Do not search for the truth; 

only cease to cherish opinions. 

do not remain in the dualistic state. 

Avoid such pursuits carefully. 

If there is even a trace of this and that, 

of right and wrong, 

the mind-essence will be lost in confusion. 


Although all dualities come from the One, 

do not be attached even to this One. 

When the mind exists undisturbed in the Way, 

nothing in the world can offend. 

And when a thing can no longer offend, 

it ceases to exist in the old way. 


          Zen is really very simple, not easy but simple.  There are really just a few important things that we Zen teachers have to say and yet we say them over and over again with endless variety.  Everything I need to say about these two stanzas I have already said and written before.  More important then anything I or any Zen teacher has to say is the practice of clearing our minds, zazen.  I think of my role as a Zen teacher in a few different ways.  I try to encourage practice by creating opportunities for group practice and also by saying and writing a few inspiring words.  Hopefully some day I will help one of my students experience deep insight.  Mostly I just try to teach correct zazen and keep my student's zazen on the straight and true.  It is actually very easy for a practitioner to loose direction or get stuck in their practice.  It is easy for a practitioner to let ideas and attachments enter their practice and lead them astray.  Even to carry an idea of non-attachment into practice is a barrier.  Sometimes with an idea of non-attachment, or "no effort" a person may sit in Zazen and not do anything except let the mind do whatever it wants and consequently nothing happens.  Some one else may have a strong idea of what should be happening during zazen, put in great effort but also be very self conscious in the effort and consequently also not progress. There is a balance between effort and non-attachment,, self- awareness and critical self consciousness, thought and no thought that must be found for zazen to progress.  It is not easy to find this balance.  And interestingly this balance will change as one's zazen progresses.  It is not easy to keep zazen progressing.  This is why it is important to have a teacher.
          I have been told that at Eheiji,  the head temple of Soto Zen in Japan, there is a sign at the front gate that translates into English "Only Don't Know!."  I had a friend tell me that he was really good at "Only Don't Know."  First, in his confusion about many things he was willing to confess ignorance.  This is a good beginning to practice but he was still caught in dualistic thinking. Taking "Only Don't Know" one step further it is a call to clean ourselves of every trace of dualistic thought, in other words practice not-thinking.  But even this is a temporary stage in practice because once the mind-essence is realized and the realization deeply cultivated no longer need dualistic thought be avoided because the realization of the non-dual will not be lost.  Dualistic thought is a tool and recognized as a tool.  In fact dualistic thought becomes sort of roled up into the realization of the non-dual after many years of practice.  All dualities come from the One.  With practice and experience this truth can become part of our everyday functioning.
          Seeing the world through the eye of non-duality changes everything.  As Seng Tsan notes nothing can offend.  As I wrote about in the previous commentary, we will no longer be pushed around by the world, our minds will become imperturbable (I like this word, Suzuki uses it in Zen Mind Beginners Mind.)   This leads to one more definition and experience of emptiness.  With the eye of non-duality, even functioning in the world, things are empty because they don't evoke the normal emotional reactions.

The more you talk and think about it, 

the further astray you wander from the truth. 

Stop talking and thinking, 

and there is nothing you will not be able to know. 


To return to the root is to find meaning, 

but to pursue appearances is to miss the source. 

At the moment of inner enlightenment 

there is a going beyond appearance and emptiness. 

The changes that appear to occur in the empty world 

we call real only because of our ignorance. 


