Zen aims at a perfection of personhood. To this end, sittingmeditation called “za-zen” is employed as afoundational method ofprāxis across the differentschools of this Buddha-Way, through which the Zen practitionerattempts to embody non-discriminatory wisdomvis-à-visthe meditational experience known as “satori”(enlightenment). A process of discovering wisdom culminates in theexperiential dimension in which the equality of thing-events isapprehended in discerning them. The most distinguishing feature ofthis school of the Buddha-Way is seen in its contention that wisdom,accompanied by compassion, is expressed in the everyday“life-world” when associating with one's self, people, andnature. The everyday “life-world” for most people is anevanescent transforming stage in which living is consumed,philosophically speaking, by an either-or, ego-logical, dualisticparadigm of thinking with its attendant psychological states such asstress and anxiety. Zen demands an overcoming of this paradigm bypractically achieving an holistic perspective in cognition, so thatthe Zen practitioner can celebrate, with a stillness of mind, a lifeof tending toward the concrete thing-events of everyday life andnature. For this reason, the Zen practitioner is required to embodyfreedom expressive of the original human nature. Generally speaking,Zen cherishes simplicity and straightforwardness in grasping realityand acting on it “here and now,” for it believes that athing-event that is immediately presencing before one's eyesor under one's foot is no other than an expression of suchness, i.e.,itis suchthat it is showing its primordial mode ofbeing. It also understands a specificity of thing-event to bea recapitulation of the whole; parts and the whole are to be lived inan inseparable relationship through an exercise of nondiscriminatorywisdom, without prioritizing the visible over the invisible, theexplicit over the implicit, and vice versa. As such, Zen maintains astance of “not one” and “not two,”i.e., “positionless position,” where “nottwo” signals a negation of the stance that divides the wholeinto two parts, i.e., dualism, while “not one”designates a negation of this stance when the Zen practitioner dwellsin the whole as one, while suspending judgment in meditation,i.e., non-dualism. Free, bilateral movement between“not one” and “not two” characterizes Zen'sachievement of a personhood with athird perspective thatcannot, however, be confined to either dualism or non-dualism(i.e., neither “not one” nor “nottwo”).

• 1. The Meaning of the Term Zen
• 2. Zen's Methods:Kōan Practice and Just Sitting
• 3. The Practice: Three-Step Process
  • 3.1 The Adjustment of the Body
  • 3.2 The Adjustment of Breathing
  • 3.3 The Adjustment of the Mind
• 4. Zen as Anti-Philosophy
• 5. Overcoming Dualism
  • 5.1 Logical Meaning of Not Two
  • 5.2 An Epistemological Meaning of Not Two
  • 5.3 Zen's Meaning of Not Two
• 6. An Experiential Meaning of Not-Two
  • 6.1 Zen's No-Thought and No-Image
  • 6.2 Zen's Nothing
  • 6.3 Zen “Seeing”
• 7. Zen's Understanding of Time and Space
  • 7.1 Here and Now
  • 7.2 Zero Time and Zero Space
  • 7.3 An Integrated Time and Space
  • 7.4 The Structure of Things Appearing
• 8. Returning to the Everyday “life-world”: Not One
  • 8.1 Zen Person
  • 8.2 Zen's Freedom
• 9. Concluding Remarks
• Bibliography
• Academic Tools
• Other Internet Resources
• Related Entries

1. The Meaning of the Term Zen

The designation of this school of the Buddha-Way as Zen, which meanssitting meditation, is derived from a transliteration of the ChinesewordChán. Because the Chinese termis in turn a transliteration of the Sanskrit termdhyāna, however, Zen owes its historical origin toearly Indian Buddhism, where a deepened state of meditation, calledsamādhi, was singled out as one of the threecomponents of study a Buddhist was required to master, the other twobeing an observation of ethical precepts (sīla) and anembodiment of nondiscriminatory wisdom(prajñā). The reason that meditation was singledout for the designation of this school is based on the fact that thehistorical Buddha achieved enlightenment (nirvāna)through the practice of meditation. In the context of Zen Buddhism,perfection of nondiscriminatory wisdom (Jpn.,hannyaharamitsu;Skrt.,prajñāpāramitā)designatespractical, experiential knowledge, and secondarilyand only derivatively theoretical, intellectual knowledge. This is,Zen explains, because theoretical knowledge is a form of“language game” (Jpn.;keron; Skrt.,prapañca), i.e., discriminationthrough the use of language, as it is built in part ondistinction-making. Zen believes that itultimately carries no existential meaning for emancipating ahuman being from his or her predicaments, for it maintains thatdiscriminatory knowledge of any kind is delusory/illusory innature. To this effect it holds that it is through a practicaltransformation of the psychophysiological constitution of one's beingthat one prepares for embodying nondiscriminatory wisdom. Thispreparation involves the training of thewhole person and iscalled “self-cultivation” (shugyō) inJapanese. It is a practical method of correcting the modality ofone's mind by correcting the modality of one's body, in which practice(prāxis) is given precedence over theory(theōria). (Yuasa, 1987.)

2. Zen's Methods:Kōan Practice and Just Sitting

There are basically two methods utilized in meditation practice in ZenBuddhism to assist the practitioner to reach the above-mentionedgoals, together with a simple breathing exercise known as“observation of breath count” (Jpn.,sūsokukan); one is thekōan method andthe other is called “just sitting” (Jpn.,shikantaza), a form of “single actsamādhi.”For example, the former is employed mainly by the Rinzai school of ZenBuddhism, while the latter by the Sōtō school; they arethe two main schools of this form of the Buddha-Way still flourishingtoday in Japan. In the Rinzai school, thekōan methodis devised to assist the practitioner to become a “Zenperson” (Kasulis, 1981) who fully embodies both wisdom andcompassion. Akōan is formulated like a riddle orpuzzle and is designed in such a way that intellectual reasoning alonecannot solve it without breaking through ego-consciousness by drivingit to its limit. This is, Zen believes, because it is fortified by theshield of a dualistic conceptual paradigm with all its attendantpresuppositions and conditions which the ego-consciousness in a givencultural and historical milieu accepts to be true in order to live alife anchored in the everyday standpoint.

According to Hakuin (1685–1768), who systematizedkōans, there are formally seventeen hundred cases ofkōans, and if sub-questions are added to them,a total number of cases comprising the system would roughly be threethousand. The Zen practitioner of the Rinzai school is required topass them all in a private consultation with a Zen master who checksthe practitioner's state of mind before he or she is granted a seal oftransmission. This transmission is said to occur “only from aBuddha to a[nother] Buddha” (yuibutsu yobutsu).Kōans are accordingly grouped into five categories in amost fully developed system: the first group is designed for 1)reachingli (suchness) (richi) or the body of truth(hosshin), 2) the second group for a linguistic articulation(gensen) of meditational experiences, 3) the third group forthosekōans truly difficult to pass(nantō), 4) the fourth group for the practitioner tomake an insight ofkōan experiences pertinent in dailylife (kikan), and 5) the fifth group for going beyond thestate of buddhahood by erasing traces of enlightenment(kōjō). The Rinzai school summarizes this processof self-cultivation in four mottoes: “a special transmissionoutside of the scriptures,” “no dependence on words andletters,” “point directly into [one's] human mind,”and “see into [one's] nature to become a buddha.” (See,for examples,The Gateless Gate andThe Blue CliffRecord.) While the first two phrases point to the fact ofdiscovering an extra-linguistic reality that naturally opens up inmeditational experience and of articulating it linguistically in the“best” way according to the capacity of an individualpractitioner, the last two phrases indicate a concretization of theoriginal enlightenment (hongaku) in the Zen practitioner,where the original enlightenment means that the human being isinnately endowed with a possibility of becoming a Buddha.

