Kapiolani Community College
Horizons 2001

What is Zen?
by Kenny Ikemoto

What we call Zen is not truly Zen. Zen is a philosophy, a religion, a psychology, and a way of life but is not truly Zen. Zen is complex and contradictory but remarkably simple. Zen is empty and void but remarkably delightful. What is Zen? Zen is. Words are inadequate in revealing the meaning of Zen. Yet words are among our best tools for communication. By careful consideration of ideas preceding the rise of Zen Buddhism we can perhaps become more receptive to understanding Zen.

We begin the search for the meaning of Zen by examining the philosophical environment which gave rise toZen: Indian and Chinese philosophies.

In India, Buddhism arose out of a Hindu environment and later, one form called Mahayana evolved. Taoism, a philosophy that also contributed much to Zen, was developed in China. It was in China where imported Mahayana Buddhist ideas fused with existing Taoist ideas to form what was later called Zen. Concepts that are typically attributed to Mahayana Buddhism and Taoism are integral parts of Zen thought. An understanding of these ideas can help scatter the fog that surrounds the uderstanding of Zen.

The Tao of Taoism is translated as the “Way” and can be somewhat described as the ultimate nature of reality. Tao is the “beginning of Heaven and Earth” and the “gate to all mystery” (Lao Tzu 1). Yet it is indefinable. Lao Tzu, the great Taoist sage, says of the Tao:

Something mysteriously formed,
Born before heaven and earth.
In the silence and the void,
Standing alone and unchanging,
Ever present and in motion.
Perhaps it is the mother of ten thousand things.
I do not know its name.
Call it Tao.
For lack of a better word, I call it great.

(Lao Tzu 25)

The virtue and power that comes from the Tao is Te. This virtue is natural and always appropriate for it is the Tao itself. “Te is the unthinkable ingenuity and creative power of man’s spontaneous and natural-functioning” (Watts 27). The always appropriate and most efficient Te is the natural result of accordance with Tao.

Taoist sages point out that Te can be revealed in mankind through wu-wei. Wu-wei is literally “no-effort.” This type of effortless-effort is likened to the way life evolves. Without any effort our bodies grow, our eyes see, and hands feel. Marvelous things happen in the most appropriate way without any struggle. Wu-wei and the virtuous Te that follows it cannot be intended. It is simply letting things happen without attachment or judgment. If we try to grasp it, it falls beyond our grasp. The moment our effortlessness becomes intended, it is no longer effortlessness. The Te of wu-wei seems similar to what many athletes describe as being “in the zone.” Here, without conscious effort things happen by themselves with an appropriate result. Wu-wei is not a dull stupidity or fatalism, but the completely natural state of human consciousness. Understanding the concepts of Tao, te, and wu-wei point us in the direction of Zen’s meaning.

Zen Buddhism is a form of Buddhism. It would be silly to not examine Buddhism in the journey to uncover Zen’s meaning. Buddhism is first of all a way for finding liberation from anxiety and frustration. The basic concepts of anitya (impermanence) and anatman (no-self) are useful in our search for an understanding of Zen.

Impermanence suggests not that the world is truly impermanent but that reality is beyond categorization. It cannot be grasped and contained by ideas. Mahayana Buddhism commonly refers to the nature of reality as “empty.” But it is important to understand that this is not at all a nihilistic view. Impermanence, emptiness, and void are used to describe the nature of reality. Yet it is not emptiness in the sense of nothingness. It is an emptiness that denies the ultimate existence of ideas and concepts. Impermanence suggests that reality is beyond any kind of knowledge. It is futile to try to contain reality by creating static ideas about it because it is not static. It is not even “not static,” for that, too, is a concept. Impermanence points out the inherent emptiness of ideas and things.

The notion of “no-self” is similar in its approach. No-self is not a denial of consciousness but a denial of the existence of a separate, objectified self that can be experienced. For us to even point out the self would require something beyond the self saying “Over there is the self.” But who is it that points to the self? Yet another self? This would regress infinitely and throws us back into that cycle of frustration and anxiety (karma) that is caused by trying to know what is unknowable. The self cannot be self-aware without detaching itself from what it claims to be. The entangling trap of this paradox is what Buddhism avoids by saying that no self exists.

Mahayana Buddhism gives us a most simple answer to the problem of the seeming paradox of existence and impermanence. It presents us with tathata, which is translated as suchness or thatness. “Thatness indicates the world just as it is, unscreened and undivided by the symbols and definitions of thought” (Watts 67). Thatness is just a nonsense word for what transcends words. We could just as easily use the word God, Tao, or Blah. It is the “non-verbal concrete world” that contains “no classes and no symbols which signify or mean anything other than themselves” (67). In this non-verbal world, the words, Taoism, Buddhism, and Zen misrepresent themselves. For they are not concrete existence, only ideas and concepts in our heads.

There seems to be nothing but contradiction in the search for Zen’s meaning. Any realization of truth seems impossible. Yet Zen has a unique way of pointing at the thatness of reality. Zen points directly at life and shouts “!!!” Equally appropriately, Zen points directly at life and tears fall.