           When the Buddha was was near death he gave one last talk to to his nearest disciples on how to teach the dharma.  He told them to not assert any position nor it's opposite, neither this nor that.  He did not want his students to get caught on any single position in our dualistic way of thinking.    Many people think that the Buddha's teaching of the "middle way"  was a warning against the extremes of asceticism and hedonism, but in fact the teaching was much deeper.  The middle way is the path between the assertion of any absolute positions.  When I first drove West after growing up on the East Coast in a liberal family, I was driving up the coast of Oregon and I picked up two young guys who happen to work as loggers. They started telling me that East coast liberals-like my self, though they didn't know-would not unequivocally stand for any position.  I have heard this complaint several times living in rural Washington.  I will say unequivocally that this position is not the middle way.  On the other hand in Soto Zen,  which surprisingly I think is a little more intellectual then Rinzi Zen, there is often a concerted effort to see every issue and concept from several different positions.
          Applying the middle way to the question, should we stop our thought or should we not stop our thought, we might answer neither should we stop thinking nor should we not stop thinking.  Before, Seng Tsan told us not to be concerned with stopping thought now he is telling us to stop our thought.  Can't he make up his mind?  We must understand this issue in all it's subtlety and we cannot do this without experiencing not-thinking.  Of course I have not permanently stopped my thought but I advocate the experience.
          If we stop our thought do we truly come to understand everything?  Don't think that stopping thought or enlightenment is something magical, only that it open up a whole new way of understanding.  There is this incredible magical mythology that surrounds this experience we call enlightenment.  In much of Asia "enlightenment" and the enlightened are pillars of religion and take the place of what are called in the Judeo-Christian tradition, saints and prophets.  They are thought to have all sorts of magical powers.  I have met many a student of Buddhism and Hinduism ( another enlightenment based tradition) who are  sure that their teacher has magical powers  The liturature of these traditions has ascribed all sorts of magical powers to the enlightened.  The Buddha could read minds and tell the future,  Millarepa the Tibetan yogi could fly and appear simultaneously in multiple places. Certainly we students tend to project our desires for ourselves upon our teachers.  
          I of course had read all sorts of stuff about great Buddhist Masters and had all sorts of ideas about enlightenment.  The enlightened were supposedly all knowing and all seeing.  And then when I had the experience and some understanding I understood, that yes I am all knowing and all seeing not because I as an individual know or see every specific thing but I know and see everything in general because I know and see everything as One.  To perceive the world through the eye of non-duality is to be all knowing and all seeing.  It is also to be everywhere simultaneously.  Any yes I can fly because when I look up at a bird I see myself, my large self.  This is not magic ( or maybe it is magic) it is just  seeing things through a different lens.
          With our minds constantly thinking many of us live in a confused and dissatisfied state of mind.  The experience of quieting our minds in deep meditation relieves this confusion.  In the state of not-thinking we experience an un-confused deeply satisfied state of mind.  In this state of mind we know all we need to know and understand all we need to understand. There is one great power that comes with this state of not-thinking, clarity.






To return to the root is to find meaning, 
but to pursue appearances is to miss the source. 

