If the eye never sleeps, 

all dreams will naturally cease. 

If the mind makes no discriminations, 

the ten thousand things are as they are, 

of single essence. 


To understand the mystery of this One-essence 

is to be released from all entanglements. 

When all things are seen equally 

the timeless Self-essence is reached, 

No comparisons or analogies are possible 

in this causeless, relationless state. 

Consider movement stationary 

and the stationary in motion, 

both movement and rest disappear. 

When such dualities cease to exist 

Oneness itself cannot exist. 

To this ultimate finality 

no law or description applies. 

           
           In Zen we practice meditation with our eyes open.  This is different from most other meditation traditions.  As the Theravadins practice today, the early Buddhists probably also practiced meditation with their eyes closed.  Some where in our 2500 year tradition some one noticed it was easier to quiet the mind with the eyes open so we in Zen sit with our eyes open.  
          The eyes are a valuable tool in zazen (Zen meditation).  Normally we are taught to keep our eyes focused on a single spot on the floor about 6 feet in front of us.  This aids our concentration.  Also because the eyes cannot physically stay focused for very long, several times through a period there is a need to refocus which I find prevents drifting into thought for very long.  Also I find that if I am tending to dream or think a lot during zazen my eyes will want to close and sometimes do close.  But then by opening and focusing my eyes the dreams and thoughts are cut off.  Doing this again and again eventually I find myself with an awake, quiet, and focused mind.  Usually our focus on a spot on the floor is not our primary object of concentration.  Usually our breathing is the primary object of concentration but sometimes I use the spot on the floor or something else in my visual field as my primary object of concentration with good results.
          As concentration deepens and our mind quiets, it is possible to open our awareness to a larger and larger field.  Instead of narrowing awareness to just one object of concentration we can expand awareness.  Normally when we look out at the world we look at one thing at a time.  One of my practices is to hold awareness on the whole visual field including peripheral vision.  With the eyes wide open the visual field becomes a big round mandala.  This is not an easy practice.  I find it difficult to hold awareness of the visual field for more then a few moments but it is this difficulty that demands a completely quiet mind and then holding this completely quiet mind for a few moments I enter a deep samadhi and my mind stays effortlessly quiet.
           Sometimes it is said that Zen Masters don't dream.  We like to ascribe magical powers to those we consider Enlightened but there is a certain truth to this idea about dreaming.  I am pretty sure that all Zen Masters dream during sleep, at least during the normal periods when they are not intensively practicing meditation on retreat.  But a well practiced and enlightened Zen person day dreams much less then most people.  This comes with having a mind which is present in the now.  This is the practice of Zen.  And during periods of intense practice while in deep samadhi there is no day dreaming. 

        I find the above section of the Hsin Hsin Ming a bit entangling,  He praises insight into the non-dual or what he calls the one essence as the essential liberating experience and then he goes on to describe a state of deep samadhi without any discrimination in which nothing exists including the one essence.  But it is as I have said earlier in these blogs, this deep samadhi without any discrimination is the gateway experience.  During this deep samadhi there is no insight, but without this samadhi there will never be the deep insight that is truly liberating.  Some people think that through study of koans, the sayings of the great past Zen masters, and Buddhist literature that some how, without pushing their meditation to really deep samadhi, they will have that great insight we call enlightenment.  In general I would say they are wrong.  But the few exceptions happen only because deep non-discriminating samadhi is not the exclusive result of meditation but can occur  in any activity in life where concentration and mindfulness are practiced.  And the true Zen practitioner practices concentration and mindfulness both on and off the cushion.  The practice of Zen is the practice of samadhi.
          The corollary to what I have just said is that deep samadhi is not quite enough.   Insight is important and it is not the inevitable result of deep samadhi.  Often it takes something extra to push the practitioner into insight.  This push is one of the teacher's roles.  This is also the role of koans  (enigmatic questions asked by the teacher).   Deep non-discriminating samadhi is temporary but insight we carry into the rest of life.  It is in deep samadhi that we have the experience the allows for the liberating insight.  In deep samadhi we experience no self,  we experience non-duality,  we experience the One.  The problem is that without discrimination there is no insight.  We might come and go from non-discriminating samadhi many times without any insight but then something happens, a word from a teacher, a loud noise. a kick in the shin and now we understand.
         

The wise man strives to no goals 

but the foolish man fetters himself. 


There is one Dharma, not many. 

Distinctions arise 

from the clinging needs of the ignorant. 

To seek Mind with the (discriminating) mind 

is the greatest of all mistakes. 


Rest and unrest derive from illusion; 

with enlightenment 

there is no liking and disliking. 

All dualities come from ignorant inference. 

They are like dreams or flowers in air - 

foolish to try to grasp them. 

Gain and loss, right and wrong, 

such thoughts must 

finally be abolished at once. 