There are two major schools of Zen in Japan today. Each of these major schools emphasizes a particular technique for pointing the thatness of Zen. The Soto school suggests meditation as the most appropriate means to stimulating the revelation of realization. The Rinzai school, however, suggests study of a koan as the most appropriate means. A koan is a story, anecdote, or question that is meant to serve as an obstacle for a person’s thought process. It is believed that by impeding a person’s thought process, the koan will allow that person to discard that very process that is the true impediment. A so-called beginner level koan is one that presents an impossible, nonsense situation. The first koan of Hui-kai’s Wu-MenKan is that of a student asking Joshu (Chao-chou) if a dog has a Buddha-nature or not. Joshu’s response is “mu.” Mu is a Chinese character for negative. The student would naturally be baffled by this “mu.” What compounds the student’s doubt would be the teacher’s constant rejection of any of the student’s attempts to show proof of this “mu,” of this nothing. Soon the student is filled with doubt and feels completely stupid. Everything around him seems to be complete nonsense like this idiotic “mu.” What likely happens next after some time is the spontaneous shattering of the stupidity of this “mu.” The koan really has no meaning. All concepts and constructs too are not reality. What remains is “thatness,” just an unconscious awareness of reality.

Other koan reinforce this “is” of Zen. Each koan might give the student a new perspective on the basic truth of Zen. Ideally the student would become very much in accordance with life. There is a famous Zen saying:

Before I had studied Zen for thirty years, I saw mountains as mountains, and waters as waters. When I arrived at a more intimate knowledge, I came to the point where I saw that mountains are not mountains, and waters are not waters. But now I have got its very substance I am at rest. For it’s just that I see mountains once again as mountains and waters once again as waters.

When we begin we are attached to ideas and labels, such as an “experience” that belongs to a “self.” Mountains become as a definition in a dictionary. We work and work to pin everything down with labels. We are confused and frustrated, yet we don’t know why. It’s because of the conventional mind’s tendency to desperately cling on to a notion of world and self that is unnatural, that we are confused and frustrated. It becomes apparent that the value of a thing only exists in relation to another. Trying to improve our lives by constantly grasping only what is “good” is as silly as a dog chasing its tail. Or like trying to eliminate left by constantly turning right. Soon we see the emptiness of the mind’s constructions called “mountains” and “waters.” We realize that no-self and impermanence are quite appropriate. Any kind of concept is meaningless. This is where we see mountains as not mountains and waters as not waters. After a fuller realization, we may realize what some call Tao and its accompanying Te, or “thatness,” is only life as it is. It is surprisingly ordinary and mundane. In fact, it is nothing special at all. Yet it is always somehow full of life, always appropriate, always perfect in its own ordinariness. Here, mountains are simply mountains and waters are simply waters. What else could they possibly be? From this realization, the frustration of trying to understand reality through fundamentally inadequate means falls away. An individual with this penetrating awareness of reality will live a most natural and effortless life. For the sage, reality will unfold as it will, completely complete in each moment.

Zen is careful to point out that cultivation in the sense of actively working towards a goal will not lead to realization. There is actually no understandable goal to be reached and no concept of enlightenment to be attained. This may seem a hopeless endeavor, to seek the unknowable. If any conceptual understanding of Zen is not true Zen, then why struggle at reaching this impossible goal? One possibility is that it is most important to fully understand what it is that we need to discard before we realize that it must be discarded. Perhaps it may be that with a full understanding of the principles of Zen we are more attuned to a realization. However, it is most likely that to strive for any goal, even an impossible one, is just spinning in a circle. There cannot be a goal to reach. As soon as we think that it is a goal, then it is lost. Yet as soon as we think of it as not a goal, as the non-existence of a goal, then we are just spinning in the opposite direction. The point of koan study and Zen practice is to realize no realization. It truly is the hardest easy thing a person will ever endeavor to do.

All the conceptual knowledge we may possess, all the books we may read, all the discourses on Zen we may write do not amount to Zen. The meaning of Zen need not be revealed, for it was here all along. It is life and life is it. It is living life just as it is at this very moment. Life is really quite effortless and always right in front of us. The liberating realization that Zen alludes to is not new and unique to Zen. It is a simple truth, the meaning that Lao Tzu surely realized, the same that Gautama surely realized, and what many men throughout time have realized. A completely natural awareness that just is. Surprisingly, Zen is quite ordinary and mundane. It is really nothing special at all. It is really an impossibly possible impossibility.

Works Cited
Hui-Kai, Wu-men kuan. Trans. Thomas Cleary. New York: Bantam Books 1993.
Keizan. Denkoroku. Trans. Thomas Cleary. San Francisco: North Point Press, 1990.
Lao Tzu. Tao Te Ching. Trans. Gia-Fu Feng and Jane English. New York: Vintage Books,1997.
Reps, Paul, eds. Zen Flesh, Zen Bones. Tokyo: Charles E. Tuttle Company, 1993.
Watts, Alan. The Way of Zen. New York: Vintage Books, 1989.