The Zen of Knowledge,Part two

With respect,

We left Part one with the question, “So what?” In that piece I talked about ways we “know.” I covered this in a superficial way: epistemology and ontology, like existentialism and phenomenology are complex and sit at the core of philosophy. Philosophers have debated them for centuries. Such debate, possibly useful, but likely not, is sort of like mental masturbation. It feels good in the moment, but leaves us wanting the real thing. So, what is the real thing?

In the world of Zen practice our aim, should we actually have one, is to let mind and body fall away and in this process live in what Master Dogen thought of as “practice realization.” To get to a better understanding of what this means, we must break it down piece by piece.

In Master Dogen’s Fukanzazengi He gives us a clear sense that we each ought practice zazen, that ancient contemplative form once referred to as “Serene Reflection Meditation” or “Silent Illumination.” He put forth the unheard of notion that when we sit in this way, when mind and body fall away, we are in a state of realization. Why? What on earth? Is enlightenment that easy? Right, were it so. But he knew that there was something more to it than that. The rascal.

Here’s the thing, allowing mind and body to fall away essentially means that we let go, yes, let go. Let go of our thoughts. Let go of our feelings, our bodily sensations, in fact, we are to “let go” of everything we think we know and if we are successful? Well, then the keyboard I am typing on has an opportunity not to be a keyboard per se, but can present itself, as my teacher used to say, “As it will.” Right. when is a keyboard not a keyboard? when we stop thinking of it as a keyboard. Its ontological reality is then free.

Practice deep enough and “keyboard” ceases to exist as keyboard. We learn thru our practice that “keyboard” is not a keyboard, it is simply and completely only what we call it. But calling something something does it a serious disservice. Because calling it something disallows it to be itself. Poor keyboard, but even more poor is ourselves because we never get to know it for its original nature. We only believe we know it.

So, then, how do we know? An epistemological question, yes? Some, the empiricists among us, say we “know” through our senses. Yes, and the Buddha counted the mind as one of the senses and, from a Kantian perspective this might be so, then, as Kant believed we establish categories, like little boxes, in our mind within which we put our sensory data encoded as data with names and properties: this is round and thus if goes to “roundness,” this is square, and so forth. It discriminates in order to do the sorting.Once in a box with a name we think we “know it.” Yet, do we really? Or is what we know simply what our brain is doing,sorting and naming, etc.? Our epistemological “knowledge” in the end, is only what our brain says it is. It is not the ontological reality of the thing itself: its actual being. But we think it is!

It that thinking that robs the thing of its truth. I know you. I know you are So and so, you are this old, are this sort of person doing thst sort of job, wearing certain clothes with so much money in the back and so on. So, when I sctually meet you, this “knowledge” acts as a filter and it is through this filter that I interpret you in your presence before me. But is this interpretation that actual you?

The “so what” of Zen, then, is the fact that our practice exposes our filters. What’s left is pure perception. It’s in the “clear mind” that you may be seen for who and what you actually are.I believe it is this that is “practice realization.”