Wabi Sabi. Andrew Juniper

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      SO WHAT IS ZEN?

      Ch’an, or Zen, as it is more commonly known in the West, is the peculiarly Chinese way of achieving the Buddhist goal of breaking down all learned ideas of the world so as to see the world as it is—that is, with a mind free from attachments or judgments. This state is reached through rigorous mental effort, and the path is paved by the achievement of mushin (literally “no heart”), where one is freed from mundane attachments or desires. When an acolyte has succeeded in calming his thoughts and emotions, he is then ready to perceive the world without any preconceived notions. This is the prerequisite for the state of enlightenment known as satori—the goal to which all Buddhists aspire. Indeed, it is a state of mind that mystics, sages, and sorcerers have channeled great efforts to achieve. Zen differs from other schools of Buddhism in that it believes that this awareness does not come gradually, but as a flash of insight, so it puts no store in theorizing or trying to explain the unexplainable. It focuses all its energies on bringing about this monumental shift in awareness, the shift that will free the acolyte from the bonds of a world that is too real.

      Because of this Zen monks have been renowned for their eccentric behavior and cryptic answers to questions. They believe that our reason is the greatest source of misunderstanding because it actually hinders a student’s deeper comprehension of the world that exists beyond words. Humans are slaves to words and the reason they produce.

      Breaking the bonds of dualism has been an ever-present theme in many religions and philosophies. From the moment of birth, we are constantly given a dualistic view of the world from our parents, and this is reinforced by all those we come into contact with until it becomes so internalized that we forget that it was even learned. We are taught that we are separate from the outside world, and objects that are not part of our body are separate from us. Zen masters say that this is pure illusion and that we are in fact everything we perceive. In modern psychological terms, a child is said to become ego-centric when he has learned to distinguish himself from the world he perceives. It is just this learned idea that we are separate from our environment that Zen says we need to unlearn. By loosening the concept of self, or in Freudian terms the ego, the world takes on a new dimension where true art and creativity can begin.

      A professor of philosophy may start his first lecture by talking about the realness of a chair and all the assumptions that have been made to arrive at the idea that the chair is a solid item, out there and real. This is something that most in the West would think a little crazy to even contemplate. Of course the chair is a solid Newtonian object that exists in its own right. To deny this would mean that our deterministic view of the world was wrong and that the ontological precepts that are so ingrained in our thoughts would have to be reassessed. Through education and devotion to science we have left behind the ideas that the world may hold a little more magic than we suspect. The following poem by Edgar Alan Poe encapsulates the slavish demands of a scientific worldview.