On the other hand, the Sōtō school, of which Dōgen(1200–54) is the founder, does not rely on an elaboratekōan system to learn to become a Zen person, butinstead follows a method called “just sitting” (shikantaza). It refers to a single-minded, diligent practice where thequalifying term “just” means the practice of meditationwithout any intervention of ego-logical interest, concern, or desire,so that the practice remains undefiled. This is a method of meditationpredicated on the belief that the Zen practitioner engages in thepracticein the midst of the original enlightenment. Or tocharacterize it by using Dōgen's phrase, it is a method of“practice-realization.” By hyphenating practice andrealization, the following implications are suggested: meditation isnot a means to an end, i.e., a means to realization, and therebyDōgen closes a dualistic gap, for example, between potentialityand actuality, between before and after. Accordingly, he collapses thedistinction between “acquired enlightenment”(shikaku) and “original enlightenment,” where the“acquired” enlightenment means an enlightenment that isrealized through the practice of meditation as a means. With thiscollapsing, the Sōtō School holds that practice andrealization are non-dual to each other, i.e., “nottwo.”

According to the Sōtō school, the meditational practice,when it is seen as a process of discovery, is a deepening process ofbecoming aware of the original enlightenment with an expansion of itscorresponding experiential correlates and horizons, and it is for thisreason called the school of “gradual enlightenment” or“silent illumination.” On the other hand, the Rinzaischool is called the school of “sudden enlightenment,”because it does not recognize a process leading to enlightenment(satori) as something worthy of a special attention; whatcounts is an experience ofsatori only. Even though there isthe above difference in approach between Rinzai and Sōtōschools, the outcome is the same for both insofar as the embodiment ofwisdom and compassion is concerned. This is because they both followthe same practice of sitting meditation. Whatever differences thereare between the practitioners of the two schools in regard to thelinguistic articulation of their meditational experience, they arisefrom an individual practitioner's personality, disposition,intellectual capacity, and/or linguistic ability.

3. The Practice: Three-Step Process

When one engages in Zen meditation, Zen recommends that itspractitioner follow a three-step procedure: adjusting body, breathingand mind. The practitioner follows these adjustments in the ordermentioned when he or she begins, and when concluding a sittingsession, the procedure is reversed so that he or she can return to aneveryday standpoint. I will now briefly explain these three steps inthe order mentioned.

3.1 The Adjustment of the Body

Generally speaking, the adjustment of the body means to prepareoneself (one’s mind-body) in such a way that one can achieve anoptimal state of being free. To do so, the practitioner needs to havea proper diet, engage in appropriate physical exercise, and avoidforming habits contrary to nurturing a healthy mind-bodycondition. Specifically, however, when Zen mentions the adjustment ofthe body, it has in mind seated meditation postures. There are twopostures which Zen recognizes: the lotus-posture and the half-lotusposture. A long Zen tradition takes them to be effective for stillingthe mind and dissolving various psychological complexes andpsychosomatic disorders. However, if a lay practitioner cannot atfirst assume these postures, they can be substituted initially bysitting on a chair with the spine straight, as it can bring about asimilar effect. The adjustment of the body is necessary for thepractitioner in order to experience the practical benefits of doingmeditation.

3.2 The Adjustment of Breathing

The benefits of Zen meditation are closely tied to the practice ofbreathing. Generally speaking, Zen doesn’t recommend anycomplicated, strenuous breathing exercises as in yoga. Zen’sbreathing exercise is called “observation of breath count”(sūsokukan). In this exercise, the practitioner counts anin-coming breath and an out-going breath. Before counting the breath,the practitioner breathes in through the nostrils and breathes outthrough the mouth a couple of times. Then one starts counting breaths,but this time breathing in through the nostrils and breathing outthrough the nostrils. The breath count is performed while performingan abdominal breathing: one brings in air all the way down to thelower abdomen, and breathes out from there. This exercise has theeffect of infusing one’s mind-body with fresh life-energy andexpelling a negative toxic energy out of the practitioner’ssystem. For this reason, it must be done in a place where there isample ventilation. A key to performing breathing exercisessuccessfully is just to observe the in-coming and out-goingbreath.

Though these are simple instructions, they difficult to executebecause the neophyte tends to become distracted. Present concerns,worries, fears, and past memory often surface. Zen calls them“wandering thoughts,” which refers to any mental object that preventsthe practitioner from concentration. If one wants to make progress inmeditation, this is one of the first things that the practitioner mustlearn to overcome.

We now turn to the psycho-physiological meaning of the breathingexercise. Ordinarily, we breathe sixteen to seventeen times perminute, which we do unconsciously or involuntarily. This is becauseunder ordinary circumstances, breathing is controlled by the autonomicnervous system. Neurophysiologically, the center where breathing iscontrolled is found in the hypothalamus, in the mid-brain. Theautonomic nervous system is so-called because it functionsindependently of our will. Zen breathing is a shift from unconscious,involuntary breathing to conscious, voluntary breathing. This meansthat Zen meditation is a way of regulating the unconscious-autonomicorder of our being. Breath count trains the unconscious mind and theinvoluntary activity of the nerves that control the function of thevarious visceral organs. Here we find a reason why Zen recommendsabdominal breathing. In the upper part of the abdominal cavity,parasympathetic nerves are bundled up, and the abdominal breathingexercise stimulates this bundle. As it does so, parasympathetic nervesfunction to still the mind.

This point is significant in learning to control emotion. Ordinarily,we are told to control our emotion by exercising our will. This is,for example, what Kant recommends that we do. This method works to acertain extent. The problem with this method is that we spend ourenergy unnecessarily in exercising our will. Think of a situationwhere one tries to submerge a ball in water. When the size of the ballis relatively small, this can be accomplished with little effort. Butas the size of the ball becomes larger, this method becomesincreasingly difficult. Analogously, a lot of psychic energy isrequired to suppress one’s deeper emotions. There comes a time thenwhen one can no longer hold them down. Consequently, one may end upexploding in various ways, ranging from personal fits to violentsocial crimes. If we observe a person in an angry state, we willnotice that such a person’s breathing pattern and rhythm is shallow,rough, and irregular.

On the other hand, if we observe a person in a peaceful state, itis deep, smooth, and rhythmical. These examples show that there is astrong correlation between the pattern and the rhythm of breathing anda person’s emotional state, or more generally, state of mind. Zenbreathing has a way of naturally heightening the positivecorrelation between the activity of the autonomic nervous system andemotion. Neurophysiologically, it just so happens that the centerwhere breathing is regulated and the region where emotion is generatedcoincide with each other. This means that the conscious breathingpsychologically affects the pattern of how one generates emotion, andat the same time it also has a neruophysiological effect on how theautonomous activity of the unconscious is regulated. We will now moveon to the third step involved in meditation.

3.3 The Adjustment of the Mind

Once the bodily posture and the breathing are adjusted, thepractitioner next learns to adjust the mind. This means that thepractitioner consciously moves to enter a state of meditation. In sodoing, the practitioner learns to disengage him- or herself from theconcerns of daily life. That is to say, one tries to stop theoperation of conscious mind. However, if tries to the mind by usingone's mind, the mind which is trying to stop itself is stilloperative. In other words, it is practically impossible to stop themind by using the mind. Instead, Zen tries to accomplish this by theimmobile bodily posture and the breathing exercise. In thisconnection, it will be informative to know how the practitionerexperiences breathing as he or she deepens meditation.

We can roughly identify three stages involved: an initial stage inwhich the practitioner can hear the audible sound of the in-coming andout-going breaths. This is rough and “gross” breathing. This isfollowed by the second stage in which he or she can feel the pathway ofthe in-coming and out-going breaths. Breathing at this point becomes“subtle” in that there will no longer be audible sound of the breathsbut simply a stream of life-energy. In the third stage there is nomore feeling of the in-coming and out-going breaths. When this occurs,the practitioner sink into a deeper meditational state. Also, it issignificant to note that as the practitioner enters a deeper state ofmeditation, the interval between inhalation and exhalation isprolonged, i.e., the retention is breath is prolonged.