          Ha, now we return to the root?  I understand this couplet in a couple of different ways.   I once read a book that described consciousness as a series of concentric circles.  the outside circle was our surface consciousness,  The way we see and think about the world day to day.  This outer circle is supported by other subconscious levels of consciousness.  Just below the surface is a layer of  thoughts that are so subtle that we are not aware we are having them yet we can become aware of them if we make a effort through a practice like meditation to watch our minds work.  Below that layer are other layers.  There are layers of memories and emotions that rarely if ever rise to the surface but still have an ongoing effect.  There is a layer of genetically endowed personality and below that is a layer of genetically endowed instinct but still we are not at the center of the circle.  The center of the circle we might describe as the root of consciousness.  What resides in this root? Stripped of everything we might think that the root of consciousness is consciousness itself with nothing added,  empty consciousness which reflects the world around but doesn't add any thoughts, not even a thought of an I who is conscious.  In Zen we call this state of mind Mirror Like Samadhi.  Many Zen practitioners think that this is the final goal but how could it be since it is without meaning.  Seng Tsan says we are to find meaning if we return to the root.  We must ask what comes before consciousness?  So here you are sitting in mirror like samadhi and some one asks a question like, what comes before consciousness, and you look at the mirror like samadhi you are sitting in, there are no thoughts differentiating experience into this and that,  I and not-I, and then you recognize the whole relm of experience as a single undifferentiated One and you recognize that this One is the root of consciousness.  The root is the One. not some state of meditation.  And now you understand and now you experience meaning.
          When I talk to friends and fellow Zen students like this I often get the objection that there is still an individual who recognizes the One that somehow the enlightened are suppose to be completely un-self-conscious and function as the One.  But how could that be? We are humans beings and we think.  We are not a lower level of animal that is conscious but not self conscious.  If we understand that our root lies in the One then we must change our whole view of what we are and be reborn as that One.  Of course we use language to express this and language is filled with dualism but never the less the underlying understanding is now non-dual.
          If I remember correctly the book I mentioned called the center of the circle God Consciousness- it was a Hindu philosophical text.  The author being a philosopher may have only had a concept of and never experienced the center of the circle but if understood correctly he was not wrong.  Of course the word God is filled with all sorts of connotations for most of us but if we understand the meaning as the non-dual One we can call it God or Buddha or the Universe, what ever we want.
          And our new reborn consciousness and self-consciousness is not something fundamentally different then our dualistic consciousness and self consciousness.  Of course through our practice of meditation it is much quieter but now we have established a new foundation to understanding our self and the whole Universe.  And this self consciousness which we once thought to be the root of our suffering is no longer mired in the delusion of an individual self but recognizes itself as the Universes own consciousness and self-consciousness.
          My teacher often talks about how most people are pushed around by their senses.  If we see things that are pretty we want them.  If we experience enjoyable feelings we want more.  Conversely we are repelled from experiences of ugliness and unpleasant feelings.  This is called Karmic consciousness. 
           Karma refers to the principle of cause and effect including cause and effect as it works in our psychology.  Many of us think of karma as a noun.  We say we have this karma or that karma.  It is some sort of attribute that causes our fate.  A more sophisticated understanding is that karma are causal attributes of our psychology that determine our thoughts and actions in reaction to the events in the world around us.  Our experiences and past actions are part of our karma but also our personality and yes the instincts we are born with.  It is all a very very complex process.  Some Buddhist thinkers have said that all our past experiences, thoughts and actions are like seeds that sprout to form our future experiences, thoughts, and actions (Yogacara School).  This is how they describe the activity of karma.  Since they believed in reincarnation and they thought that we are all born with karma that comes from past lives.  Today we might call this our genetically endowed instincts and personality and understand that it is not a direct result of our personal past lives.  Yet with the eye of non-duality we may also understand that the past lives of all beings on this planet is our personal past life and thus understand the process of evolution as the process of karma.  And if we extend this understanding further we may think that our karma goes right back to the Big Bang or before.
          Yet, when we sit in mirror like samadhi we sit unmoved by the events of the world around us, our consciousness is untouched by our karma.  We see the world as it is but are not pushed around by the world.  But mirror like samadhi is not something we can carry out into our every day lives as functioning humans.  If we are to find a way to exist as functional humans we cannot do this by permanently stopping thought but by changing the foundation of our understanding.  This is rebirth into the non-dual.  

At the moment of inner enlightenment
there is a going beyond appearance and emptiness. 

The changes that appear to occur in the empty world 
we call real only because of our ignorance. 

         One of the foundational teachings of Buddhism is that everything is constantly changing, yet Seng Tsan seems to be saying that this is an illusion.  Also the traditional Buddhist understanding of emptiness is that things are empty precisely because they are always changing.  Here we have a different view of emptiness and a different view of change.  This is the view from the non-dual in which things are empty of individuality because there is no individuality. And the change we experience is also empty and does not push us around because it is also seen from the perspective of the One.  
          I am not sure I would go so far as to say that things, and beings and change do not exist because what we call existence is the appearance of duality within the the non-dual.  Suzuki Roshi had a nice phrase for this, "The Oneness in the duality."  This is a perceptive shift which allows us to move within the world and not be pushed around by events.
           Also don't think that this perspective shift can be separated from the practice of meditation because it is only through quieting the mind can we perceive the One.  If we allow our dualistic thinking mind to hold sway then the non-dual perspective will just become a concept and eventually be burred by our dualistic thoughts. Remember what Seng Tsan wrote, "Be serene in the oneness of things."  True Zen samadhi is not about not-thinking per-say but rather about sitting in the perception of the One which can only result from a quiet mind.
   
          

When you try to stop activity by passivity 

your very effort fills you with activity. 

As long as you remain in one extreme or the other 

you will never know Oneness. 


Those who do not live in the single Way 

fail in both activity and passivity, 

assertion and denial. 

To deny the reality of things 

is to miss their reality; 

To assert the emptiness of things 

is to miss their reality. 


