and beyond, as represented in the Niō (仁王).
So then as this term and discipline comes to be defined in this context, so then does it become added to the Core Investigation (CI) 丨二 as a layered element.
Technical unfoldment of Zen
"They say Zen is non-conceptual. I say they are sick, and do not understand the nature of their own being, and that of others', and therefore, as gatekeepers to Zen, they are no more than the infectious who suffer their own madness, looking to spread it to those who may have started off healthy. Let them who understand the absurdity of declaring anything to be non-conceptual seek not the gates of mainstream Zen, but instead, travel the path to come before the Niō (仁王), study their way, come to embody their way, and seek out Vajrapani to guide them up the stairs of the mind to become duly ready and prepared to pass through the gates that lead to the "Quest" of self."
-VOLT
I shall begin first as I always do : with that of defining the terms in use. More often than not, one can come to see that the terms, under review or dispute, when rendered in English, were not even close to being an accurate rendering of the original term to begin with.
In the case of Zen, it is called to mean meditation, and the entirety of its institutions are focused on teaching and leading others into meditation, that is to say, "check out" sessions.
First, let's hear a popular way of speaking of Zen, and meditation.
Meditation-
Source : popular yoga circle in the West.
"Meditation is a precise technique for resting the mind and attaining a state of consciousness that is totally different from the normal waking state. It is the means for fathoming all the levels of ourselves and finally experiencing the center of consciousness within. Meditation is not a part of any religion; it is a science, which means that the process of meditation follows a particular order, has definite principles, and produces results that can be verified."
First I wanted to show how a yoga center would define it for their practitioners. Of course, they believe they can teach and lead through meditation, and so they go on to stress that meditation is based upon definite principles and that its results can be verified.
Interesting about this description—likely written by a soft effeminate male or a little girl in a woman's body—is that it says poorly some actual elements of concern, in regard to Zen, that they call meditation.
-That of "levels of ourselves".
This wording makes it ambiguous, and leads to the user in language having not a place of exactness to employ their brain. The actual expression that is useful is that of discovering attributes and characteristics innate to one's nature. And these attributes and characteristics make up one's innate identity as opposed to one's conditioned personality. This becomes useful, and I will of course provide lessons on this matter, when relevant. This is not me saying the same thing as the little girl. She actually said nothing.
-That of "center of consciousness".
Consciousness is not a variable that can be deduced and/or truly expressed in the corporeal realm as of yet. Therefore, it is being affirmed that to this, one needs to "meditate" as a means to look deeper within and access a form of awareness not experienced in normal awoke daily states. So this is the notion of meditation brings you into yourself. Of course, this is not a matter of the intellect to them, this is a matter of simply "looking" and breathing the mind in through the lungs, and "spotting" something. In essence, this is children who will invent and pretend at a discovery when they come to find out what they are learning is not a method that can in fact produce illumination of "the center of consciousness".
-That of "resting of the mind".
In these terms, this is actually what is occurring, and the truth of their exercises. In essence, the exercises concerning breathing, and the calming of the mind, borrowed over from Dào-ism (道), are effective and useful as bringing about stress reduction. Stress kills, really. Stress produces cortisol, and there are techniques, diet elements, and exercises that indeed can have, when made habitual, a major impact on reducing, and/or elevating one's ability to cope with stress. There is no doubt to this, but that is the actual and only verifiable element of what they are saying here in defining meditation.
Taking the one verifiable does not verify the entirety of the claim and statement. This same writer stated that others say meditation means concentration, thinking, consideration, contemplation, and so on, which it does, yet she dismissed that as false, and then presented this previous definition.
What shapes how one will come to understand and use the terms they do?
Some start with what they wish to say and express. Then they seek out what they "feel" are the best words to serve this interest. This is making words and expressions servants of wants, hunger, needs, and desires, often motivated by emotions.
Another way is to learn the precision and depth of ideas, and then let revealed principles guide one's thinking and development. This is drastically different, and there is plenty of the former way of using language among the masses of humans vomiting about, and not as much as the latter, which I have proposed. So I shall provide.
English term meditate etymology-
1580s, "to ponder," back-formation from meditation, or else from Latin meditatus, past participle of meditari "to meditate, think over, reflect, consider," frequentative form of PIE root *med- "take appropriate measures." Related: Meditated; meditating.
I used to love this word when I thought everyone knew what it actually meant. I used it often as a young fella, till I started to hear hippy mentally sick Buddhists and New Agers using it, then I stopped altogether.
Definition of meditate-
1. A devotional exercise of, or leading to contemplation.
2. A contemplative discourse, often on a religious or philosophical subject.
3. A musical theme treated in a meditative manner.
I can dig both of these, and as one can see, the term has not changed in its meaning from that of its etymology. So what's the problem? How do the New Agers, and that of Buddhism and Eastern thought admirers come to their definition of meditation and that of center of consciousness, and layers of self?
Simply put, when Zen and Buddhism were being translated, translators sought to provide single word translations for Eastern concepts, which themselves were not often developed in this sense and with such clarity, as is common to new philosophy guided by better language tools of precision.
So then I will now give Zen and Buddhism a treatment, and see if meditate and/or the definition the little girl yoga teacher provided can be produced from insight into the Eastern thought systems.
The terms of use are these two : dhyāna (Sanskrit) or jhāna (Pali). So this should be simple. These are the source terms for their conception of meditation (or that is, their non-conception of meditation? Hard to get that right.)
The little girl yogi did, however, say meditation belongs to no religion or system, but is a science. Either this is a cute way of saying, “we know we got it all wrong in regard to Eastern thought, but we are still right, because this goes beyond those systems”, or simply put, most of them are anti-sacred, and anti-religious to begin with, and subvert what they encounter of value.
"In Buddhism, Dhyāna (Sanskrit) or Jhāna (Pali) is a series of cultivated states of mind, which lead to a "state of perfect equanimity and awareness (upekkhii-sati-piirisuddhl)."
Well, that is indeed a different definition than the common one on meditation, in yoga and Buddhist circles. In fact, it almost seems to have some greater depth to it. In order to discover this greater depth, I will teach the reader a major esoteric technique, called defining the terms within the term or definition.
Cultivated mind is key, and I will return to that; for now, let's explore equanimity.
"Equanimity (Latin: æquanimitas, having an even mind; aequus even; animus mind/soul) is a state of psychological stability and composure which is undisturbed by experience of or exposure to emotions, pain, or other phenomena that may cause others to lose the balance of their mind. The virtue and value of equanimity is extolled and advocated by a number of major religions and ancient philosophies."
So a simple search of trying to make sense of dhyāna (Sanskrit) or jhāna (Pali) yields the result of this :
Dhyāna is a series, that is to say, a set of attitudes that are mental, or that is, cultivated states of mind. Cultivated towards what aim? That of awareness, vigilance, and equanimity. This is to say, holding as its primary virtue a state of psychological or mental mind stability and composure in being and character, which is UNDISTURBED by experience of, or exposure to EMOTIONS, pain, or other phenomena that may cause to lose the balance of the mind.
Dhyāna is about techniques, methods, and that of a system that is addressing an issue, and the supposed path of becoming liberated from that issue. The issue is the disturbance the emotions, that is to say, the passions, the urges, and the hunger of the preta mind, produces and spreads. It goes beyond that of the emotions, and includes other phenomena, in the sense that it is a strategy of mitigating, preventing, and defending against those things that would bring about to lose the balance of the mind.
Dhyāna is defensive, is preventive, is strategy aimed at protecting the mind against intrusions, and those intrusions, some of them were named emotions and pain.
Vajrapani gives rise to Acala, and likewise to Fudō Myō-ō, and among these names is a term that describes one of the powers of the Buddha as it is personified in Vajrapani, that of being the "immovable one".
This means the strategies and the tactics of dhyāna are not in the personification of wisdom, nor are they in the personification of the virtue of karuna, but that this matter falls under the personage of Vajrapani and the All-Power Virtue of the Buddha.
Dhyāna is a science, perhaps, that is about becoming immovable.
But of course, I will dedicate more words to this matter of "meditation".
I have previously used the term attitudes to address the wording of mind states, so as in a series of cultivated states of mind; this can be surmised as "attitudes".
In Buddhism, there is this notion of sublime attitudes, numbering four. With the need to return to these, I will list them not as they are translated, but in their original form. This is because some chump has said metta to be loving kindness, karuna to be compassion, mudita to be empathetic joy, and the only one to be gotten truly right, equanimity, as upekkha.
1. metta
2. karuna
3. mudita
4. upekkha
Called the abodes of brahma, or brahmavihāras, these are considered the Buddhist virtues, and dhyāna is the set of strategies and tactics meant to cultivate them. Based on the English translations of these terms, number 4 contradicts and comes against 1-3, which are all emotional states in their English rendering, and not mind states.
These so called four virtues will be covered at a later time, and perhaps in another lesson or treatise. The extent of their meaning, and the carelessness in looking at them from human emotions is rampant. If one simply reads the description of these terms in English, they will need to resolve a simple matter.
Buddhism sees the emotions, more than anything, as a thing that needs to be tamed, and perhaps even abolished.
I will touch this only slightly, since it is not the focus of this treatise.
The feeling aggregate is the notion of emotions in Buddhism. It is labeled commonly in three categories : pleasant, unpleasant, and neutral.
It is said :
-When the label of pleasant is given to an object, we develop attachment.
-When the label of unpleasant is given to an object, we develop aversion, and sometimes even anger or hatred.
-When the label of neutral is given to an object, we often don't care about the object or even ignore it.
The Buddhist perspective is to treat delusions as that of emotional states, good or bad, but with an emphasis on the harmful.
"Delusions are states of mind which, when they arise within our mental continuum, leave us disturbed, confused and unhappy.
Therefore, those states of mind which delude or afflict us are called 'delusions' or 'afflictive emotions'."
-THE DALAI-LAMA
In Buddhism, emotions are seen as a thing that happens so fast that it begets a prejudice that one does not have much track of in the conscious mind. It is to say, the emotions color the situation, and shape the sense of it, acting as a filter, and that which is thought on the matter that does arise is an after-thought that is following the emotion. And one's reasoning, as I have said before, becomes the servant of the emotion, and will more often than not be used to support the emotion, that is, justify it to the actor/agent.