Meditation trains one to sit face-to-face with one’s self, whilecreating a psychological isolation from the external world. With this,one enters into an internal world of psychē. As the practitionerattempts to enter the world of psychē, various things startsurfacing in the field of the practitioner’s meditativeawareness. These are mostly things of concern that have occupied thepractitioner in the history of his or her life, or things thepractitioner has consciously suppressed for variousreasons. Initially, the practitioner experiences recent desires,concerns, ideas, and images that have surfaced in his or her dailylife. A psychological reason that the practitioner experiences thesevarious things is due in part to the fact the practitioner has loweredthe level of conscious activity, by assuming the meditation posture,and doing the breathing exercise. This mechanism is the same as whenone has a dream at night. When the level of consciousness is lowered,the suppressive power of ego-consciousness becomes weakened, andconsequently the autonomous activity of the unconscious begins tosurface.

However, these desires, images and ideas are distractions insofar asmeditation is concerned. This is because in meditation you must learnto focus your awareness on one thing. One must learn just to observewithout getting involved in them. That is, one must learn todis-identify oneself with them. In the process of deepeningmeditation, one can roughly identify three distinct stages: the stageof concentration, the stage of meditation, and the stage ofabsorption. In the stage of concentration, the practitionerconcentrates, for example on the lower abdomen, in which case there isa dualistic relationship established between the practitioner who isconcentrating, and the lower abdomen that is the focus ofconcentration. This dualistic relationship is broken gradually as thepractitioner moves into the stage of meditation. The ego-consciousactivity is gradually lessened, and the barriers it set up for itselfwill gradually be removed. When the practitioner enters the stage ofabsorption, the dualistic framing of the mind will be removed suchthat the mind starts structuring itself non-dualistically. There willbe no separation or distancing between an object of the mind and theactivity of the mind itself.

As the practitioner repeats this process over a long period of time,he or she will come to experience a state in which no-thingappears. Zen uses the phrase “no-mind” to designate thisstate. No-mind does not mean a mindless state. Nor does it mean thatthere is no mind. It means that there is no conscious activity of themind that is associated with ego-consciousness in the everydaystandpoint. In other word, no-mind is a free mind that is notdelimited by ideas, desires, and images. No-mind is a state of mind inwhich there is neither a superimposition of ideas nor a psychologicalprojection. That is, no-mind is a practical transcendence from theeveryday mind, without departing from the everydayness of theworld.

4. Zen as Anti-Philosophy

As may be surmised from the foregoing explanation on Zen'smethodological stance, it is perhaps best to understand Zen as ananti-philosophy if the term “philosophy” is taken to meanthe establishment of “the kingdom of reason,” which hasbeen launchedvis-à-vis an intellectual effort of themost brilliant minds in Europe since the modern period as a way ofemancipating human nature from the confines of Christian theologicaldogmas. Since then, various Western philosophers have attempted tocapture human nature with this goal in mind by using ego-consciousnessas a starting point as well as a destination in philosophy; to name afew representative ones, human nature has been captured in terms ofego-consciousness (e.g., Descartes), Reason, Personality,Transcendental Subjectivity (e.g., Kant and Husserl), Life (e.g.,Dilthey), Existence (e.g., Existential philosophers such asKierkegaard, Jaspers and Sartre) andDasein(Heidegger). (Yuasa, 2003, 160–61.)

By contrast, Zen's stance of “anti-philosophy” maintainsamong other things that reason in its discursive use is incapable ofknowing and understandingin toto what reality is, forexample, what human beings are and what their relation to natureis. For this reason, Zen contends that physical nature and humannature must be sought in an experiential dimensionpractically trans-descending, and hence transcending, thestandpoint of ego-consciousness. That is to say, it must go beyond“the one” and “the two,” as both of thesestances are prone to generate a one-sided, and hence incompleteworld-view. Instead, they must be sought in the depths ofone'spsychē and beyond. For example, Zen Master Seigen(Chin.,; Qīngyuáng, 660–740) expresses the process ofself-cultivation to the effect that: “Before the practice,mountains are mountains, during the practice, mountains are notmountains, and after the realization, mountains are [truly] mountains[again].” In the meditational process of discovery then, Zenmoves from an ordinary, commonsensical standpoint to an extraordinarystandpoint and with this transformation returns to the everyday“life-world,” wherein no Aristotelian either-or logic isaccepted as the standard for knowing and understanding reality. Due tothis reason, paradoxes, contradictions, and even what appears to beutter nonsense abound in Zen literature. Thekōan method mentioned above exemplifies this point. Tocite just one such example: “the river does not flow but thebridge does.” If one attempts to understand it by relying onAristotelian either-or logic as one's standard for understanding, onewill be under the impression that this expression is nonsensical ormeaningless.

As may be surmised then, by relying on the above-mentionedmethodological stance, Zen Buddhism has produced an understanding ofreality—one's own self, living nature and humannature—quite different from those offered by Westernphilosophy. Therefore, we can say that Zen is an anti-philosophy inthat it is not a systematization of knowledge built on the use of adiscursive mode of reasoning anchored in the (alleged) certainty ortransparency of ego-consciousness, by following an Aristotelianeither-or logic. Yet, it upholds somethinglike a philosophythat springs forth through a reflective restatement of the practice,though this “upholding” must be understood with a provisothat it maintains, as mentioned in the foregoing, a“positionless position.” (Abe, 1989.) This is because Zenabhors “holding onto” anything, which Zen considers aninstance of “self-binding without a rope.” That is, thisself-binding traps the Zen practitioner into a mode of attachment thatis the source of suffering and, consequently, disrupts the sense ofembodied freedom it cherishes.

5. Overcoming Dualism

Accordingly, Zen demands the practitioner to overcome the dualismoperative in the everyday standpoint, which it speaks of by using thephrase “not two.” The use of the phrase “nottwo” expresses Zen's proclivity to favor the simple and theconcrete, such that it is not expressed as a negation ofdualism. This overcoming is an existential, practicalproject, a goal for the Zen practitioner, although it is paradoxicallystated as “if you face it, it goes away.” This is because“facing” presupposes a dualistic stance.“Two” in “not two” designates any“two” things appearing from within the everydaystandpoint, especially when it is taken to designate an absolute senseof reality. This standpoint, as mentioned in the foregoing, relies onthe discursive mode of reasoning to understand reality, whilepresupposing an ego-consciousness as the standard referentialpoint. From this perspective for example, a distinction between theouter and inner worlds emerges, using a sensory perception as thepoint of reference. One of the salient characteristics of thisstandpoint is that the world appears to bedualistic in nature, that is to say, it recognizes two (andby implication, many) things to be real. Zen questions this standpointwhen it is used as the paradigm for daily living, includingphilosophical thinking, for this standpoint accepts as its foundationan individual's discrete “I” with a belief that“I” am self-contained and self-sufficient and, therefore,am distinguished and isolated from other individuals and things ofnature. Zen observes that it renders opaque, or at best translucent,the experiential domainsbeyond the sensible world as well asego-consciousness, both either taken naturalistically or by means oftheoretical speculation. The inability to go beyond these experientialdomains, Zen explains, occurs because ego-consciousness isphysiologically rooted in the body and psychologically in theunconscious. This points to a philosophically importantconsequence. Namely, once the practitioner accepts this outer-innerdichotomy even provisionally, he or she is led to accept as true ahost of other “two” things that are affirmed to be real,as is seen in pairs of opposites such as mindvs. body, Ivs. others, lovevs. hate, goodvs. evil, and Ivs. nature.