           I had an ongoing debate with a friend for many years on the importance of learning to not think during meditation.  He was an avid practitioner of about 8 years when we started talking about this issue, a student of a student of Sasaki Roshi.  He didn't believe that learning to not think was the correct direction he should go in his meditation.  He would tell me that not thinking was like dying and why would he want to do that.  He would tell me that the way of Zen was "everyday mind" which is a classic Zen saying.  He would tell me that  trying to stop thinking didn't work for him.  And here Seng Tsan seems to be providing another argument for my friends position.
          I on the other hand told my friend that my teacher Harada Roshi was very specific  in asking me to master not-thinking.  My friend responded that maybe Harada was just tailoring his teaching to me specifically.  I said "no" and told him  that one time Harada told all the participants in a sesshin that if they could stop their thinking for one minute their lives would change.  I pointed out that teaching not-thinking was also not just Harada's teaching but a general teaching within Zen, for example when Dogen was asked how zazen should be practiced he said, "Think not-thinking."  At some point my friend and I stopped debating this issue.  I even think that based upon a few things he said recently that maybe he has experienced not-thinking.
          This question of thinking verses not-thinking is a point of contention within the Zen community  I think that this contention results from confusion and misunderstanding.  To begin it is important that we understand what is meant by not-thinking.  One might think that to not-think is to enter some death like trance without thought or consciousness.  There are stories of people reaching this death like state in meditation and returning to consciousness only after many hours, days or even years. Sometimes these tales are cautionary. Some Zen teachers are very specific in saying that this state of mind is not the Zen way.  In the Platform Sutra of the Sixth Patriarch there are several passages that argue against this state of mind.  There is another form of not thinking.  This not thinking is completely awake yet the mind is quiet.  The internal verbal dialogue has stopped for the most part.  And there is a deep serenity but also it is a state of mind that is open and intelligent.  Hakuin calls this "the thought of no thought". in his Song of Zazen.  It is from this state of mind in which we recognize the oneness of things as in "Be serene in the oneness of things."
          There is another argument  that some Zen practitioners use. It goes like this. " The practice of Zen is not about not-thinking it is about non-attachment.  If you don't attach to your thoughts then there is no problem with thinking."  This is in fact true except to use this as an argument against not-thinking is to not understand the deep nature of attachment.  Attachment and non-attachment happens on many different levels and in many different ways.  There is of course the attachment to life and the attachment to identity.  These are really difficult to detach from.  Then there are all sorts of other attachments like sunny days and good coffee.  Maybe we will find ourselves disappointed or even unhappy when the sun isn't shining or we can't get a good cup of coffee in the morning.  Need I go on/  If we investigate our thoughts and look at our attachments then we will see that most of our thoughts result from attachments and that our attachments result from thoughts.  And so one argument for not-thinking emerges.
          Someone might say, "I am detached because I don't take myself and my thoughts seriously,  I recognize that this world is a mystery that I cannot fathom."  This may be a good  place psychologically for Zen practice but it is not a good argument against not-thinking. Carrying around this attitude does not mean one is thoroughly detached.  Be careful, even ignorance can be an attachment.   It also does not mean that one has dropped the attachment to self that keeps us in our dualistic perspective. 
          To not be attached to thoughts is actually the practice of Zazen and it results in not-thinking.  What do I mean by this?  When we practice Zazen we are taught to let our thoughts go.  We do this by placing our attention on some object of focus like our breathing, or our posture, or a mantra.  Durring meditation if we catch ourselves lost in thought or maybe not so lost but just thinking then we just refocus our attention on our object of attention and hopefully drop our thoughts.  Though our thoughts may not drop very easily, if we persistently return to our object of focus then they will eventually loose their energy and disappear.  This is a long and arduous process.  For a long time after you begin this practice one thought will just be replaced by another.  All your daily concerns and deep unresolved issues will emerge.  Eventually you will be able to hold your attention on your object of attention for long periods of time but maybe now you experience a persistent underlying layer of thought that is never quiet.  Again if your are persistent even this underlying layer of thought will loose it's energy and disappear.  Now you can truly experience not-thinking. This is non-attachment to thought.  And it is a process that can take many years to begin to master.  When a truly experienced Zen teacher teaches to not try to stop thought but only practice non-attachment, he /she is actually teaching both non-attachment and  not-thinking.  
           The deepest level of attachment is the attachment of one thought to another. In practicing zazen we eventually learn to cut this attachment but this doesn't mean that all thought is stopped.  If all thought is stopped there is no insight.  Zen insight, the insight into non-duality, resides at the boundary between thinking and not-thinking.  to reside in a state of non-attachment in zazen is to have a very quiet but not absolutely quiet mind.  Thoughts will arise as the situation demands but then are quickly dropped when not needed.  If you are practicing koan Zen then this is the place where koans are answered.
           Now I am going to backtrack a bit.  Though we might read in the Zen Literature arguments against the complete stopping of thought, where even consciousness and awareness is stopped, we can also find arguments for this death like state of mind in the Zen literature.  Zen Training by Sekida or the Awakening of Faith Sastra by Asvaghosa in classic Buddhist literature are examples.  I am going to say from my experience that this complete stopping of thought is valuable not so much in itself but because it often precedes that other quiet and awake state of mind.  Also it has something very valuable to teach, that everything that we attach to in our internal world as part of our individuality can be turned off through the practice of meditation.  This is experientially irrefutable evidence of our own individual "emptiness."   There is a name for this experience, the Great Death, which must include both parts, the complete stopping of all thought followed by insight into our "emptiness."  But then the Great Death is followed be a great rebirth or what is more commonly called The Great Awakening.  This is to see the world without duality, this is to be serene in the Oneness of things.
          This stanza is not an argument against not-thinking, it is an argument against the straight forward approach of trying to use will power to turn off thought.  Nor can we think our thoughts away.  These efforts will only produce more thoughts.  This is attaching to an idea of not thinking and attachment creates thought.  The proper way to approach this issue the Buddha termed The Middle Way because the path he advocated was to follow a middle path between attachment to fixed ideas.  This means that in our practice we should not worry about whether our thoughts stop or not.  If we diligently and properly practice then some day our thoughts will simply stop.  If we notice they have stopped and think this is some sort of accomplishment then they will just start up again.  So again we work our way back to this place of not-thinking and do this again and again until there is nothing special about not-thinking.
         Now on to the next Stanza.