Humans have, embedded by their nature, in their selective language, that of their emotional inclinations and aversions. This is to say, when humans seek to explain the meaning of something, no matter how complex and advanced that thing is, they will inherently translate it over to their primal sense, which is their emotional sense. This can be shown in all the terms listed above, in the four virtues.
I would advocate, if the reader is sincere, that they look at the actual translation and expression of these terms, and see if indeed they are meant to represent emotional states. Some will say they are positive emotional states, and therefore, promoted. This is a failure to understand that of the journey to being awakened. One who is awakened is not guided by, or tainted by the emotions, good or bad. Emotions are conditional. They have been programmed, and countless experiments have shown that one can be conditioned to have averse reactionary program to things that it would make no sense to, and to take pleasure in things that can lead you to your death, and cause you pain. Human pleasure, pain, and emotional systems do not work under domesticated conditions accurately. They had a primal place and validity that has been long gone, and since the change over to domestication, human emotions have been the number one enemy to humanity. Now, this is not saying humans are supposed to tame their emotions and do something about it. This is the error of Buddhism.
Humans can not tame their emotions, and can not subdue them, or advance via them. Humans are designed to have their emotions hardwired and potent, and more suffering is caused by trying to get them to be otherwise.
The key is in identifying what a thing is, and acting accordingly. In behavioral philosophy, when I am in the field and I have identified subjects to be Manu, human, or middle, I can move through their self-reporting and declaration, and pull out the actual motives and inclinations. Humans can not self-report accurately, and they are often far more confused than their words give light to, but in their actions, non-verbals, and pursuits, the human nature always prevails. This is why when humans use speech, they are often deceiving, and misdirecting, whether they wish to or not. The pressure of being seen as civilized, when by their nature they are not, causes mental illness and deception in the humans.
This is a matter I have not seen others confirm or take interest in exploring, because the power to change it is not present. But these emotional renderings of the Buddha's system are the opposite of the Buddha nature.
One needs only to think how easy it is for one to pretend at these qualities : goodwill to others, charity, compassion, just cry with them and lend your shoulder, and joy from them being happy, fake a smile that Men like me can see is fake, and alter that of stability of mind to mean fair treatment of all. Millions can say, then, that the virtues of Buddhism are displayed in this society by many, but they would be far from being right.
This is not the Buddha, this is his human followers wrapping his message and set of strategies to match their emotional and base nature. Evidence for this is all throughout Buddhism; however, it is not my goal to reform their system. It is a system of humans, and they can have it.
My goal is to liberate Bodhi from Buddhism.
This expression means that this matter of awakening needs a science that is specific, applicable, and able to have its goals achieved. I have not found that Buddhism has this nature or ability to it. Over its development, it has shifted its focus far away from that of the awakened life, and it has become no more than another costume and mask for humans to wear, to fake at living and developing.
The key word in Zen, as has been revealed, is that of cultivating a set of mind states or attitudes that has to do with defending one's self against those phenomena, or occurrences that would lead to mental looseness or instability.
This will be the only acceptable way to see Niō (仁王) Zen as it is, contextually.
The Japanese term Zen will be sustained and employed here to represent a set of strategies and tactics that are essential to the cultivation of the Niō (仁王) path.
"Zen is that of a set of strategies and tactics aimed at cultivating the mind towards being immovable, strong, stable, and defended against the ills of the primal self, that ever so pulls on the body and its mind, telling it the lie of being condemned to a primal existence."
"Zen is this set of strategies, requires a strong and sincere essence in order to be studied, where the seeker must develop the mind's tools of identifying its own essence, and learning to work within the Laws of identity. This means coming to discover one's own nature, then coming to obey it, and then coming to command it."
- VOLT
Tracing Zen, the Bodhidharma quest
In this treatise, there is no way that I am going to seek to try to explain how modern practitioners and admirers of Zen conceive of it. The modern notion, and perhaps the notion of Zen, for a very long time, has been so absurd that to even utter its domain is itself to feel the pain of delusion.
By now, the reader should be asking themselves the question of who am I, to think that I can come at the concept of Bodhi, or that of the awakened mind, and therefore, the virtuous Sage of awareness, and come to rewrite and redo that of the ancient and popular Buddhism, with its 520 million followers. That is a good question. The innovator of that system became known as the Buddha.
But who was Bodhidharma, and what remains of his production?
In the end, what will be that which I have come to produce and innovate? The answer to who or what I am can not lay at the beginning, but will only become realized far into the depths of my innovation.
Before commencing in this direction, I must state that I had contemplated not including this; however, a change came when a matter came to my mind. Bodhidharma is a standalone personage of the Buddhist history.
What I mean by this is that you had Gautama, Buddha, or the historical Buddha, and all who were Buddhists were seen as followers of this Buddha.
You do not often hear of those who would come later, who could too be called a Buddha awakened to their nature and the origin and nature of the manifested, as it concerned their living. But Bodhidharma was seen as such. He was seen not as a mere follower of the ways of another, but as an innovator, in the sense that he had in himself a nature that may have been the same to that of the Gautama, or historical Buddha. And so then he set out to direct those he found to be studying Buddhism for merit. Because of Buddhism's normalization, he found them to be lazy, without zeal, focus, and vitality, and he sought to make clear the essence needed for "the Quest".
I bring up this fellow and my treatment of him to put forth a notion concerning that of so called awakened ones.
Historical Buddha, or that of Gautama, did not write or bring forth his sense of the strategy and that of psychological tactics for looking into one's nature, and acquiring that of the awakened nature.
Instead, there seems to be a trend among the innovators of the past on matters of mind and spirituality. Their followers were the ones to produce a record.
What is the reason for this absence of writings by those considered to be awakened?
This question does not seem to be asked often, and therefore, the condition remains unexplored.
For a good part of this life of mine, I have had to study language and logic a great deal. When I am asked by others for the reason why, the answer I can give does not truly make sense to them. Perhaps I can put forth some insight that can be of use, and explain a phenomenon concerning one's nature that Bodhidharma and historical Buddha would have not known about themselves, during the condition of their time.
First, let me speak of freedom of a language. Thinking in regard to symbolic is inescapable. So then comes the question of expression. If one has a sense of a thing, in its wholeness, but not its parts, can they communicate what the thing is to another who can only, and may have only grasped a single element?
This is what proves difficult. Things that are whole, where they are the them that they are, can not have their wholeness truly expressed. When one says, for example, "reality" as a concept, one could say, "no such thing". I then say, yes there is, and they come to demand, "produce it then, so that I may see it". No production, no evidence, no reality.
Reality is all that is, and none of that which is not. It is an idea, not an entity, a thing, an object, but it is a conception of seeing all things considered and their connection as a part of this thing called "being", just as the categorical term animal is not representative of an actual animal kind, or a thing in itself. But it is a notion, or a concept called general, in that it means to say all things possessing this set of characteristics and attributes.
When the Buddha and Bodhidharma were experiencing their innate Sense of Self and Life, they did not have a language of taxonomy.
I will now try to make that make sense as an element of this concept of Zen. The reader may believe I have left my course, but I have not. For the reason of taxonomy, classification, and categorization is the ultimate king to that of solving the sense of looking into one's nature, and the nature of anything for that matter.
Zen is about looking into one's nature, and evolving it, if it can be, as it has been presumed. I am not sure the wants and desires of Zen are accurate to that of reality. Is a nature fixed or flexible? That becomes the question.
When Bodhidharma made his way to China, he was seen to be a "blue eyed" barbarian. The term barbarian meant, in its use, not of Rome, and often had to do with the beard worn by others, which is quite interesting in that Bodhi, as I shall call him from here on out, was bearded and rather wild, by Chinese soft and effeminate sense and delicacies.
Bodhidharma was not likely Indian. And he was most likely not, as myths report him to be, born of a high rank of the society he had left to travel to China. It is quite common to state that those who stand up to high ranking members of one society must have been of high birth elsewhere. And that Bodhi stood up to the emperor of China, and declared to him that all his money and his surface dwelling contributions to Buddhism spread in his country gets him nothing by way of merit, would have to mean he was no mere peasant neither.
High folk in charge have to make sure the low folk do not get any ideas that will cause them to question hierarchy. So Buddha and others will be called having been of high birth; simply, they just walked away to become of high order of the spiritual sense, instead. This too serves as the controlling factor of getting low folk to see : see, the high spiritual folk gave up kingdoms, you do not want kingdoms now, do you? No, you ought to seek the high road of the life of spirituality and see your poverty as a noble position.
Also, Bodhidharma is used by those knowing nothing of his nature and essence to confirm the notion standing against definition and that of words. When he even asked, who of his followers were sincere and worthy enough to follow him to India, he had them say the thing they believed would prove their depth of understanding. In the end, their words mattered little, and the one who said nothing was said to truly have come to the depths. However, the one hearing of this, and not knowing of this, does not see the actual element of significance. All throughout Buddhism has been empty words, empty actions, and social deeds, merits, and interest lacking in sincerity and understanding. Bodhidharma expressed this about the condition of Buddhism in China.
His attitude of acta non verba (actions, not words) is not an attack on definition; it is an attack on those hiding behind the words of understanding, while their actions betray them and their nature wins out, and thus prove not to be in accord to the Dharma.
This is Reasoning on a base level to see. Bodhidharma learned of the massive philosophical body of Buddhism. But this did not matter. He did not need it to confirm his nature; it was his nature which read the massive body of words struggled within Buddhism. All of their expressions amounted to being empty. Buddhism itself promoted that those who would support it through financing and spreading its teachings would acquire spiritual merit. This was Buddhism, or that is, the humans who used Buddhism as a vessel of human nature cloaked in meaning that was empty.
Bodhidharma knew this, and when the emperor asked of his merit gained, the Bodhi told a man who could have him killed the truth : none was gained, and if anything, you will likely descend to hell faster.
Bodhidharma was not a master of his nature. When humans see odd Men able to do odd things, they praise them. It is said he was able to sit and be nothing, staring at a wall for nine years, and humans, who suffer much in their own presence, take this to mean something special.
Bodhidharma was struggling with the matter of his own nature. The thing that called him the most was the primal awakened wrath in the face of insincerity, and that of injustice. He was existing during a time where Buddhism had grown very soft and effeminate, but in his nature, the Vajrapani was ever so present. Bodhidharma was martial in his nature. He saw that this was a primal necessity for awakening, for mental vitality and focus.
The greatest poor understanding of Bodhidharma, that of meditation and stillness, has begotten the most absurd notion of Chan and Zen throughout the world. Humans did not grasp the concept of "doing nothing".
