What is Zen?...3
Hui Hai, quoting the 'Sutra of Reflections on Progress' says: 'If in all matters he permits himself no attachment, that is called (practising) the dhyana paramita, or meditation.'
That may not be our idea of 'meditation' - but that is evidently what the word means as a translation of 'dhyana', for the essential meaning of non-attachment is therein.
Later he says: 'No-attachment means that feelings of hatred and love do not arise. That is what is meant by no attachment.'
Our words, as translated, do not necessarily mean to us what the Sanscrit and Chinese words meant to them.
Is it clear that the term 'Zen' (Dhyana, Ch'an) does not mean what we mean by meditation? (See Physics and Metaphysics II, Ch. 10)* * *
Satori...3
It seems clear that when the four-dimensional consciousness (Wu hsin - the Zen No-Mind) is attained the mutually conditioned evaluations (the so-called pairs of opposites or complementaries) disappear (are no longer seen as such).
Since our reasoning is based on the primitive process of a comparison of these relative evaluations it should follow that the logic of the quadridimensional mind is different from the logic of the tridimensional mind.
If this does not in fact explain the strange statements of the Zen masters in their 'mondo' it provides at least a key to the situation in which such statements arise.
The Unconscious (in Zen, not the psychology of the false ego), Mind-only, and Universal Mind, may all be attempts to indicate what is really just the fourth dimension of mind. That the Zen 'Unconscious' is that seems to be fairly obvious: but the identification between that and Mind-only, which, however, Professor Suzuki makes*, is less easy to perceive.
As phenomena we are an expression of a quadridimensional noumenon?
* * *
No Merit Whatsoever
All generosity that is conscious and affective (any gesture, kindness, charity, or gift) is as much an affirmation and reinforcement of the false 'me' as any maleficence (spitefulness, expression of envy, hatred, greed, malice). That was demonstrated by Bodhidharma's devastating reply to the pious emperor - 'Mo merit whatsoever, your Majesty'.
We may know that, but do we understand it? The man who has transcended his artificial ego would no longer distinguish his own needs from those of others, and would not think of them more or less readily. Anything he might do for others would occasion a reaction no different from that caused by anything he did for himself. All should be pure Caritas**, limpid and impersonal.