5.1 Logical Meaning of Not Two

Logically speaking, Zen explains that “two” things arisebecause the everyday standpoint stipulates Aristotelian either-orlogic as the standard for cognizing the whole, however the whole maybe construed. (Nagatomo, 2000, 213–44.) This logic thinks itreasonable to divide the whole into two parts when knowing orunderstanding reality. That is, when this logic is applied to thewhole, it compels the user of this logic to choose, reasonably in themind of the user, one part, while disregarding the other part(s) asirrelevant or meaningless. It prioritizes one partat the expenseof the other part(s), while celebrating theexclusion. In so doing, it looks to the explicit while becomingoblivious to the fact that the implicit equally exists as asupporting ground for the explicit, where the explicit issomething “obvious” to the senses and the rationalmind. It champions one-sidedness in cognition and judgment as thesupreme form of knowing and understanding reality. However, Zen thinksthat this prioritization, this exclusion, violates a cardinalprinciple of knowing, for knowledge of anything demands anunderstanding of the whole. Either-or logic fails on thisaccount. Moreover, it contends that when this logic attempts tounderstand the whole, it theoreticallyreduces the other tothe one that is judged to be true and/or real. For example, if onemaintains that the mind is real, one disregards the body as unreal,yielding an idealist position. On the other hand, if one thinks thebody is real, it disposes of the mind in the same way, favoringmaterialism as true and real, which is presupposed, for example, bynatural science. Either position commits itself to reductionism. Here,questioning this practice and the consequences it entails, Zen insteadspeaks of mind-body oneness, an holistic perspective, as it abhorsone-sidedness. However, it warns that as soon as “one” iscontrasted with “two” in a discourse, it is no longergenuine and authentic, because once it is objectified linguisticallyor reflectively, it slips into being an idea, an abstraction.

5.2 An Epistemological Meaning of Not Two

From the point of view of epistemology developed by modern Europeanphilosophy, the “two things” are the subject who knows andthe object that is known. Zen finds that these two things impose onthe epistemological subject a structuring that is framed dualisticallyand either-or ego-logically. Accordingly, this structuring unknowinglyframes things to appear dualistically and either-or ego-logically tothe epistemological subject, while extending the paradigm to itselffor self-understanding as well as things other than itself in the samemanner. Consequently, the subject standsopposed either tothe outer world (e.g., nature) or to the inner world (the worldofpsychē), or both, and hence it promotesanoppositional mode of thinking. Moreover, Zen notes thatthe subject cannot by definition become the object or vice versa, forthey are distanced from each other either really or ideally. Itdepends on whether the “distance” and“opposition” occur in space-consciousness or intime-consciousness; an object appears to be “out there”with space-consciousness, while it appears to be “in here”as an immanent object in the field of consciousness intime-consciousness. Suppose one applies this epistemological structurein knowing others, for example, one's friend. When one attempts toknow her from the everyday standpoint, one relies on the language shespeaks and her body language. Here one cannot know herintoto, let alone the destiny of her life-history, because she isshielded from an observer by the spatial-temporal density of herbeing.

5.3 Zen's Meaning of Not Two

Zen maintains that the situation created by assuming thisepistemological standpoint is not ideal, or real, for that matter.Hence, Zen says “not two.” “Not two” is inpart a recommendation for experientially achieving oneness through thepractice of meditation, informing the holder of the “two”of the narrow and limited scope of her/his understanding, where theidea of oneness may, for now, be conceived at many levels, startingwith the physical, the subtle, and thesamādhic. Generally speaking then, Zen takes “nottwo” to designate a negation of any “two” thingsthat are affirmed to be individually real, in which the perspectivethat realizes the place or domain where two things occur is ignored.The dualistic standpoint also ignores the logical fact that any“two” things cannot be individually one because for one tobe, it must be dependent on, and interconnects with, theother one. An either-or logic ignores this interdependence. With thisrecommendation, Zen maintains that mind and body, I and others, I andnatureought to be experienced as one for those who remain inthe everyday standpoint. To express this idea, Zen states that“Heaven and Earth share the same root, and I and the myriadthings are one (-body).” It demands anholisticperspective necessary to achieve knowledge that is genuine andauthentic. Otherwise, Zen fears that the practitioner will fall intoone-sidedness, in which knowledge claim ends up being partial,imbalanced, and even prejudiced. Dōgen captures it by stating:“When one side is illuminated, the other side remains indarkness.” To characterize the dualistic, either-or ego-logicalstandpoint by borrowing Nietzsche's phrase, Zen would say that it is“human, and all too human.”

Care must be exercised in understanding the meaning of“not” in the phrase “not two” however. Zeninsists that the “not” primarily refers to an existential,practical negation of the “I,” which means“up-rooting the ego-consciousness” and in turn yields, byimplication, a logical negation as well. This is because Zen thinksthe practitioner cannot achieve this negation simply by followingeither-or logic, or for that matter by following the intellectualprocess of reasoning, because both logic and reasoning intrinsicallyinvolve two things, for example, the thinker and the thought. Or witheither-or logic, a mere logical negation involves an infinite regressin negating the “I”; one who negates the “I”retains the affirmative act of holding “I” in the mind asthat which negates. And when the “I” further attempts tonegate this affirming act, there still remains an “I” whonegates it and the process goes onad infinitum. For thisreason, Zen recommends the practitioner to “forget the‘I”“ when engaging oneself in any action, be it amind-act, bodily-act, or speech-act, as is seen for example in bothDōgen and Takuan (1573–1645).

To recapitulate the idea of the Zen meaning of negation as expressedin ”not two,“ Zen sees its self-cultivation as involving athoroughgoing negation of the ”I“ to the point that noproblem, either existential or psychological, entrenched in the”I“ remains. Hence, we have Rinzai's phrase:”if you becomes a master in any place, wherever you stand istrue.“ (Iriya, 1989, 70) Truth for Zen is not merely amatter of formulating or uttering a propositional statement, but ratherembodying it by becoming, to use his phrase again, a”true person of no rank,“ (ibid, 20) where”no rank“ designates the freedom of standing beyond socialor linguistic conventions such that a Zen person can use conventionfreely. Equally important is Zen's contention that both logical andintellectual methods areabstract, for they become divorcedfrom the actual reality of day-to-day existence. In other words, inthe eyes of Zen, these methods lack consideration for the concretenessand immediacy of lived experience. This is because the theoreticalstandpoint defines the human being who observes things of nature fromoutside, which can be characterized, by using Yuasa's phrase, as a”being-outside-of-nature.“ Instead, Zen maintains that thehuman being must be understood as a being rooted in nature. To useYuasa's phrase again,it is a ”being-in-nature.“ This pointis well portrayed in Zen's landscape paintings wherein a human figureoccupies the space of a mere dot in vast natural scenery. (Yuasa,2003, 160–1)

6. An Experiential Meaning of Not-Two

How does Zen then articulate the experiential meaning of ”nottwo“? Throughout its long history, which spans from the sixthcentury in China to the twenty-first century in Japan, Zen hasproduced numerous ways of linguistically capturing a response to thisquestion, depending on what ”two“ things are thematized inthe Zen dialogue (Zenmondō). As a textual study, thesedialogues are a primary paradigm for the non-practitioner to learnwhat ”two“ things are by studying a discourse that unfoldsbetween a Zen master and his disciple. Moreover, this situation iscomplicated by the fact that a Zen master's response is usuallytailored to an individual disciple's caliber. This is in keeping witha general method of teaching in Buddhism,i.e., to speakingto the caliber of a listener (taiki seppō). Thiscomplication is further compounded by the differences in thepersonality of Zen masters. Hence, Zen's responses to the abovequestion are as varied and numerous as there are Zen masters. In spiteof this situation, it is reasonably possible to provideaglimpse into the experiential meaning of ”nottwo“ by looking into a phrase that often appears in Zendialogues. This phrase is ”no-thought and no-image“(munen musō), whose experience point to practicallygoing beyond ”not one“ and ”not two.“

6.1 Zen's No-Thought and No-Image

Upon hearing the phrase, ”no-thought and no-image,“ onemay wonder if there could be such a thing. To properly respond tothis question, Zen thinks it important to determine whether it isposed with a practical concern or a theoretical concern in mind. Thedifference allows a Zen master to determine the ground out of whichthis question is raised, for example, to determine if the inquirer isanchored in the everyday standpoint or in a meditationalstandpoint. In the case of the former, for instance, Zen would respondby saying that as long as the inquirer poses this question from withinthe everyday standpoint with a theoretical interest, relying onAristotelian either-or logic, the inquirer cannot understand themeaning of ”no-thought and no-image,“ as intended byZen. This is because to formulate the question, ”Isthere oris there not no-thought and no-image?“linguistically drives the inquiry into a contradiction, for one cannotpredicate ”is“ on ”no-thought“ or”no-image.“ Only insofar as ”no-thought“ or”no-image“ is treated as an idea in a linguistic spacewithout consideration for its referent, can one ask if ”thereis“ or ”there is not“ such a thing as”no-thought.“ In response, Zen maintains that when”there is“ or ”there is not“ is topicalized inits tradition, it is not the same as ”there is“ or”there is not“ as understood from within the everydaystandpoint. Zen claims that neither ”no-thought“ nor”no-image“ can be linguistically or logically apprehendedfrom this standpoint.