He was giving an example of how essence is essence, no matter what you do. The truth is not in the doing, but what one is. Looking into one's nature means discovering what you are, and be that, not these empty actions, and insincere interest.
First, you do nothing. Because all that you have come to do is more than likely a conditioned way of being, brought on through ritual, culture, customs, tradition, and upbringing. How do you know if it matches your nature?
If you have not discovered your nature, that is to say, the characteristics and attributes innate to being human or beyond, and then that which is more personal to you, based on physical and cognitive type, then how do you know that the conditions match, and that you ought to produce actions along with the conditions?
Doing nothing is an art, when being observed, and its hidden element is the science.
For a few years now, I have said I am writing a book called The Art of Uselessness. One of my associates said, while laughing, "There's an art to that?", and I said "Yes, and I am a master of it, being useless".
The one who seeks to be a monk is seeking to remove themselves from the conditions of society. But do they know why? Living as a monk in Buddhist conditions is the trading of one's familiar conditional state for that of another. When they do this, the foreign conditions, being not so familiar to them, will keep them more easily, because they do not understand the conditions, as they did not understand the ones they sought to escape. They sought to escape the old one, because, likely, it was not suited to their nature, but this, they only felt and did not come to realize.
But then, in Buddhism, as a monk, they arrive at "emptiness", or that of "less doing", and that of simple task such as "look at that wall and sit", and then they feel relieved. Not only can they do this, and get good at it, but they will even be considered "enlightened" if they do it better than others. The greatest rubbish on Earth, if you ask me.
The monk is not one who enters a new condition. It is the one who has entered the life of principles considered sacred. And most, if not all present monasteries will violate those principles if they are based upon the real Law, or the Dharma.
Bodhidharma was not simply Buddhist, if he was even at all. He came out of the people from Sogdia, who were a Caucasian phenotype people who went from martial and being expert archers, to then becoming well-suited for mercantile trade and commerce along the silk route. They taught all their young to read and to take account as a matter of commerce, which often then transformed into that of analytical thought upon other matters, when they would move and settle elsewhere.
Who cares about Bodhidharma?
Bodhidharma likely received a learning in literature, reading and writing at an early age, compared to most other individuals of his time, that being on account of him likely being Sogdian.
He was well-acquainted with words, terms, debate, dialectic, logic, and that of Buddhist written text. More than likely, he consumed of his time and condition far more than others did, and reached its spoken and/or written end.
What happens when one reaches the end of words is that of the starting of application, or that of applying it. If you have learned by words all you can of a system, having made it through the theory stage, the next stage is the practice stage. Zen comes to be more concerned with practice than anything, but with the practitioners not realizing that one like Bodhidharma and that of other awakened minds began with a mastery of the theory.
It is like the expression "think outside of the box". Many would be encouraged to do this, even before mastering the tools and the ways of "the box". If you do not know what the "box" is, its nature, its essence, its boundaries, how then will you know when you are "outside" of it?
You will not. To think outside of the box, you must come to identify and master what is in the box. Then what deviations are needed up and out of the box will be well-thought-of and well-oriented.
Zen attracts many because it does not require intellectual pursuit, and frankly, there are a great deal of "dumb asses" out there ready to be led to a wall, and told to stare at it.
An ass or a mule does not ask the human who has the reins, "Gee gally kind sir, where are you indeed leading me?" No, the reins are pulled, and the ass follows.
"Zen today is like a stall for mules. A book is written that says words are meaningless, while using them, and then uses words to suggest the supposed meaningfulness of sitting still with no thought, and/or focusing on a wall. It's like a traveler who does not know what a mule is, and how it can aid them in traveling. One can say, the mule is a "dumb ass", but in fact, it's the traveler who becomes the "dumb ass", when they do not know the nature of their mule, which is metaphorically their mind. And instead of cultivating it through Reason, they walk it into a room, or wilderness, and sit it down to face a wall, tree, or object, and sit, all along trying to stop a thing that is not designed to be stopped. When you do not know the nature of a thing, you will not know how to make the best use of it. The mind is to be cultivated, not stopped. In Zen, it is not stopping and staring, and anti-intellectual settlement that is true to its nature, instead, this is a bunch of dumb ass practitioners, with nature of being dumb asses, never stopping to look deeper into what Bodhidharma could have been trying to say. Fortunately, if you are not a dumb ass, and you know how to read and think, I can help you with that."
-VOLT
Bodhidharma was not a teacher. He traveled to China, still focusing on discovering his own nature. What can be said with certainty of his character is that he "stopped" something. What did he "stop"? He stopped being someone, going somewhere, and doing things. Sounds simple, right? Well, this is a description of a set of behaviors, not the intent, the why, the meaning, and the nature that produces the behaviors.
Bodhidharma was considered unknown to everyone, yet, on sight, a great master, if not a Buddha himself. On sight is the issue. One can not see into the insight of others, nor the quality of their thinking, or character. One can observe in others behaviors and values. Values, because value is that which one seeks to gain, cultivate, maintain, and/or defend.
This element, "seek", is the behavioral level stating this is all a matter of actions, and actions can be identified, and the intents and motives of others can be assumed through deduction, but never verified in exactness.
Buddhists and would-be Buddhists of the East were impressed by a simple thing in others to be called wise or "enlightened" : that of self-denial and the acts that illuminated this assumption. This means when a so called yogi denies himself food, shelter, social acceptance, and other aspects others struggle with, they are called wise, and that of illuminated.
Bodhidharma had all of these ascetic elements to him : he was wild, he wore tattered monks robes, was unshaven, and to be found in mountains, forest, and caves.
His values were not visible, because in the most sense of valuing life, he did not want for himself anything anyone else had. He mostly displayed a want to be left alone, and when he did answer to the interest of others, it was harsh, judgmental, and short and straight.
How then can a whole system of thought be influenced and instigated by this Man?
It didn't.
The sum of the teachings and the lessons is as follows : look into your nature. Stop doing all the things you are doing, and instead, come to a stable place, and reflect. What is it that you catch in the absence of all things removed? That is said to be your nature. Now, be simply with that nature, and nowhere else. Words do not indicate sincerity, words are empty without sincerity and practice. Definition and the ability to employ it does not indicate sincerity, understanding, or practice; therefore, it is empty. You need to be sincere, and not caught up in words and appearances. You need to be these things in your living, not in your proclamations. It is better to come to know this by stopping all things, and sitting with just you. END
Now, this is my insight into the combination of his words, and that of his chosen values. I heard a monk once give a sermon when I was thirteen, in New York. The sermon was on Bodhidharma, and he began by saying that for him to even open his mouth to use words was a mistake, and that no word has the meaning, and is empty. Then he went on to talk for hours.
He did not grasp the nature of Bodhidharma's expressions, and it is highly unlikely that those who heard him say anything, and wrote it down, grasped the way he said it, nor the entirety of what he said.
However, awakened is awakened.
Let me explain this. When one awakens, I am declaring that this means to arrive at the embodiment of the Ratiocinative principle of "reality". Therefore, they become one with all of those who, before and after them, too have awakened to the same nature, being called Buddha nature, the nature of Ratiocination. In this chapter, I will stop using the evasive sense of awakened and that of Buddhas, and instead, will use the trigger terms Ratient and Ratience. Until a later chapter, for now simply put, to awaken is to become in accordance with that of Ratiocination, and to embody and practice it habitually, thus forming the nature of Ratience, or that of a Ratiocinative essence, or being.
This is not mysticism, there is a science to the might of all this, and I am not sure I will be able to teach the science, but I surely embody it as one who is of the Ratiocinative nature.
If in my words, and my writings, my character, and my display of behavioral actions and choices, I am observed by another, there will be a certain degree to their nature of proximity to my own. On the opposite side, there is that nihilistic, empty, and bestial nature. One will have a degree of proximity to that, moving either this way or that way.
Whatever is the potency and degree of your nature, by these characters, will determine how you receive and observe me, and what product shall be produced in your understanding in mind. You will not see me in my nature, exact, (unless you are the exact same in nature to me), but instead, by degree.
This degree is able to be understood, when you come to understand your own nature, and you take a measurement of the ratio of what calls you the most, by urge or by Reason. When Reason comes to call you in most things, your nature can be called a Reasoning nature. Most means 80/20 ratio. When urge calls you the most, then urge will be your nature. Now, the two can not be of equal ratio. It will be either or, in potency. One can not be 50/50. Where urge will even gain a 30/70 aspect, it will then suddenly take over the needed 50 to be of the majority essence. This then means one may have been conditionally of Reason, but when the conditions were not sustained, they fall to their natural state of urge based.
In many ways, you will not know this about yourself under ritual and routine conditions. Often, sleep deprivation, hunger, and lacking in material comforts are the quickest ways to find out what you are.
This is why ascetics have existed throughout the past. But there is a problem in this route of "stripping back" to find one's nature. Many will come to a state of mind collapse, and that of the hungry ghost now starving, attaching itself to the noble image of the ascetic. This means, without anything coming to be discovered, the ascetic comes to believe that being an ascetic is the achievement, is the end. Stripped of self, mind, thought, and character.
This is what the Buddha saw when he took the ascetic route. They arrived at the end of meaning, and that meaning was "safety from the urges", and that alone. But their urges still surfaced to be seen in their attachment to the sense of a false achievement : that of being starved, brain dead, and without any meaning whatsoever. To them, all of "this", that is, reality, is empty, because in their attempt to discover themselves, they discovered they were empty.
Many of the ascetics did not begin with theory or mental material for contemplation. Instead, like they do these days, they saw asceticism as the quick route, the fastest route to enlightenment. Self-denial became the ingredient for the wise.
This is the often drastic difference between the stoic's life, versus the yogi's life. The stoic has a philosophical foundation of why they reject the normative path, and see their choices as an alternative, whereas the yogi does not see the asceticism as an alternative for another pursuit, but the pursuit itself.
For the Buddha, asceticism did in fact work for what it was meant to be used for. This, because prior to this attempt, he had a philosophical foundation, and set of considerations. The asceticism gave him a better position to ask those questions from.
Now, I shall connect this aspect to the Bodhidharma, and illuminate why so many have gotten this whole Zen thing so wrong.
Bodhidharma was not denying the self, he was trying to discover what it is. He arrived at the desired and spoken about state of being "immovable". This is the primary goal of Zen, through the primary route of discovering one's nature.