          "There is one Dharma not many."  Seng Tsan makes this statement but the third bodhisattva vow says "The Dharmas are un countable, I vow to master them."  What are we to think? Which is correct?  Throughout this whole poem Seng Tsan does not waver from his deep insight into the non-dual the One.  Yes we see the world broken up into the many but the deeper truth is the One.  This deeper truth is the heart of Zen.  Everything else in Zen and Buddhism are just devices for the awakening to this greater truth.
          There is an intuitive truth to this idea of Oneness that I think most people recognize.  Many people even thirst for an experience of loosing themselves in the One.  But ultimately for we humans it is incredibly difficult and rare to have a true awakening to the One because it means we must drop everything we think is important and everything we fear.  This takes bravery and it also takes faith. 
         The other day I gave a talk about faith in the Zen context.  I am not sure it went over very well because this word "faith" has such strong connotations from it's use in Christianity and other religions that it may have been difficult for some to understand faith the way I was presenting it.  In Christianity and most other religions there is a faith in some idea of God.  But also in these religions there is a faith in a large structure of ethical values and behavioral rules and other ideas that were supposedly passed down to us humans by God not to be questioned.  This is not the faith that we Zen practitioners need.  Our faith is much simpler.  It is the faith that whatever happens it will be OK.  This is not at all an easy faith because we are filled with desires, some selfish and some not selfish, and we want things to be a certain way.  Yet we know that things may or may not turn out the way we want.  To say that that is OK that is our faith.   I am not even saying that we should even have a faith that in the long long run things will be better in any way that we humans will recognize as better.  But even that is OK.
          The faith I am talking about is a faith in the non-dual, it is a faith in the One.  It is also a faith in the implications of non-duality, like emptiness, deep interdependence, no-self. and a fundamental ignorance.  And even though as a practitioner we may or may not have had an experience of the One we still need this faith because it is only through this faith that we can let go all our dualistic judgments and have an experience of the One.
         If we don't have this faith or a similar religious faith then we can only have a faith in our small selves, our emotions and our intelligence, and we will be caught in a cycle of dualistic thought.  I have a little scenario in my head that I am trying to explain this to a person with a God oriented faith.  I say, "Do you think God will reveal himself to someone who criticizes his creation?"  
          Don't confuse this faith in the One with a faith in an anthropomorphic idea of God.  Some may think that without a faith in God there is just nihilism.  But then the faith that I am talking about, the faith in the Non-Dual works in a reverse fashion from theistic religion.  Instead of creating a humanized view of the world through a humanized God, in Zen we learn to identify ourselves with the One which transcends being human.  Through identification with the One we also identify with the other, humans, animals, plants, mountains, stars, this whole unbounded Universe and everything contained there in, and the processes which create everything there in.  This is our true unbounded Self.  The One is the many and the many is the One.
          Several years ago I had a  discussion with a devout Christian on the Theory of Evolution.  He explained that he didn't believe in Evolution because he felt it was insulting.  He preferred to believe he was a special creation of God.  I think that most humans thinking of themselves as only individuals want to believe in their specialness but through identification with the One we can drop all need for specialness and then not only can we believe in Evolution but we become Evolution.  People don't want to die, consequently we have all sorts of beliefs in an afterlife or reincarnation yet if we come to identify with the One we don't see ourselves as really dying.  The true Self, the One, does not die.  In the Heart Sutra we read,  " In Emptiness there is ... , no birth, no death, ..."  (In the Heart Sutra this word emptiness is used to express the experience and understanding where all dualities vanish.  Read my blog commentary on the Heart Sutra.)   
          Harada Roshi often says, "There is only one Life."   Our individual lives partake in the one Life.  There is no separation here.  Through this understanding and through our faith we can drop our delusions, illusions, and attachments see the world clearly and function unfettered out of the depth of our heart. 


To seek Mind with the (discriminating) mind 
is the greatest of all mistakes. 


          There is an ancient school of Buddhist philosophy that was very influential in early Chinese Zen called Yogacara.  It is often called the Mind Only school because of it's use of the word "Mind" to represent the the non-dual One, the Absolute.  Yogacara is a difficult philosophy to understand and I think it is often misinterpreted.  The use of the word Mind is confusing in that we normally use the word mind to represent our internal life of thought and emotion which in Zen we call the discriminating mind.  As Seng Tsan makes clear we should not confuse the two.  This use of the word Mind has a meaning that transcends our normal idea of mind but instead points to our experience when the discriminating mind is turned off.  
           It is sometimes called Mirror Like Samadhi when in meditation the discriminating mind is turned off yet consciousness is fully awake and aware.  In this state the mind clearly reflects all sensations like a polished mirror.  To call this state of mind Mirror Like Samadhi is dualistic but the state itself is without dualism.  In this state of mind there are no thoughts of separation between this and that, between what is inside the mind and what is outside the mind.  In this state there is not even a separation between mind and the content of mind.  It is all just Mind.  Of course Mind is just a word and there are lots of words to express the Non-Dual like Buddha, or True Self, or Absolute, or One, or Non-Dual but the use of the word Mind points to the experience and the understanding of the experience a little differently from other words.  Mirror Like Samadhi is a gate way experience but we only go through the gate with a deep insight into the Non-Dual.
          The very last question my teacher Harada Roshi asked me before he told me that my training was complete and gave me the authority to teach was,  "How big
 is your mind?"  I must have answered to his satisfaction.