Why does Zen insist on this? Zen explains that both ”thereis“ and ”there is not“ (or more generally”being“ and ”non-being“) are intellectuallyframed from within the everyday standpoint by accepting theoppositional ontology where the meaning of ”is“ ispredicated on the meaning of ”is not,“ and vice versa. Therefore, Zen maintains that to understand”no-thought“ or ”no-image“ we need anexperiential dimension that goes beyond the oppositional thinking ofthe everyday standpoint.

6.2 Zen's Nothing

Zen condenses ”no-thought and no-image“ into a singularword ”no“ in keeping with its proclivity to favor thesimple, as this contraction allows Zen to expand the scope and themeaning of ”no-thought and no-image.“ This”no,“ for example, is made pivotal by Zen MasterJoshū (Chin., Zhaozhōu; 778–897). It is usuallyrendered in English as ”nothing“ and has been presented tothe Western reader as if it isthe central and cardinalconcept of Zen philosophy. At the risk of de-emphasizing otherimportant aspects of Zen such as how it understands the livingphenomena of nature, humanity's relation to them, and aestheticsensitivity, we will here focus on the scope and meaning of this Zen”no.“

This ”no“ appears in a Zen dialogue between Joshūand a monk, in which is thematized an issue of whether or not a doghas Buddha-nature. It reads as follows: A monk asks Joshū:”Does the dog have buddha-nature?“ He replies:”No[thing].“ The monk says: ”All sentient beingshave buddha-nature. Why doesn’t the dog have it?“Joshū replies: ”He has discrimination due to hiskarma.“ Joshū's response of ”no“ tothe monk's question points to the latter's inadequate, and hence alsomistaken, understanding of being. However, as articulated in theNirvānasūtra, Mahāyāna Buddhism, ofwhich Zen is an offshoot, asserts that all sentient beings havebuddha-nature. With this understanding in mind, the monk asked the question, towhich Joshū replied ”no.“ His ”no“points to the fact that the way the monk formulates his questionregarding being is predicated on an either-or logical understanding oran affirmation-negation linguistic device. In so doing, the monkrelativizes Buddha-naturequa being, while contrasting andopposing it with non-being. Buddha-nature is not something that thedog canhave or nothave; Buddha-nature is notsomething contingent. Joshū's ”no“ allows the monktoreturn to the ground from which the idea of theBuddha-nature springs forth as an essential characterization of allbeings. As such, Joshū's ”no“ points to atranscendence of being and non-being. Insofar as Zen's”no“ is turned into an issue questioning theground of being, it is appropriate to understand it as”nothing,“ and in fact as ”absolutelynothing,“ because the latter goes beyond the relative nothingthat is contrasted with being.

As Joshū's ”nothing“ has been made akōan, numerous Zen masters have used itto test a student's progress in meditation. In such a case,a Zen master expects a monk to come up with his or her originalresponse by stipulating a condition: ”I don’t expect you toanswer that the dog has buddha-nature nor that the dog does not havebuddha-nature. Nor do I expect you to reply that the dog neitherhas nor does not have buddha-nature. How do you respond tothis?“ This is a warning that a monk cannot rely onNāgārjuna's tetralemma as an acceptable response,namely the four possible ways of understanding thing-events insofar aslogic is concerned: ”there is,“ ”there is not,“”both ‘there is’ and ‘there isnot,’“ and ”neither ‘there is’ nor‘there is not.’“ This master is admonishingthat as long as a monk's response is framed from within the logicof the everyday use of language, no answer is forthcoming. Herethe reader can sense that the scope and the meaning of”no-thought and no-image“ has been expanded to include thelogical use of language, not simply a rejection of oppositionalthinking.

A further expansion of the scope and the meaning of ”no“can be found in an instruction Zen Master Daie (Chin.,Dàhuì;1089–1163) gives to his students, though it is givenvia negativa—when they attempt to discover a responseto Joshū's ”nothing.“ (Yanagita, 1974, 181–2.)Prefacing his remark that ”this one word [i.e.,“no(-thing)”] is a cane that shatters numerous [instancesof] erroneous knowledge and perception,“ Daie instructs thestudents not to take ”no[thing]“ in the context of beingor nonbeing by applying either-or logic. An appeal to discriminatorythinking based on the standpoint of [ego-]consciousness is of no useeither. It is also unacceptable to appeal to bodily action, let aloneto engage in a mere verbal exchange. Not even a metaphysical responsewill do either, for Daie states: ”Do not throw it out into anempty-void where there is nothing. Do not swallow it where somethingis generated.“ To seek an answer in a text is also out of thequestion. Daie demands that the practitioner come up with his/her ownoriginal answer.

What is evident in the above instructions is that the Zenpractitioner must tackle this ”no[thing]“ by mobilizing thewhole of his or her person in order to delve into theground of his or her personhood, where the ”whole“in question involves both the mind and the body, both the consciousnessand the unconscious. This is, no doubt, an existential challenge to theZen practitioners, and so they make an all-out effort, staking life anddeath, because it guarantees them an embodiment of truth and freedom.In this context, Zen metaphorically speaks of reaching the whole as”kicking through the bottom of a bucket“ to designate theground of a person, which Zen understands to be bottomless. Thatis, it understands this ground to have ”no“bottom, i.e., it is a bottomless ground. To avoid the dangerof interpreting this ground nihilistically or relativisitically, themodern Japanese thinker, Nishida Kitarō (1870–1945) adds that itisabsolutely nothing, where ”absolutely“ meanscutting off all pairs of polar opposites.

6.3 Zen ”Seeing“

The experiential dimension in which Zen's ”nothing“becomes understandable refers to a quiescent state of meditation inwhich is arrested the activity of an individual practitioner'sego-consciousness that functions in a close correlation with his orher body. Upon reaching such a meditational state, the Zenpractitioner comes to experience an event generally known as”seeing into one's nature“ (kenshō), aninitialsatori experience. Although this phrase may on thesurface suggest a dualistic state, namely that there is something thatis called ”nature,“ which the Zen practitioner comes to see as anobject, it refers to an experiential fact that seeing hasturnedinto one's nature (according to the interpretationvis-à-vis the acquired enlightenment), or that one'snatureis seeing (according to the interpretationvis-à-vis the original enlightenment). The Zentradition interprets ”nature“ to be”buddha-nature,“ i.e., a possibility to be awakened fromthe fundamental ignorance. That is to say, to become a Buddha, and the way ofits being is designated by the termtathatā, suchnessor a thing-event's being suchthat it is showing its primordialmode of being. When this aspect of knowledge is emphasized, Zen callsit ”original“ or ”natural“ knowledge. In thisconnection, it contends that the ”seeing“ is ”nottwo,“ i.e., it is non-dualistic in nature.