Bodhidharma came to make his mind stable under all conditions he could, and to not be shaken, moved, or impacted by that of the ways of others, and their doings : the ultimate state of equanimity. This is acquired not necessarily by discovering one's own nature, but more so by discovering what is NOT one's nature.
You can come to know a billion things you are NOT, even before you can know a single thing about what you ARE.
You say, I am a prince, I AM NOT.
You say, I am a king, I AM NOT.
You say, I am a son/father, I AM NOT.
You say, I am an American/Indian/Chinese, I AM NOT.
You say, I am a human, I AM NOT.
You say, I am to eat, I COME NOT TO, to see WHY I DO.
And I can continue a list that is unstoppable and never so ending, listing the billion things that are NOT ME.
Bodhidharma, like all of those who come to this journey of discovering their nature, began with the process of exclusion. I have heard many before ask me the WHY NOT question in regard to things.
In the military, I was always asked, "Why don't you drink (alcohol)?" I answered, "I do not ask why I do not do a thing, I ask for the why to do a thing. I have not found a reason for why I would consume alcohol, or any other substance that hinders the nature of my mind and character."
The process of exclusion can almost be called an ancient and often hardly ever understood technique of becoming awakened.
The strategy is to remove everything. Start from a fresh stance.
This means you remove shelter, food, water, comfort, so called needs, connections, status, rank, personality, and all the likes, not as an end to all these things, because surely, you must then reverse the cycle and move towards similar things, where REASON illuminates their value. For example, you do not hydrate with a few days, then you die. Ergo, it is in my nature to need to consume fluids to sustain my form, mostly composed of water. For it to function, I need water. Food, I can go a few weeks, but begin to see a decline in functions sooner, depending upon if it's a sudden drop in nutrients, or a slow transition and stabilization. Then I personally find starving makes me perform better in the mind.
Do I need shelter? Well, some form perhaps, such as that which protects me from the elements in the sense of clothing, and some overhead cover from those things which will fall and bring me to a state of wet, unable to be dry. How much does it take to move towards these things? Not much.
I have an entire set of gear that will last my whole life, mobile, able to be carried on my back, stowed if need be, and ever so good at protecting my overhead, and the covering of my skin.
I, for the most part, do not need to fight for, or work for these solutions. Now, an apartment becoming added means I must now work for the medium of exchange called FRN, Federal Reserve Notes, or as most falsely call it, money. This is how rent is paid for a shelter. How much? On average where I live : 800-1200 for the basics. Average income in America—not to be seen as an accurate indicator—is 24 an hour, so about 800 a week. I do not have a skill, or a knowledge set, nor a labor mind that can make that hourly pay. Based on my nature, if I made an hourly salary, it would not be more than 12 an hour. However, as a consultant in behavioral philosophy and performance enhancement, I can consult for a couple months and make a year's salary easily—however, never sustaining a guarantee or consistency, because this is contract based, and contracts are set terms of start/finish.
So I will remove that way of making money, and look at a no skill, no education nor specialty that is civilian oriented. I have military and martial value, and performance enhancement value, both an extremely low percentage of any given field.
So renting a shelter at 12 an hour, let's say, would mean that to cover a 800 range shelter, I would need to trade 80 to 100 hours. A work week is often seen as 40 hours, so then this would be two weeks minimum of hours exchange to cover a shelter, with all its perks and comforts in modern day living. This, not counting bills, and so on.
So two weeks out of the month, I labor for shelter and then the other two weeks, food, water, gas, clothing, entertainment, and what?
I do not know, because I was halted at any sense of two weeks of working at something not of my nature, so that I can have shelter in exchange. Nope, not me. Then a mortgage on a home or property would mean needing to be career-minded, and working to sustain that shelter over a lifespan. No sense to me.
It makes sense to those of a human nature who are serving the benefit of offspring and wanting to build a resource stability for them, but I do not have this human nature, offspring, or the care to ever have offspring.
So then what other motivator for me can there be?
Comfort?
Nope, I love the woods, I love sleeping under a tarp, in a tent, or straight on the ground, or that is, a sleeping mat. I have never slept better indoors than outdoors. Even in Brooklyn, when I took to the streets at seven, it made far more sense to me than any bedroom ever could. No, not me. Yet indeed in accordance with the nature of humans to want and pursue, even to be servile in the process.
Shelter is a major determining factor to all other choices one will make. Those who live in a car or outdoors, and wander, and so on, will often not have a life like any housed individual.
I remember someone once asked me if I was "homeless", not because of an appearance or anything, but because I was always outside, doing what I wanted, and had nowhere to be. I responded, no, because that implies I am supposed to be with a home, or that is, attached to one. I do not see a reason to have a home, or a permanent shelter. Every five years or so, I will get money and go indoors to rest for a while, but rarely for more than a year or two, and then I am back to being a wanderer. Now, I do not see that cycle even coming back around.
The best of what I am and who I am is experienced when I am not trying to keep a shelter.
If you are paying rent or mortgage to be on this Earth, then what is the difference between you and a medieval serf, other than getting to determine where you shelter, and how you pay for the shelter?
It's all about the cost, and this applies to all things in life. If one has ease of shelter acquisition and sustainment, then this factor matters little other than now, do they enjoy the perks and comforts more than that which is outdoors? That will come down as one's disposition more than nature.
The shelter of most in the past was of no big deal, that is, the past time of Bodhidharma, and further, that of the Buddha. Minimalist huts and houses were enjoyed by the common folk, and lavish temples and abodes by the royals. It is said that both of these characters came from royals, so the commoners see it to mean more when a royal has given up their domain or abode, then if a peasant spoke of a peace of mind felt in enjoying the caves, the forest, and the mountains. It would have meant less to them. It meant more to think that one lived a life in a place, and with things that were admired and wanted by others, where jealousy and admiration were variables involved. He gave it up and became nearer to us, and this is called wisdom; therefore, we are closer to wisdom then those in their castles. Too, this is why the educated royals often preferred that the commoners believe this, because then they would be easier to rule, and not become competitors for the riches somehow.
The peasants, the commoners were not calling these Men masters or enlightened because of variables and ingredients of wisdom and awakenedness. The peasants and the commoners could not see these characteristics that they could not or did not possess, just as the arrogance today in practitioners and believers coming to believe they can see a Buddha, what one is, and therefore, be able to confirm and/or affirm in any manner this notion.
What makes the Buddha, a Buddha? When Buddhists ask this, they will then begin the circular statements of ignorance. Because he is enlightened, they will say, filled with immense compassion for all living things, and he chose to remain here to help the rest of us get to the same place. That is some straight fairy tale human dung.
Bodhidharma could never be explained that way. He is often seen as wrathful, angry, and anti-seductive. Those who think awakened states are accompanied by laughter, smiles, and niceties have not lived a mature life of awareness even on the base level, but remain stunted as children wanting to see these things in parents.
"Awakening", that is, coming to Ratiocination as a prime characteristic of corporeal reality, leads to the first awakened sense of wrath.
Idiot! I see your nature, and you are against it. That is the first discovery of awakening to that of one's own nature, and most certainly to that of the nature of others. It does not come off nice. It comes with, often, in the past, the master sending a blow to the students' head or face.
The easiest way for you all to know if you are hearing that of the Buddha nature, or that of the nature of the followers, is this : are you being told what you want to hear, and does it feel good? Well, if yes to that, it's the followers you are following, not the Buddha nature. The Buddha nature and the expressions that come from it will demand entire stopping of all things brought on by your conditioning, and if you are sincere and you try this, you will experience more struggle in life than you have even known when you were obedient and conformed.
If Bodhidharma had found in China a sanctuary for those of the nature of Ratience, he would have settled, and he would have begun the mind's work needed, based on the Dharma. He would have changed his clothing to clean ones, shaven his beard, maybe, and lived inside the walls, not for all of their sake, but for the sake of settling the needs of the form, so that the mind can enter the mindstream with ease, and begin its real work.
Bodhidharma did not make it past the Niō (仁王), but he became Shukongōshin (執金剛神). When he then made his way to the stairs below the temple gate, there was no master greater than him to guide him through the needed direction of his wrath, his vitality, and his insight to that of the disciplines needed to shape the message the gate needs to have written upon it to open, where the true "Quest" becomes prepared for.
In his conditions of his time and place, there was no "Law giver", teacher/master, and so he was left only to the understanding that his nature and species of insight was able to get him to. Like today, with 520 million Buddhists, not one of them has made it even to Shukongōshin (執金剛神), let alone stand to be a guide upon the steps of the temple, making one duly and truly prepared to open the gates for themselves, so that the birth of the mindstream can be had. Out of the 520 million, not one of them knows where the temples and gardens even exist, and instead, they wander the world, making things up, playing and pretending at enlightenment, ever so only propagating mental evasion, and character suicide.
Let them who can understand, understand, and them who can not, not.
I asked a question earlier on, that of why is it that masters, or the awakened, are said to not have written or passed on their teachings by their own hand?
Then I posed the challenge of why are those who have written extensively, providing intellectual works and foundations of insight, considered all other things but that of awakened.
If you are a Buddhist, or simply you are one with a nature that has been flirting with Reasoning, and employing it here and there, this question and its considerations should come to mean something to you.
Mind tools
I became acquainted with the Order of Thee Quest as a young man, when I was playing chess with a fella in Manhattan who noticed I was odd. He then developed a friendship with me over a year, assigning me books to read, and then expecting me to converse with him over the topics or subjects of the books, over chess playing. You can take this telling of mine as fiction, for it matters not what sense of trust you may have in my historical declarations.
Insight is able to be observed and/or studied by how the subject handles new material often, and that which has been proposed by others.
Let me give an example.
"Love thy neighbor", as a virtue.
Well, I was a boy in Brooklyn during the crack epidemic. My neighbors, many of them were "zombies/baseheads". No, loving them is not sensible. A Reasoned pity is somewhat acceptable, so long as I can come to understand why they are to be regarded with importance simply because they are human. In nature, not all life is considered significant, and nature has other things killing off the weaker, and the stronger or most adaptable prevailing. If not nature as the true book of God, then what book can be said to be superior, and when one contradicts nature, which one should come to preference?
I was about ten when these interactions began, and when he challenged me on all matters, theological and philosophical, he wanted to know my insight, and so I gave it. I was never taught to think of myself as inferior to others. This means, at no point in time if humans spoke of Jesus, was he a master to me, or Muhammad, Moses, Buddha, Zoroaster, Mithra, teacher of righteousness, or whoever. They were all X's to me, needing to be tested. The question then becomes, tested against what? The answer is, oddly, insight.