Those who do not live in the single Way 

fail in both activity and passivity, 

assertion and denial. 

To deny the reality of things 

is to miss their reality; 

To assert the emptiness of things 

is to miss their reality. 


         There is a strain of thinking that Buddhists are prone to.  It goes something like this.  This whole world, everything that is seemingly out there is actually a product of our own minds.  For many this is an attractive idea because the corollary idea is that we can control our own version of reality through our thoughts.  This is a type of magical thinking.  Buddhists are prone to this type of thinking for many reasons, one of which is a school of Buddhist thought that is called Yogacara which states an idea that everything is "mind".  There is also a long history of Buddhist thought that talks about how each of us are filled with delusions and illusions which are a product of our thought.  Taking this a step further some of us say that everything is a product of our minds
          In some sense the reality we live in is a construct of our minds.  We live in a human world.  A world of humans and human relationships and things that we find important.  Our constantly busy minds gives each of us a  unique world view which in  a sense is our own unique world.  The question is, is there an underlying reality from which our each own unique world derives?  If we are physicists then of course we say yes, this is the world that physics is trying to describe.  But a person who believes that everything is a product of our own mind will say that even the world of physics is a product of our own mind.  As Zen Buddhist's this issue is not one for philosophical debate but we hope can be answered through our practice of meditation.  Fortunately it can be answered through experience if one takes the practice of meditation deep enough.  Simply stop thinking.  In the fully awake state of not-thinking the world does't disappear.  Our experience has a very different quality, a sort of quality-less quality without any added thoughts our emotions.  We have given this a name " suchness."  Suchness is pure experience without interpretation.  This is still not the underlying reality of the physicist.  Suchness is still a construct, it is just not a construct of our thoughts, it is a construct of our body and brains.  It is a construct of our physiology.  Even so this answers our question.  Yes there is an underlying reality that is not a product of thought.  It also answers some other questions such as the nature of our delusions and illusions and as well as the very important question (to us Buddhists) of birth and death.  It in fact answers all the questions that the practice of meditation can answer but only if we are willing to think about the experience.  There is a quote from Dogen which goes like this.  "There are those who pile delusion within delusion and those who have insight after insight"  ( translation from the Genjo Koan)