To illustrate an experiential basis for the above observation, we maycite another example, namely Dōgen's enlightenmentexperience. This will aid the reader to catch a glimpse of anexperiential meaning of ”not two,“ for it is descriptiveof the experience itself. He expresses it as ”dropping off thebody and the mind“ (shinjin datsuraku). (In order toget an idea of this experience from a contemporary point-of-view, orfrom outside of Zen tradtion, one may also consult out-of-bodyexperiences.) The experience of ”dropping off the body and themind“ informs us that the dualistic relationship between themind and the bodyhas disappeared in meditational awarenessand by implication ”I“ and others, and ”I“ andnature. Hence they are ”not two.“ If the distinction hasdisappeared, it implies that the Zen practitioner is thrown into anon-dualistic domain of experience. It points to apractical transcendence from the everyday either-or,ego-logical, dualistic standpoint.

In light of the outer-inner distinction Zen interprets thenon-dualistic experience to mean that the distinction has beenepistemologically collapsed, as it arises in such a way to respond tothedualistic perspective from which the outer and the innerworlds appeared. It understands this collapsing of the distinctionthen to be the meaning of ”not two,“ from whichanholistic perspective emerges. Conceptually, Zen takes thisholistic perspective to mean the de-substantialization andde-ontologization of any two polar concepts, such as one and many,being and non-being, universal and particular, absolute and relative,transcendence and immanence, and birth and death. Zen's observation isthat each of the polar terms is non-dualistically related to each ofthe other polar terms such that they are connected with,interdependent on, and relative to, each other for their being andmeaning. They are thrown into a holistic context of an interdependentcausal series. And for this series to be operative, Zen maintains,following Nāgārjuna, that each of these terms that entersthe relationship isempty of self-nature, where self-naturemeans a power to generate itself on its own without dependence onanything. For if thing-events designated by these terms are endowedwith self-nature, they cannot enter into the series; what enters sucha series is only anaccidental attribute orproperty. According to the substantialistic or essentialisticontology, nothing can really change. For example, criminals who wantto correct their criminal behavior cannot change themselves if being acriminal is the essential characterization of their being. This wouldpose an insurmountable challenge, if not impossibility, to acorrection officer at a prison. Or, for that matter, anyone who wantsto correct one's own psychological characteristic or tendency,particularly if it happens to be pathological, cannot succeed in suchself-correction if it is an essential characterization of one'sbeing.

In order to give a still more concrete sense of what Zen-seeing islike, we now return to the question of how Zen understands theexperiential meaning of ”seeing into one's nature.“ Zen'scontention is that the bottomless ground is that whichnon-dualistically ”sees“ when the practitioner experiencesthe state of nothing, (or no-thought and no-image). How then does Zenarticulate this ”seeing“? This question points to anexamination of the epistemic structure of how knowledge operates inZen experience. For this purpose, the following Zen dialogue betweenJinne and Chōsetsu concerning ”no-thought“ isilluminating. Although it is lengthy, I will quote it in full in orderto provide a sense of how a Zen dialogue unfolds:

The disciple asks: What then is it [i.e., no-thought]?

The master replies: It is nothing like ”what is.“Therefore, we can not explain ”no-thought.“ The reason whyI am speaking about it now is because you have asked about it. If youhaven’t asked about it, there is no need to explain it. Supposethat there is a clear, transparent mirror. If it does not face athing, no image is reflected in it. To say that it mirrors an imagemeans that because it faces something, it just mirrors itsimage.

The disciple asks: If it does not face any thing, is there or isthere not a reflection in the mirror?

The master replies: That the mirror reflects a thing means that italways mirrors regardless of whether it is facing or not facing athing.

The disciple asks:If there is no image and since you do not give an explanation, how canall beings and nonbeings become an issue? Now when you say thatit always mirrors, how does it mirror?

The master replies: When I say that the mirror always mirrors, it isbecause a clear, transparent mirror possesses an original nature as itsessential activity of always mirroring things. Analogously,people's mind is originally undefiled, and naturally possesses asuperb light of wisdom that illuminates the perfect world ofnirvāna.

The disciple asks: Insofar as people's minds are originallylike that, when do people get it?

The master replies: It just sees nothing.

The disciple asks: When it is nothing, what can it see?

The master replies: Seeing is not like something you can call athing.

The disciple asks: If it is not like anything one can call a thing,what does it see?

The master replies: it sees no-thing. That is the trueseeing. It always sees.

(Yanagita, 1974, 132–3.)

Unlike most Zen dialogues that are often enigmatic and puzzling tothose people who stand outside of this tradition, this dialogueprovides a kind explanation in elucidating what ”seeing“islike in Zen experience. This ”seeing“ is saidto be ”seeing nothing or no-thing,“ and Jinne speaks of itby appealing to the analogy of a mirror, although he makes adisclaimer that it cannot adequately be explained in words. To get aglimpse of what he means by ”seeing,“ it is helpful totake note of the following points regarding this analogy. Jinneconceives of a mirror in terms of two modalities: the mirror in and ofitself and the mirror as it engages an object other than itself. Itis important to keep in mind that both are understood in light oftheir activity. He characterizes the ”original nature“ ofthe mirror in and of itself as being ”clear, transparent“(or ”undefiled), wherein it is said toalwaysmirror. “Original” means that it is not contingent onexperience, while “always” refers to the mirror'sceaseless activity of mirroring. Whether “there is” or“there is not” a specific object to mirror is a contingentmatter for the mirror in and of itself. What makes a mirror the mirrorthat itis is its activity of always mirroring, and whenconsidered in and of itself, it possesses no specific image tomirror. There is no characteristic to it and hence no image appearingin it, i.e., “no-thought” or “no-image.” Thisis the meaning of “no-thing or nothing” in the phrase“seeingno-thing ornothing.” In other words, the mirror is turned intonothing, or to use the earlier phrase, the bottomless ground isnothing except, epistemologically speaking, its capacity to mirror,and even this capacity is rendered “nothing” when it is inno use.

Zen explains the fact that the mirror “justseesno-thing or nothing” when its act of seeing is mobilized in“facing” a thing. The adverb “just” iscrucial. “Just” here means without discrimination, withoutsuperimposition, without projection, or in short, without positing anego-consciousness as that which sees. In phenomenological terms, thereis no thetic positing in this kind of seeing. Zen maintains that thesecharacterizations obtain because the Zen practitioner “kickedthrough the bottom of the bucket,” a practical transcendence. Inother words, Zen's contention is that there is nodetermination whatsoever in the mirror's activity of“just seeing.” That there is no determination means to Zenthat because the bottomless ground is nothing, it does not impose formon things that are mirrored. When these qualifications are takentogether, Zen interprets “just seeing no-thing or nothing”to mean seeing or mirroring things without discrimination, that is,with a sense ofequality. When a mirror, for example,reflects an image of a beautiful object, it does not make anydiscriminatory value judgment that it is beautiful. And neither doesit make any discriminatory value judgment when it mirrors an uglyobject. It mirrors thing-events as they are. That is, the mirror doesnot take any stance of likes and dislikes; it does not take a stanceof “for” or “against.” It is non-egological inmirroring each thing equally. Moreover, Zen observes that the natureof the mirror is such that it does not change due to the kind ofobject it mirrors. For example, it does not increase or decrease insize in virtue of the fact that it mirrors an object. (Bankei, forexample, expresses it as the “unborn.”) It remains as itis in its original nature of always mirroring, which highlights thefact that it is clear and transparent. Because equality is thecharacteristic of this seeing, Zen speaks of the activity of thisseeing asnondiscriminatory. Yet, because an object is mirrored asobject, whether beautiful or ugly, Zen considers the act of mirroringto be a “discernment.” Therefore, Zen characterizes the“seeing” in “seeing no-thing or nothing” inits act-aspect as a discernmentvis-à-visnondiscrimination (mubunbetsuno funbetsu). This,Jinne says, is “true seeing,” which is non-discriminatorywisdom (prajñā). The obvious point Zen wants tomake through this analogy is that the minds of people are analogouslythe same in theiroriginal nature and activity. Zensummarizes all of the above characteristics of seeing by employing asimple phrase: “motion in stillness”(seichūno dō). However, an objectionmay be raised contra Zen's holistic, non-dualistic meaning of its“seeing” or “mirroring,” namely the objectionthat if there is something that is mirrored, is there not stilloperative a dualistic epistemological structure? Zen would respondthat this objection ignores the fact that the ground of seeing is thebottomless ground that is nothing. What appears against mirrorqua nothing is just an object. In such a seeing, the objectalone shines forth. Hence, it is characterized, to useNishida's terminology, as “seeing without a seer.” Below,we will explore further the structure of how things appear in Zen.