Insight is the baby of Dharma. It is this subtle notion pointing one with a loud presence towards a consideration, not a finding. Dharma is the mature sense of insight, in that after so much consideration of compulsion, one comes to the answers that then are immutable, and this can be called Dharma, or the state of the Law, as it is immutable, and ever so present as a set of characteristics of corporeal reality, and perhaps, if there be other realms, the baby to coming to exercise insight upon them.
"Do onto others that which you wish to be done upon you". I do not think so. You do not treat a rabbit as if it were a wolf, nor a wolf as if it were a rabbit. You do not try to please a Great Dane the way you would try to please a neurotic poodle. All things have different natures, and what you wish for you, I might not wish for myself, and therefore, would ask, and later demand, when you proceed in ignorance, that you stop doing things for or towards me. Reciprocity is another concept, and quid pro quo. And though this expression of doing may have been hinting there, it was not so clear in its rendering. Far more harm is done by described behavior of benevolence than that of malicious acts.
Those wishing to do good and acting as if they are, yet do not know what is good, will inevitably do its opposite : harm.
I did not know that this fella was testing me to see if I was "something". All I knew was he gave me money at the chess table, like all those I beat, but then was giving me something more valuable to me than money : mental exercise in expression and consideration via the triggering of challenges. Money was the value of the society I was living with, and as a ten years old, on the streets more often than not, money was the means for feeding myself.
I learned many ways to get money in Brooklyn, as a boy. I shined shoes, I bussed tables, washed dishes, swept floors, played chess, and was even a runner for non-drug related contraband.
I did not know, at the time, that there were others who thought as this man did, who considered these spheres of ideologies and affirmations. They were foreign to my condition, but they were not foreign to my mind.
This is the realm of degrees of insight. I am saying insight and not intuition for a very specific reason. Intuition is often connected to emotions, not Reasoning, even though it can not be emotional, in actuality. Intuition is not being felt by the emotionals, instead, they are experiencing conditioned emotions giving them a conditioned path and response to familiar stimuli.
But not needing to reclaim intuition, and preferring insight to it, I so proceed.
This fella introduced me to the Harvard classics. Numbering about 51 volumes, it is a set of books that is considered to be the needed reading for the development of a sound mind.
He presented me first with volume 2, that of Plato, Epictetus, and Marcus Aurelius, who was an emperor of Rome, stoic in disposition.
Then in volume 3, I met a mind that was kin to my own, and it became my father sense of the time, that of Sir Francis Bacon. However, I deviated from the essays and New Atlantis to study the Novum Organum, as I had come to find it mentioned in my Encyclopedia Britannica, when I had sought to learn of these writers whom I was reading.
As with all things I read, I used an Oxford English Dictionary and encyclopedias to resolve the unknowns I had encountered. I became well acquainted with the Baconian method, as well as the need to study Aristotle and begin the development of my sense of Latin.
When I asked a librarian for the place to start with Latin, she brought me to Wheelock's Latin, which required no previous Latin, and called upon historical letters and content that themselves were of great interest. So while learning Latin, I was also learning of Roman supposed culture, and the relationship of Latin to the English language. The libraries able to be found in Brooklyn were my greatest source of mental stimulation and intrigue, and no building is more precious than one that houses books and manuscripts.
Bacon could be called the father of experimental philosophy, and though my insight has a natural Eastern order to it, the meeting of this kin gave me a dialectical pattern far more liken to my nature, and so then my mind proceeded upon such a foundation. And I was not yet eleven, at this time, and made fast use of these works and their trajectory.
Milton's poems, I could not read, as I can not take to poetry of most forms. This then meant skipping Burns as well.
Volume 7 interested me, with it bringing to me St. Augustine and his works.
I tried to read the Greek dramas of volume 8, but could only get into Prometheus Bound, for those esoteric reasons so right. Made my way through volume 9, and then became intrigued in Volume 10 when exposed to An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, by Adam Smith.
Brooklyn had two economies that were both in plain sight : the economy of the shops, permitted and sanctioned by the overlords never to be seen, called government; and that of the contraband economy, the black market, the shadow economy, not sanctioned by the invisible overlords, however, sanctioned and propped up by the very visible overlords of the "hood".
What then was not a part of the economy, or some economy? At this age, I began to try to create categories for all observable activities and behavior, using not the conclusions of these works I had read, but the questions they so raised.
A few months before I turned eleven years of age, I would be hit with one of the treatise that would go on to define a major track of my investigations in life, that of Darwin's On the Origin of Species, volume 11 of the 51 volumes.
My mentor had gathered that volumes 14 through 28 would not be of as much use to my nature as picking up once again with Darwin's The Voyage of the Beagle, at Volume 29, and then in the following volume, studying the chemical history of the candle, conservation of force, wave theory and light, combined with tides, the extent of the universe, and geographical evolution.
Around the same time, I was working through books in the library on primates and their behavior. Volume 32, I consumed in whole, and there, my insight began to take more issues with the writers than before, especially in my introduction to Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysic of Morals, by Immanuel Kant, a work that sent far too many error reports through my mind, that I then doubted that this collection of works was founded upon a true sense of intellect, and more so guided by popular praise. Kant's mind is so confused and so overly educated to a ground of rather, well, insanity, hidden in academic parlance.
Kant seemed to be taking a hammer to reason, overtly and covertly, wherein my nature had indicated there is no insight without Reason, and that there is no discourse, no investigation, no conclusion, if not subject to the evaluation of a sound Reasoning methodology.
His goal seemed to support this thing I found to be the most odd, if not evil, that of an altruist morality that I had well-known already, that is a product of the weakness of human emotions, fears, insecurities, and dominion, and where the demand for others of the sacrifice of their interest to others, or a group, is in fact not too far from a demand for everyone enslaved to everyone.
Kant was the first in these volumes that I came familiar with to use what had the mere appearance of philosophical terms and technique to be the opposite of what was philosophical in nature. In essence, I thought Kant had to be from Brooklyn down over on Dean street. Because, what he was producing, I only ever saw come out of the Jewish thought I had debated in Brooklyn, the Jews being the only ones who would debate me. So I, of course, turned to my Jewish associates to see if Kant was one of theirs, and asked then for them to translate for me.
The more I was aided by the Jews of Brooklyn to understand Kant, the more I began to see that, well, he was right in many areas, but he was describing more often than not a condition that was not familiar to me, and out of me. But then I began to wonder if he was accurately describing his own condition and doubts, versus dismissing him as wrong, due to him not describing my nature.
I would come to find not in the way at which he conceived of things, but in a way instigated by his expressions, that indeed, the mechanics of thought he expressed were in others.
By twelve, I had begun an investigation into the notion of Sense of Self and Sense of Life, and from the influences of looking at animal behavior, I had begun to see that humans were not exempt from animal behavior and stock. Kinds were present, and they could be identified, and their behavior profiled and predicted, and more so, my adventures in the world of contraband, often having a certain degree of danger to them, could be served by this development in a skill set of behavioral profiling and prediction.
I would eventually find that more minds matched Kant's then they did Bacon's. And in discovering this, I could see them who were kin to my own nature, and who were not.
I began volume 33 at twelve and found it so pleasing, I consumed it in a short span without seeking to take interest elsewhere.
Most significant to follow was volume 34, and in the first the discovery of the Man whose name I was so familiar with, because my uncle saw it fit for me to be named after him, that of Voltaire. I could not distinguish the thoughts of Voltaire, as if they were written from my own. Descartes offered me more errors, as Kant did. Rousseau as well, falling somewhat short to me, and Hobbes coming in to introduce me to another powerful set of questions that pertained to that which was before me in my own condition, That of Man, being the first part of Leviathan. His mental renderings on the matter of these socially constructed technologies of governance had opened me up to a combined investigation into the realm of man's relationship to those bodies of men who declare themselves endowed with some supernatural power of collectivism.
I passed volume 35 altogether and met in volume 36 my old friend Machiavelli and The Prince, which I had read at ten years of age, at the instruction of my mentor in the world of "shadow markets". I would consume all of 36, become well excited in 37, however, having added Locke's Essay Concerning Human Understanding before coming to Hume, I could not figure out why Hume was the proposed one and not Locke, whom my nature favored, though found some gripes with. Skipped the later volumes from 38-43, arriving at the 44th volume and the start of the sacred books, which I well consumed in little time and became obsessed with, as I traveled through the volumes, returning to works I had already covered, as I had begun at nine to consider sacred books. I skipped to that of the epics and sagas, then tried reading the educated lectures and found them to be rather void of essence.
Scratching the mind
What is my point of this lecture on what I had read all before ending my 12th year?
When I was twenty-eight years old, I had a successful private military corporation that was very small, and was handling elite contracts that were in the interest of the United States government, in foreign fields, regarding secure intel gathering and dissemination.
This success was handed to me, with some effort and work, at the start, that than skyrocketed into guaranteed expansion and unfoldment.
I got rich, quick. I was able to pull back from being in the field, and instead, head up operations and run other assets in the field. Then I did not need to even do that. However, the more removed I became, the less of my nature was in the way at which those of my firm proceeded, and their nature became the mind of the firm. To this matter, decisions were not made in the same light, and I had to return to recharacterize my firm as it was designed.
I was often without sleep and proper nutrition. My work brought me to be a steady acquaintance with the Grim Reaper, where we were on a first name bases. Death could never be a problem to me, and I had never been short on conditions that would allow me to express the part of my nature that is a Warrior, and a fighter. Brooklyn made sure that this element of me had a playground, and the Brooklyn playground was far more sophisticated than the playground of armies and ninjas.
My Warrior grew tired and weary. "All" before me was not me, and as I was aging, my mind was taking its own path, away from the ones my persona had chosen for it. At one point, it would become that two forms of mental figures resided in my shell, or form : the philosopher Sage, and the Warrior fighter. But they were not connected, or fused.
My condition used my Warrior the best, and my philosopher Sage had no place where he was well-expressed. Sure, my sense of war was fashioned by him, but my Sense of Self was not. Brooklyn was a greater war than these activities of armed conflict having taken place in the last twenty years—a war that most do not know even took place, one that actually cost more lives than those battles fought on foreign soil. So even in the life and death sense, New York city was more dangerous for a civilian in the eighties nineties than foreign fields have been for soldiers in the last twenty years. In 1992, New York city had over 3,000 homicides. These are homicides; not injuries, not beatings, not rapes, theft, and the daily torment of the "thugs" of the streets, now well cemented in the entirety of the inner city culture. Those numbers would show that the horror was not in death, but in living in this place of this time's conditions.
