sunnuntai 2. joulukuuta 2018

Rethinking Zen and Kensho

Rethinking Zen and Kensho

There are many examples of zen practitioners, both monastics and laypeople, who experienced seeing one's true nature, or kensho, first by cultivating one-pointedness (skt. samadhi, jp. zanmai), and then shattering that one-pointedness through various spontaneous or purposeful ways. What happens when one-pointedness becomes shattered is that one's mind shifts from self-based and self-experienced concentrative calm, to one's natural state, or buddhanature.

I have questioned the necessity of cultivating samadhi because, from the point of view of having kensho, it seems quite useless, that takes a lot of time and effort to come up with. While from one perspective being mindfully concentrated is better than being distracted, neither of these conditions are the natural state, that is, kensho. Thousand hours of concentration on one's breath or koan is little, based on queries and observations, and still it is not certain that kensho will happen. All in all, it is very unreliable. The good side is that it needn't be so.

Buddhism teaches that all sentient beings have buddhanature, so the question is how can we most effectively access this buddhanature of ours, instead of remaining in our samsaric state? If we managed to recognise our natural state correctly, on regular basis, we'd be glimpsing and familiarising (kensho) our buddhanature all the time.

In my view, the reason why kensho zen is near to extinction is because training in samadhi has taken the place of prioritising kensho. It's all backwards. If recognition of one's buddhanature was prioritized, we would instantly see a change in our sanghas and in the whole zen culture.

The thing is that in order to have kensho, we need not cultivate samadhi. We need not go through the hardship of learning how to concentrate but by the means of dynamic concentration (pg. 21 in What's Next? On Post-Awakening Practice) can access the natural state as soon as we utter a sharp shout. In this way we can bypass samadhi cultivation and save a lot of time and energy, while inevitably having one kensho after another.

Thank you.

-Kim Katami
Open Heart Sangha,