Although it may sound paradoxical, Zen maintains that this ground isalso a fount of creativity. Because there is nodeterminationin the ground, it is pregnant with many possibilities or meanings tobe realized. Zen maintains, via the influences from philosophicalDaoism, that this creativity is in the same order as that of nature,for the practitioner reaches theoriginal source prior to thedistinction between the outer world and the inner world. (Hence, Zenunderstands, as was mentioned in the foregoing, the human being to be“a being-in-nature.”)

It often uses the phrase “no-mind” (Jpn.,mushin;Skrt.nirodha-samāpatti) to generally designate theabove experiential dimension. However, Zen does not mean it to be amindless state, much less losing the mind. Nor does it mean adisappearance of the mind. Rather it designates a dimension ofexperience in which the ego-logicallydiscriminatory activityof the mind disappears. This is, Zen maintains, because the Zenpractitioner trans-descends into, and hence transcends, theego-logically discriminatory activity of the mind which, Zen contends,arises due to adhering to “name-form” (Jpn.,myōshiki; Skrt.,nāmrūpa). Thistranscendence results in a rejection of the belief that there is areality corresponding to a name, or generally that there is a realitycorresponding to a linguistic activity. Through the state of no-mind,Zen observes that each individual thing that is mirrored is recognizedfor the first time tobe individualqua theindividual with a sense of equality that is due to other individualthings.

7. Zen's Understanding of Time and Space

Given Zen's seeing as articulated above, one may entertain anatural question: how does Zen understand time and space? Arethey significantly different from time and space as conceived by manyother theories of time and space? In what follows, we will brieflyprovide how Zen understands “here and now,”“zero time and zero space,” and “an integratedtime and space.”

7.1 Here and Now

In spite of, or rather because of the above-mentioned experientialdimension of Zen-seeing, Zen insists that the Zen practitioner planthis or her feet in the everydayness of “here and now.” Inthis respect, Zen philosophically advocates a position of “notone.” Otherwise, it fears that if the practitioner remains inthe stillness of meditation, while suspending judgment for action, itfalls into one-sidedness, a source of prejudice and misunderstandingof reality. How then does Zen understand “here and now”?In this connection, one may reasonably ask: “how far and wide is‘here’ and how long is ‘now,’” when Zenspeaks of “here and now.” Are they each limited by apresent perceptual experience? In the case of “now,” forexample, is it an internal phenomenon of consciousness that allows thepractitioner to experience time sometimes as a “memory”(or retention) and some other times as “anticipation” (or“protention”) in the ever flowing stream of“present” (e.g., St. Augustine, Husserl andMerleau-Ponty)? And in the case of “here,” is it delimitedby the practitioner's spatial range of perception within the sensoryfield, situating the Zen practitioner as the point of reference?(There is in both cases a suggestion of involvement of the autonomousactivity of the unconscious, of which Zen demands we must standoutside.) Zen's response to both of these questions is a resounding“Yes!” and “No!” however contradictory it maysound. “Yes,” because the practitioner, while living,cannot depart from the “here and now,” because he or sheis incarnate, in which case time and space is always experienced as“here and now.” “No,” insofar as theperceptual model implies an ego-logical “human, all toohuman” stance (Nietzsche) with its attendant limitations, eventhough Zen does not exclude this model as long as it is not delimitedby the dualistic, either-or ego-logical perspective. In the everydayhuman world that is “here and now,” Zen maintains that“riddhi and [its] wondrous activity all shoulder waterand carry firewood” where “riddhi” refersto a power that naturally becomes available to the practitionerthrough the practice of meditation.

7.2 Zero Time and Zero Space

Yet Zen thinks that the preceding is still a partial understandingof “here and now.” To fully understand it, it ishelpful to examine the following often-quoted phrase, as it isparticularly illustrative. Zen demands the practitioner “toshow one's original face before one's parents wereborn.” This demand points to an experiential dimensionprior to the bifurcation between the subject and theobject—and hence “not two”—where“prior” means negation of the spatial-temporal orderingprinciples such as in Kant's understanding oftime and space asa priori forms of intuition. It pointsto a non-dualistic experiential dimension that is zerotime and zero space, by which Zen means that neithertime nor space is a delimiting condition for Zen-seeing. Inzero time there is no distinction between past, present, and future,or between “before” and “after,”; in zerospace there is no distinction between the whole and itsparts. One can also say that both time and space, experiencedfrom the point-of-view of the everyday standpoint, isrelativized when zero time temporizes and zero spacespatializes, where zero time and zero space characterize thebottomless ground. Accordingly, Zen contends that zero timeand zero space are the natural and primordial being of all thingsincluding human beings, for they are all grounded in it. Takingthese points together, the Zen enlightenment experience suggests aleap from a causal temporal series.

Consequently, Zen contends that “here and now” is enfoldedin both zero time and zero space. This means that one time containsall times and one part contains the whole, as in the case of aholographic dry plate in which a part contains the whole. Seen inthis manner, “now” for the Zen person is a temporalizationof zero time, while “here” is equally a spatialization ofzero space, even though he or she may be anchored in the perceptualfield of “here and now” as understood above. In otherwords, for the Zen person both “now” and“here” are experienced as an expression of thing-events intheir suchness, because, as mentioned in the foregoing, Zen takes zerotime and zero space to be the original abode of thing-events. Cautionmust be exercised here, however. Zen's zero time should not beconfounded with the idea of eternity standing outside a temporalseries (e.g., Thomas Aquinas, Newton's “absolute time”) bymeans of a logical or intellectual transcendence, nor the zero spaceto be identified with “absolute space” (e.g., Newton)wherein there is no content of experience. In other words, Zen doesnot understand time and space by imposing a formal category on them,by presupposingin advance a form-matter distinction, whichindicates an operation of the discursive mode of reasoning byappealing to the either-or, dualistic, and ego-logical epistemologicalstructure.

7.3 An Integrated Time and Space

Zen makes another equally important contention through thisabstention, namely that time and space are lived asintegratedspace-time in the interfusion of a concrete temporalization andspatialization. For example, Dōgen speaks of it as“being-time” (u-ji) to indicate theirinseparability; being cannotbe apart from time, and timecannotbe apart from being, where a being spatializes throughthe process of temporalization, and where it temporalizes through theprocess of spatialization. This is a concretespatialization-temporalization that is lived without any intellectualabstraction, reflecting the Buddhist position that everything,excluding no-thing, is impermanent. Zen abhors an intellectualabstraction that merelythinks time and space. This is becausethe Zen person rides on the rhythm of living nature. That is,“here and now” is one experience (and hence “nottwo”), and for this reason they should be designated as“here-now.”

In living this integrated, living space-time, Zen does notunderstand time to be a quantifiable and homogeneously punctuated unit(i.e., the clock time of natural science), nor does itconceive of it as a linear progression from past to future through thepresent, although it does not exclude them insofar as they are usefulfor everyday life. The negation of the linear idea of time alsoincludes the negation of the idea of time as symmetrical as well asreversible, because in the Zen experience of space-time, a teleologicalintentionality, an “in order that,” is absent. Yet,Zen does not accept, time as a “fleeing image of eternity”(i.e., Plato). Zen takes time to be living.According to Zen, theories of time built through conceptualabstraction, are distanced and separate from the immediacy of“here-now.”