Warrior was what I had to be, as if, like Buddha, I was born to the Warrior class, with the difference being we were still warring, and engaging in melee, and needing to make strategical and tactical decisions that concerned our daily decision making process.
Bodhidharma was a Warrior, but he had no war. The Shaolin was a martial and Warrior monk society, but they had no war. When a Warrior has war, he must devote the entirety of his mental and physical energy to fight that war and to prevail.
But now, approaching twenty-eight, I was coming to realize that though I was warring, I was not warring in a war that was mine. I was a serving samurai, helping daimyō and the shogun expand their coffer, resources, power and influence, and the shogun of the United States was no Sage.
I awoke to the clear realization that I was a villain, not a hero. And it was clear that my philosopher Sage element was working away at my inner mind in a war of its own : the war to unite the two into a holy Sage Warrior under the true leader, the true master, Dharma, or that of the divine Law of Ratiocination.
One night, I fell, collapsing on the floor. My mind opened, an experience was had, and when the experience came to an end, my volition was gone. I was to be in accord with Ratiocination, no matter the cost.
I slowly tore my firm down, making sure my fighters had new homes, gave up my house, my car, and kept only my traveling gear. Said goodbye to all who knew me, which were few, and I took off to walk as no one, to nowhere, across and around the North American continent.
I had money, and with that money, I arranged for food drops and supplies along my way. I saved for gear malfunctions and failures, and bus transport through the states I did not find interesting.
I needed to be alone, and most of all, I needed to be stripped of everything I had thought I was supposed to be and was. Now, this was easy for me, because these concepts were not new.
This is my point.
I was not some Man without knowledge, without science, without philosophical inclination, without the right questions and the means to answer them. The entirety of my life, I have trained to know myself. Therefore, when I entered to be among the forest, the mountains, the rivers (but no caves), I was not going there with nothing. The something was intrinsic. The weapons were intrinsic, the tools were intrinsic, and my mind could not have been better prepared to show me what it was.
This is that ingredient that followers of the Buddha and Bodhidharma, and any, for that matter, with insight, did not have. They did not have the foundation, the cultivation of the right attitudes, so that when you then stop, sit still, and stare at a wall, those mental tools and weapons become wielded and the false Sense of Self, the persona, becomes unraveled, isolated, and looked upon with the mindstream instead of the mind.
Bodhidharma was not looking at a wall, he was looking at the mind. But you can not see this, no one can. Only himself can see what was to be seen in his inward gaze, and he was a martial Man who had trained and became duly and truly prepared to wage war against the mind and become victorious. The war over the mind is a fight that is carried out against the beast, the animal, the hungry ghost innate to being human. The thing fighting is the mindstream, that may not be present in the masses, or humans in general, but may be that very thing that makes a Maan, a Manu, what it is. A mindstream that says "I", and the "I" is not the body, not the passions, not the urges, not your wants, your desires, your titles, and your animal sense of belonging, and fears and insecurities of lost, none of these things am "I".
Bodhidharma was fighting this war when he was in China, and he was in the winning stream, where more and more, his victories were gained. And the more and more he won, the less and less he would come to do within the realm of humans.
Buddha and Bodhidharma did not write, and did not produce the teachings you see today, because during their lives, they were still trying to master the mindstream. Buddha likely only tasted the mindstream, and was upon it in accident here and there. He did not go into the mindstream as far as Bodhidharma, the true and real foundation of Vajrapani.
Neither of the two made it to the "Quest".
Buddha is the phase of learning the conditions, Bodhidharma is the phase of becoming truly and duly prepared to approach the gate, with armament, mental might and vitality, and the ever so sincerity and willingness to then learn the "craft" of the "Quest"... But there was no master craftsman present for them. The conditions were not right.
Metaphor of instigation
Gōshin said to me, metaphorically, "That it requires a proclamation of the highest truth, that will then set one aside as being of the right nature of entry, yet we do not know how to climb the stairs to see the investigative inscription. Do you know how to ascend the staircase?"
I looked upon the staircase and I asked, "What material is it made up of, and who were the ones who built it, and pray tell, what was the condition of their being?"
Gōshin turned to conference with the other thousand Gōshin standing there, unable to proceed forward, but none knew of the nature and construct of the staircase, only that one was supposed to teach them this very thing.
Gōshin turned and asked me, "Do you know the answer to these questions, stranger?"
To which I replied, "I do not, but I do, however, know how to investigate these matters, and formulate through experiment and calculation a possible solution of ascension, but I would need to depart from this path, and discover further."
Gōshin turned, with brows raised in surprise, saying, "But you can not depart, none of us can. Once we, Gōshins, have come to the stairs, there is no going back, no matter how hard we try. We are here now Gōshin, and the Gōshin belongs to the gate, as the gate belongs to our destiny."
I tried to make a move, to go back, and out of the realm of the gate, and the ability was not only present, but with ease of access. I responded to the Gōshin, "Perhaps I am not a Gōshin, but that I am instead something else, for I can traverse the stages of being. I can be of this here mind ready to enter upon the stairs, and I can be of the mind that came before this one, the one in search of itself, and I can be of that most primal mind, that at times, is the best answer for dealing with primal affairs. Can you, Gōshin, not ascend and descend through the minds at will?"
"No", responded Gōshin, "We gain and we remain. To descend, for us, is to fall. To have ascended is to have attained, and to become ready. None of us could fall, even if we so chose to. What then grants you this power?"
I thought on this, metaphorically, and concluded, "Such a power or ability is mine, because I never ascended, nor have I ever descended whilst in this present form and condition. I was born a traveler, and with the journeyman knowledge able to be applied through insight, not calculation."
Gōshin then questioned, "Journeyman then are you, and surely you can then climb these stairs, can you not?"
And I responded, "These stairs have a thing to them, surely interesting, yet unfamiliar to me. Oddly, I do not believe these stairs are meant for me, my nature, but clearly, the thousand of you stand here in need of these stairs to ascend to the temple's gate. I can not, as of now, ascend these stairs, but yet I can indeed see the inscription upon the gate, and though I can not speak its instigation to you, I do believe I now understand what it is asking, and it does in fact pertain to the fate of the Gōshin. Grant me my leave, oh Gōshin, and I shall return in seven years, time of the Earth, and come back with that knowledge and understanding of the nature of these stairs and one's ascension upon them, so that the thousand of ye shall come to tell the gate of thine nature."
I then parted the realm of the gate, but taking my time as I passed the Niō (仁王), who were no longer standing, but bowing, and out into the garden where the flowers, the trees, and the animals no longer appeared as they did upon my first gaze in this realm, but now, with a greater detail than before.
I mind traveled the realm and returned to the sphere of here, and I set out to discover the nature and utility of the staircase, dedicating seven years to a stage of extensive research, investigation, experimentation, and calculation.
Niō (仁王) Zen is not about my investigation of the stairs; that has been well concluded. Niō (仁王) Zen is about coming to be Gōshin. On my watch, all Gōshins shall ascend the staircase, rest their mind upon the gate, and answer to their nature so as to cross over.
But today, no Gōshin stands before the stairs, all having passed into the "Quest" already. This age is one where the Gōshins have been stopped from their becoming more than ever, and instead, the Gōshin that could be is likely held in captivity under the presumption of a human nature, and therefore, a human fate. Though no Gōshin is born human, but is born Manu.
When I arrived before the Shukongōshin (執金剛神), passing the Niō (仁王), he metaphorically turned to me and said, "I, like the thousand you see beside me, have been standing here in immortality, awaiting for one to walk beyond the gates and instruct us in the "craft", and yet none have appeared to do so. But you, you do not seem to be one of us, are you the master craftsman?"
I looked at the gate and asked Gōshin, "What do we know about the gate?"
Conclusion on Zen
"Zen, you say. Yeah, they reply, meditation, where I watch my inner thoughts, breathe, and remain calm. Baffled I was. I then asked, is Zen not about discovering and cultivating one's nature, and if so then, like any discovery, do you not need to acquire the tools of observation and analysis first? They then changed the subject, not very Zen like of them."
- VOLT
Zen is not meditation, and more so, neither is meditation meditation, for that matter, in the sense of this escapism practiced by the dim-witted.
In this treatise, on the matter of Zen, I am breaking away from that which is considered Zen in Buddhism, and those who warped the notion of Bodhidharma and instead went on to promote their own childish observations of what the Man was doing.
In order to do this, I need to make a simple, yet rather illusive confession or statement that has been said already a few times, but deserves to be repeated : I am not drawing on the Buddha, nor am I drawing on Bodhidharma in that of bringing forth these assertions.
Buddhism, in simple form, declares that a Buddha, one who is awakened, is he who has awakened to his own nature, then the nature of reality, and then the Dharma, or the divine order of things, Law of things, or from here on out, the Great Accord.
Buddhism has the attitude that this is all matched to reality, not to a belief system or supernatural aspect, though then you see all forms of supernatural enter into the sphere, and the dumb masses eat that like candy, especially when they did not have all the fantasy media "we" all have these days. For them, like many who are religious, there is a power in the make-believe, and the consideration of "otherworldly affairs".
Zen is all about this, and not the silliness having come out of those countries of the East and their less mentally expressed masses.
This aspect shall be here called Kenshō-Dō in Niō Zen.
Ken is that of looking into, and can be seen as coming to discover. That of shō is essence, nature, disposition, identity, particulars. This is similar to that of shin.
At the core of Zen is supposed to be this factor; however, those who have been the determining factor in developing a system (or anti-system) of Zen did not know this, or how to do it. For them, it became a mystical and rather intuitive process.
It is not. There is work to be done in Zen, and it is work of the mind, the intellect, and it demands a level of sincerity that most can not abide by and come to understand.
Zen, in regard to Niō Zen, is a method and science of an ontological nature, that is concerned with the disciplined questions and answers concerning the origin and nature of the manifested.
Its primary purpose is to remove all complexities of one's condition, so that, perhaps, one's nature can be discovered. Then when one seeks to rebuild into complexity and conditions, they will be by the command of the self, and brought into accordance with that discovered nature. This is a change of the roles that most experience in life. Most are subjects, not Sovereigns.
Conditions determine this, subject or Sovereign. When one comes to discover the human set of characteristics and how they are to be expressed in excellence, they then graduate to that of discovering the set of innate dispositions and inclinations of their individuality. Next, comes obeying these, and lifting ones SOS, or Sense of Self, into an elevated status with vitality, vigor, valour, and veracity, and use these newly acquired powers to dictate to one's conditions, and/or environment, and what one would or would not do, based upon that very discovered nature. One becomes the commander of their course, and they begin to shape not reality, but their conditions.
The Oracle of Delphi is quoted often as having an inscription about its place, that says "know thyself".
I would say a better approach, these days, is not in this ambiguity, but in that of this : "Know thy kind of being."
"Hominin is the genus, and in one's specific form, body, and make, there is a stock, or a species of kind. This is in body ratios, chemical makeup, and cognitive proclivities. For example, if I was a dog, I would be a wolf, mixed with a Rhodesian Ridgeback. Min (short for hominin) have stocks, as all domesticated animals do. It is foolish when humans carry on thinking we are all the same. If you are displeased in life, there is a good chance you have no clue of your stock, and/or your conditions do not favor your stock. Know thy stock, and then set it free upon the right conditions, or shape the conditions to become right with it. "
"My kind is that of a Prijna, which is born out of a Manu, which itself was born out of being human. My kind is foreign to just about all the kinds of Min, and therefore, shall not be characterized till the time is right."
- VOLT
The goal and objective of Zen, in Niō Zen, is to become a Sovereign, and be liberated from the human natural state of being servile, and a subject. When one has a nature and a breed that is servile innately, it can not conceive to seek out, or achieve that of liberation, and Sovereignty. One must be in accordance with one's individual essence.
Chapter 7
On the Warrior
The Niō Zen Warrior is a BuKiDō. And in the sense of Dō, here, it is the Chinese notion of Tao, or the Heavenly Way. Metaphorically, it is called Heavenly, but it means the Accord, and that of the Ratiocinative Way of the high mind. Ki is that of the vital and healthy force of accordant expression. In this sense, Ki is a wholeness matter. When a thing is hindered from its right expression, its Ki, or vital force, is reduced and injured. When it is free to express as it was meant to be, its Ki, its vital wholeness prospers. Ki then, in this sense, is meant to be cultivated. But Ki is not cultivated as a thing of its own. Ki is a wholeness of vitality, and therefore, it is in parts that it can be discerned and cultivated, and those parts are attributes and characteristics able to be defined and worked upon. Expression always implies an attribute, a trait, a characteristic that can be named and identified, doing the expressing.
The Niō Zen strategy is one to where the Warrior is at the center. A Warrior is defined by me as one who is sincere in a devotion to learn the strategies and tactics of conflict resolution, therefore, too becoming philosophical in their endeavor and not simply a fighter. A fighter can simply emotionally enjoy the fight, whereas a Warrior, in this sense, seeks to end war or conflict, not revel in them.
In this chapter begin a few notions that will be taken as universally true, and without a doubt.
This topic of Warrior, and what it is, will be key to understand Niō Zen. Without this Warrior sense at the core, there is no Niō, and therefore, no Niō Zen.
The English term Warrior is simple to see. It can mean one who goes to war, has been to war, or specializes in war. But the name does not answer the question what is a Warrior, when the concept or notion of war is yet to be defined and/or understood.
Though the title uses Warrior in it, you can see it has beside it the Japanese character for bu (武). Buddha too has this phonetically, though the term Buddha is said to come from Bodhi, which means to awaken. Perhaps it is simply a wonderful coincidence that the phonetic similarities exist. However, in Niō Zen, this is not treated as the case. The term, title, or notion of Buddha must have as a part of it the very nature of the Warrior as expressed in the bu character. Therefore, in the use of practitioners of Niō Zen, accurate to history or not, Bu-ddha and Bu-dhi would be the proper way to treat the term. This is a way of thinking where the bo, in Bodhi, is dropped for bu, and what remains is the d, the h, and the i, or a added.
This is in no way to be seen as an etymological treatment of the term Buddha, and not to be considered competition with whatever the scholars say of the term. This is for Niō Zen use only. All words, names, and titles are simply means to instigate in the mind of the seeker, notions. And when we have the Buddha as a term held in high esteem, then we must opt to use it to teach and guide ourselves and others. So therefore, Bu-ddha becomes the Warrior of awakened habits. This latter notion of Bodhi, to be awakened, often translated into enlightenment, shall be seen in this exactness in Niō Zen, that it is equivalent and like that of saying a Sage, or an attained philosopher. This, therefore, makes Bu-ddha sufficient to transmit the notion of a noble and awakened Warrior-Philosopher.
Again, this is useful word play, and not a competition with language or etymology as it is considered by the scholars. Buddha as the awakened one is fine, because in Niō Zen, there is no notion of being awakened without being a Warrior-Philosopher. To be awakened implies these two things must be attained.
This helps the reader organize their thinking, and begin the process of understanding and developing in the lexicon of Niō Zen, which will be the most logical and Ratiocinative of lexicons to be found in reference to any Buddhistic thought.
Bu, as a Japanese character, I believe is from wu in Chinese. There is much dispute about the nature of the character. What can be said of it, for certain, is that it is a man with a spear, or halberd. Therefore, it is for sure a man armed with a weapon. And in these two cultures and countries, this is often reserved for a class of men. However, I will need to point out a clue in the full term bushi. Shi can be taken to mean class, office, status, or knight, in this case. This is what the samurai were called : bushi. Why add the office, class, or status designator if it was implied in the character bu? You would not, therefore, I have good reason to believe and treat bu as if it does not have this characteristic. It becomes a reference to not a professional fighting man, but simply, a fighting man in general.
Even a rebel who fights with arms can be of this character, or a woman armed with naginata defending her home. Bu alone is not what is meant, in Niō Zen, of Warrior. It begins the thought pattern. Bu-Dō (or from now on, Budō) is the best combination representing the way at which Warrior is to be conceived of in Niō Zen. However, this will need to be made sense of.
Bu may simply be a fighting man, and it does not imply that he is guided by a "Way", a system, a method, or code of conduct and morality. To say this, the term and character Dō is added, taken from that of the more familiar Chinese Tao. However, there are some who argue that on its own, the bu is a character of fighting man they call Warrior, holding his spear in a defensive posture, not attacking or initiating force. He is, therefore, a fighting man in defense, and thus, justified, not to be seen as an aggressor, usurper, attacker, or bandit. I too believe this is the nature of the symbol of bu, to restrain one's arms as a peacekeeper, and use them to restore order, so to say. This then makes it seem like that of a police officer, or peacekeeper who uses arms. I do not believe this argument or debate can be settled, and therefore, there will be division on this matter. Because of this, the bu, in Niō Zen, is seen as simply a fighting man, and whether or not he is in restraint or aggression is not affirmed or denied. Though in Niō Zen, the practitioner is encouraged to see bu as restraining their arms when they can, as this is most certainly to be found to be the nature of the fighting Man in Niō Zen. But to answer to this dispute, by leaving it, I simply add the Tao, or the Dō, and instead define it in relationship to the fighting Man. For without a Tao, a method, a Way, a morality, he is not a Warrior in the sense I speak of.
When asked often to define what I mean by Warrior, without my treatment of it with Japanese aesthetics, I say this :
"A warrior is one who specializes in and applies the strategies and tactics of conflict resolution all throughout their lives, and the lives of others if they must."
War, simply here, means struggle and/or conflict. In modern and common definition, war is seen as an armed conflict or struggle between two groups. This makes war a term often seen from the collectivist point of view. Yet individualistically, the war over one's self or mind can be mentioned metaphorically. This is where the first war is waged, as all external wars are often a manifestation of one or both of the parties failing in this mentalscape.
Budō is the character, in Niō Zen, that will act as the definitive guide to what a warrior is under its authoritative sense. Over time, the reader will be exposed to this term Budō, and not Warrior. To say to be Budō, or to be of Budō, or to even be Buddha, is rather one and the same under Niō Zen. Budō and Buddha are interchangeable in Niō Zen, only with Buddha being the ultimate habituated state of awakenedness, and Budō being the aim.
From bu to Budō is a huge leap that would have required of the practitioner a philosophical development that is, by the standard of Niō Zen, beyond what is presently available for the seeker. The Dō and the Tao of Budō represent in it the Niō Zen as being the Way it speaks of. So this is not to say that in Japanese, Budō means this, for it is ambiguous, sort of, and means the Way of the Warrior to those who do not know better. A way, in this sense, can be arbitrary, but the Tao is no arbitrary Way in Taoism, and means the Way of Heaven. The Way of Heaven is no different than the notion of Dharma in Buddhism. Therefore, to say that the Dō in Budō is that of the Way of Heaven, or the Dharma, can not in any way be seen as inventive and far-fetched. It simply takes one to be well versed and knowledgeable in the Eastern philosophies to see the undeniable connection and meaning. In the East, all of the philosophies seek to be claimed to be in accordance with Heaven, and that the emperors and leaders too must be in accord with Heaven. This does not mean they attained such, and were true to this. But they would most certainly not state that their "Way" was arbitrary and whimsical. They would say no to this, and that it is in accord with "Heaven" as they conceived of Heaven.
Earlier, in the chapter On Niō, I have shown that the symbol for king, or Sovereign, is that of a Sage uniting Earth, Man, and Heaven. This should make clear how all of these symbols become a guiding compass to one's thinking. The Sage master Sovereign I spoke of earlier is one in accord and unified with this notion of Heaven, and the Budō is that Warrior-Philosopher in accord with Heaven. All are linked not by my own invention, which I am sure to be accused of, but clear in this simple Reasoning on the matter.
Life is inherently war : the heterotroth aspect of life
Let me now show the essence of what the Budō is, as our Warrior, and how it is born in nature.
All humans, and therefore, all of who are of Man, have a universal trait innate to them, and shared with ALL animals in general. That trait is called "heterotroth". If you are reading this, and you are either human and/or Man, then you are a heterotroth. If you are an alien and you are reading this, first, I would say welcome, and then I would say, you may still be a Man, but not a heterotroth, and to that mistake, due to my limited exposure, at the time of writing this, I apologize. For to be human is to be a heterotroth, but to be Man does not necessarily mean to be a heterotroth. But Man who comes from humans will most likely still have the human universal traits.
A heterotroth means you do not create your own sustenance, nutrients, and means to survive. Instead, you must have locomotion and determination to procure sustenance from the environment, or outside of you.
Let's say you are a human, Man or not, on an island, who just arrived by raft. You have a general universal set of conditions shared with other humans in regard to your life sustenance : about 3 minutes without air; about 3 hours of exposure to extreme temperatures without relief, hot or cold; about 3 days without water or hydration; and 3 weeks without food, or nutrients. Now, perhaps this will differ slightly between the humans and their biological makeup, but in general, these are the numbers to live by. If you get to 3 days without water, rejoice, and declare you beat this, then conclude you need not water, you will likely die by the 4th or 5th day. So yes, it is general. One could die before or after the 3 days, but not by much. Same with food.
The point is, this is regulated by a force beyond your control. This program, one can easily call "nature". Nature is that single term for the consistent and reliable Laws of identity and being. This means, there are three axioms to thought and elevation.
1. Existence exists, whether you know the nature of it or not.
2. That existence exists means SOMETHING, that is, entities and things, exists.
3. That these things exist then means they have form, or identity; they exist as something, and that something is discernible.
This is a set of axioms. They are self-evident truths that can not be refuted by a sane mind. Self-evident does not mean the same as obvious, for they are not obvious to most and they are betrayed more often than they are obeyed.
This is the foundation to the notion of essence, and identity. That all things have an essence and identity can be called the Law, and a Law of essence and identity. Now, remember, Dharma is about the Law and reality.
It is not supernatural, it is not mystical, it is simply just not discovered and realized by most via the intellect, because they are too busy being confused.
As this human on the beach, you are a heterotroth. You will need to find nutrients within 3 weeks, water within 3 days (not the ocean's water with its salt content), and shelter if the conditions are not favorable.
Follow the simplicity of this hierarchy of knowledge and understanding, for in it is a secret to thought and language easy to skip pass and not draw wisdom from. I said favorable or unfavorable conditions. Conditions will be a term I use and have used often as it matters so much.
If on a tropical island, the conditions may not demand much of the need of a shelter. If on an island far into the North, the conditions will demand you shelter yourself, same for a desert. You will not be exercising your sense of volition, or freedom of choice in these cases : you either shelter yourself, or you die. Life, then, is the thing you are seeking to sustain by sheltering. You are sheltering your life.
Character has been defined, earlier, perhaps many times, but I will repeat myself to help things be learned better. It is the sum of one's values, and value is that which one seeks to gain, cultivate, and/or maintain, that is to say, defend and sustain.
This simple mental consideration helps clarify some important things. On this island, all alone, you do not have the excuse of others and your service or obedience to them. You must first and foremost value your life, and shelter it. Shelter is a form of self-defense, because it is the elements that you are defending the body and its mind from. This is Ki to understand. Unless the conditions are favorable to the human body, or form, you must defend it against the elements. You must defend, guard, and secure. Remember, in the 3's I mentioned, this 3 hours in regard to the elements comes after 3 minutes of no air. Air is in abundance so much that one hardly ever thinks of how to breathe, that they breathe, and that their breath can be taken. You need not to decide and act on this matter of breathing, but in unfavorable conditions, you need to decide and act of defense against the elements.
This is true for all humans. This is absolute. Let him who says the absolute that there is no absolute eat his words and silence his pathetic mind. You are absolutely a heterotroth, and in unfavorable conditions, will absolutely not sustain and defend your life without sheltering yourself from the extreme temperature of hot or cold.
This 3 can not be said to be of the heterotroth element of being human, though one's warmth and one's cooling down is most certainly correlated to their bodily field and resources, calories, and so on, a matter of being heterotroth.
Here though, we can say our first conflict arises as a human that is innate to life. Hear this, or that is, read this. Innate to life, innate to nature, innate to the Laws of identity : you are born into a conflict, and it is called nature. You have your nature, your identity, and then there are other things in existence that have their own nature, their own identity, and well, they just might not agree with each other. This is conflict, because more often than not, one will win out over the other.
Take a fish out of water, non-amphibious, and the dry land will win out in nature over the fish. Their identities do not mix in favor of both. The land does not need the fish to be the land, neither does the water need the fish to be the water, but the fish needs the water to keep being a fish.
So for the sake of this, your island which you are stranded on is tropical, so alright, your ignorance on how to build a shelter in cold or desert environments will not get you killed. Now, most of today's Earth population does not live in the tropics. Most of where the masses live, they have seasonal changes that have extreme heat, and/or extreme cold. Modern tools, made by others, and modern shelters, made by others, sustain most of the human population away from the tropics. Most are ignorant on what to do if they were faced with the conflict of temperature and lack of shelter. A Budō would not be.
This one example shows the inherent characteristic of nature in regard to humans, that it is conflict from the start. I have not even gotten to resource acquisition yet.
So in the tropics, buck naked, you're all good. Now, you need to acquire water within the next 3 days, and develop a habit of acquiring water. You need on average 3 liters a day, or that of 100 ounces or so. If you are active and under extreme conditions, that needs to be doubled. One's habits then are supposed to reflect this knowledge, if they are knowledgeable. And they will consume less, mostly when thirsty, if they are ignorant of this element of hydration. Proper hydration needs to be taught to humans, and where most live weak lives, they are often dehydrated without knowing it.
You do not use freedom of choice or volition about this natural state you are in to need water to sustain your life. This is not about you, your mother, father, brother, sister, culture, customs, traditions and/or regional stomping grounds. This is your nature, and it will demand from you obedience. When you do not obey this thing natural to you, you will die. When you live in a world, a society where you drink for pleasure and to fight thirst, you are often failing in this arena, but doing just enough, out of custom, to stay alive.
Custom and tradition habits developed from obedience only serve one so long as their resource structure is not interrupted. This is not the right way to obey one's nature. Obedience to one's nature is best done through knowledge, and from knowledge to obedience then comes in wisdom, a command.
In the tropics, there are poisons, there are bacterias, and there are other things standing in your way from having clean potable water. Perhaps not always the case, but surely now. This is conflict.
When you have grown up with water out of a bottle or faucet, you do not think about having water as being a conflict. There are humans, today, for whom having access to clean water is indeed quite the conflict. They will value water differently than those who have no conflict in its acquisition, and no sense of scarcity (though there is a hidden scarcity occurring).
Your need for shelter and water is a conflict, even if at this time you are provided with both with little effort. It does not stop being a conflict because your "people" has won the access to the resource and may sustain it for you. This is simply a victory in the conflict, and not one to be ashamed of, so long as not illegitimately procured in acts of injustice. But it would do you well to know this Law, and to know this truth. If the power grid of America went out tomorrow, and was not able to come back online for more than 6 months, it is likely that you and millions others like you would be dead in weeks alone, due to lack of access to potable water. It is likely that those who could hold water sources by force would become your masters and your oppressors. You would see the conflict easily then.
Let me remind the reader, I am illuminating under the most primal and simplistic conditions a universal fact of nature, and therefore, the life of a human. That fact is this :
1. Life is inherently and naturally a state of conflict, and therefore, a state of war.
This is because war means struggle and conflict, as I am using it. Not one that is armed between two groups, but let this be considered since it is the common notion of war. I will show how the common notion of war is born out of the same nature of being heterotroth.
What do humans, not Manu, wage war over? Land? Water? Food? Subjects? Position to gain these things? Sustain these things? Resources?
You, if in the West, are likely a comfortable subject of some government or another. And because you are comfortable, you do not question much your relationship with that government. You have no choice in how it wields its force in and around you. If you live in the industrial West, it has convinced you that it serves you, your interest, it protects you and your interest, and you would need to be an imbecile to believe that this is true. But let's say it is. Armed conflict between two groups is in your name then. You may not fight as a soldier, as a fighting man, but to live as you do, someone must. If there was no standing army in America tomorrow, there would be, the following day, just one that carries a flag not akin to your own. At present, even if war is a matter of armed groups combating each other, there is none of what you know without them.
America, for example, can be seen as a major capital castle city without physical and visible walls, but instead protected by the conceptual understanding that to attack it will be to incur the vengeance of its holders. A handful of humans carried out the attacks in New York, the 9/11 activities, and because of this, the U.S. government invaded two countries, just not the ones most of the attackers were from. This is a major show of force, justified or not. When you live in the castle walls, you can be anti-war and a pacifist. This is a privilege of comfort, but it is also the mark of being delusional.
Only a warrior can choose to restrain or pacify their arms, whereas all others are not pacifists; they are pacified and condemned to such.
You have to be able to use force, to destroy, and to oppress to say you have chosen not to. You can not be weak, meek, timid, and pathetic, and then don the cloak of pacifism to, as Gandhi says, hide your impotence.
Life is inherently war and conflict, and either one is too comfortable and delusional to realize this, and thus, rejects it, or one is winning at the war, and does not want others to know this, so rejects it. Or one is simply just ignorant at it, and loosing the war, so rejects it. But none who is wining at it, and is noble in it would reject it, and shield others from this truth.
In Buddhism, one of the noble truths is life is displeasure or suffering. This is weak to express the real matter. It should be, and is in Niō Zen, altered to the better truth that life is inherently conflict or war. Because then the natural fact of the matter is born.
If this is true, which can be proven even further that life is inherently a state of war, then it would mean that to be healthy, and to be in accord with the Laws of identity, and the great Heavenly Law, one better muster up in them courage and vitality, and get to learning how to fight the war of life, rather than be a sissy candy ass dependent who forsakes those who defend and care for themselves, in their whimpering inadequacies. "Warrior the hell up" is the healthy response to this understanding of the identity of nature, and thus, life, it being war.
This is no different from the 3's I mentioned. Need shelter or die, warrior up and resolve that conflict. Need water or die, warrior up and get that water. Need food or die, warrior up and get that food.
A farmer does not become a warrior because they resolve the conflict of food with nature. They become a warrior when they realize other humans will come to take it from them, or even other animals, and they become skilled and proficient at repelling such advances. This, of course, is no Warrior yet, but is the start by being a fighting man. It is better to become a primal fighting man first, and easily, than to remain with no fight in one. And where you have not had the need to fight, you better find out how to invent, simulate, or seek one out. He who does not develop their inner fight can not become a Warrior, and will never know thyself, or be truly known by others. In time of need, chaos, emergency, and trial, the true character is revealed, not whilst in comfort.