Space, too, is neither a container (i.e., Newtown's“absolute space”) nor ana priori limitingcondition (i.e., Kant), nor the place of displacement for thevolume of an extended thing (i.e., Aristotle). Rather it is aliving space. Dōgen for example captures this sense ofspace as “the bird flies the sky and the sky flies thebird.” In this statement an independence of both the sky and thebird is recognized, but it also recognizes that the sky and the birdeach become themselves only through their interdependence. In otherwords, what makes this space aliving space is the dynamic,interdependent, bilateral play of both bird and sky, from which theliving space-time as the continuum of “here-now” emergesas an ambience, where each of the terms entering the relationshipthrough the activity is granted a full recognition of their being.This is because the Zen person lives the dynamic activity ofnon-dualistic “coming-together” of “the two,”whether this “two” happens to involve the“betweenness” of two individuals, individual and nature,or individual and trans-individual.

7.4 The Structure of Things Appearing

Given Zen's mode of seeing, which is non-dualistic in nature,occurring in zero time and zero space, one may be curious to raise aquestion as to how things appear to the Zen mind under thesecondtitions. We can interpret Zen's nondualistic experienceepistemologically as that experience which arises from anondiscriminatory state of meditational awareness. To be morespecific, the nondiscriminatory awareness means that it is thefoundational background, as articulated in the foregoing, that isbottomless or is nothing, and as such it does not participate in thediscriminatory activity. However, when a thing appears, adiscrimination occurs on this foundational, though, bottomless,background. Because it occurs on this foundation, it does not distortthe shape of things to appear along with its force. We designated itsactivity as discernment vis-à-vis nondiscrimination in theforegoing. Or, it may also be characterized as nondiscriminatorydiscrimination, in order to capture a sense of how things appear inmeditational awareness. In this nondiscriminatory discriminatoryawareness, no ego is posited either as an active or a passive agent inconstituting things of experience as this awareness renders uselessthe active-passive scheme as an explanatory model. This awareness letsa thing announce itself as a thing. It is a rejection of the idealistposition, e.g., Husserl's intentionality thesis in which ameaning-bestowing activity is assigned to the act of consciousness. Itis also a rejection of the British empiricist's stance in which theepistemological subject is considered a passive being oftabularasa upon which attributes are impressed. These implications aresuggested because Zen's nondiscriminatory discriminatory awarenessarises out of the state of no-ego in which no projection from theunconscious and no superimposition of intellectual ideas occur in thefield of meditative awareness.

Moreoever, because things are experientially “constituted”in this manner, we can interpret the epistemological structure ofappearing to be such that things appear in the field of meditativeawareness without presupposing the Gestalt psychology's distinctionbetween foreground and background. This is because the ego is turnedinto nothing in the state of nondiscriminatory discriminatoryawareness, and hence no-ego, where this nothing is paradoxically abackground that is not the background at all, because it isabottomless background. To use Nishida's terminology again,the nondiscriminatory discriminatory awareness is an act of“seeing without being a seer.” Or, to use the terminologyof Phenomenology, the bottomless background or the background ofnothing is the stance in which the noetic act is renderednothing. Accordingly, the noematic object is allowed to announceiteself without an intentional constitution by the latter. This is themeaning of “no projection” and “nosuperimposition” mentioned above. It consequently opens up abottomless horizon, on which a noematic object announcesitselfin toto as a phenomenon.

This opening up simultaneously accompanies, as mentioned in theforegoing, a de-substantialization and de-ontologization of things ofexperience, because there is no act of the ego that substantializesand ontologizes them; substantialization and ontologization both ariseas a consequene of an anthropomorphic activity that is intricatelytied to the discursive mode of reasoning. Consequently, we are led toconclude that things of experience announce themselvesintoto without concealing anything behind them. This is becausethere is nothing in the bottomless background to determine or delimithow things appear. Zen uses such terms as “suchness” or“thusness” to designate it. For example, Dōgencaptures it by stating in “the Buddha Nature” fasciclethat “nothing is concealed in the universe.”

In order to see how the above mentioned structure of appearingoperates under the conditions of zero time and zero space, we mustcapture a sense of a temporal-spatial awareness reflective of thenondualistic experience. In the foregoing, we discussed zero timetemporalizing and zero space spatializing in which temporalization isspatialization and spatialization is temporalization, e.g.,Dōgens theory of “being-time,” wherein there is noformal separation between temporalization and spatialization. Hence,neither time nor space is conceived to be a container. Rather, theyare expressions of things “thinging” the primordial modeof their being. This thinging of things springs from zero time andzero space. One must stand in ground zero to see the“thinging” of things where there is no temporalization andno spatialization of things.

8. Returning to the Everyday “life-world”: Not One

If we are to stop at sketching what Zen-seeing is together with itsunderstanding of time and space as an integrated space-time, Zen fearsthere occurs a danger of fixing the stance thus“obtained,”—although we must keep in mind that Zen“obtains” the stance of “not two” in such a waythat it cannot be obtained, for in the non-dualistic dimension nothingcan be “obtained.” However, Zen also recognizes at the sametime that any stance that is fixed is one-sided and partial. It willdeprive Zen, for example, of an opportunity to utilize Zen-seeing inthe actions of everyday life. For this reason, Zen insists thatthe practitioner move to the stance of “not one.” What then is Zen's stance of “not one”? Thisquestion affords the reader, for the purpose of the present essay, toget a glimpse into Zen's movement from “not two” to“not one,” although in actuality this movement operates ina dynamic bilateral movement between them. This movement issymbolized in Zen by a circle, an image of the whole, which is also animage of perfection. Insofar as “one” is a negationof “not two,” “not one” then brings the Zenpractitioner back to the everyday “life-world,” the worldof multiplicity that is ordinarily constructed either-or ego-logicallyand dualistically.

8.1 Zen Person

For the Zen person, the move from “not two” to “notone” is an issue of concretely instantiating in the everyday“life-world” what is experienced through the stance of“not two.” This point, for example, is well illustrated inthe following Zen dialogue between Zen Master Ungen(Chin. Yúnyán, 780–841) and a fellow practitioner,Dōgo (Chin., Dàowú; 769–835). It runs asfollows:

Dōgo: Who are you going to serve the tea you are preparing?

Ungen: There is one person who wants it.

Dōgo:Can’t the person who wants it make the tea himself?

Ungen: Fortunately,I am here to do it for him. (Ueda, 1981, 165–66.)

This dialogue points to an activity of “trans-individualqua the individual,” where the“trans-individual” designates a Zen person withnondiscriminatory wisdom, while the “individual”designates those who remain in the everyday“life-world”. (In the above quote, the former isdesignated by the phrase “one person,” while the latter bythe pronoun “you.”) However, in the everyday human“life-world,” the “trans-individual” cannot“make the tea himself,” because he is not incarnate likethe individual who remains in the dualistic, either-or ego-logical,everyday standpoint. This is because he or she is one who follows thenon-dualistic, non-ego-logical standpoint having practicallytranscended the former. This creates the dilemma of how to betrans-individual while assuming the form of an individual. If this isnot properly dealt with, Zen warns that it results in developing apathological condition or amana-personality. For thisreason, Ungen says “fortunately ‘I’ am here to do itfor him.” Here, Zen conceives of the relationship between theindividual and the trans-individual as one, i.e., “nottwo,” and yet they are “not one.” Insofar as boththe trans-individual and the individual refer to the same person (inthe above quote, “I”), they are “not two,” butinsofar as their stances operate differently, they are “notone” (“I” and “him” in the quote).“Both individual and trans-individual” designates aharmonious assimilation of the two stances, a consequence of which isa person who can avail him or herself of both of these perspectives,i.e., the dualistic world of the everyday life and the non-dualisticworld of “not two.” On the other hand, “neitherindividual nor trans-individual” refers to a person who cannotbe pinned down or delimited by linguistic means. In spite of, orbecause of this, such a person is a carrier of freedom who goes beyondthese perspectives, i.e., an person in whom the trans-individual andindividualhave disappeared in action, in which case theindividualqua trans-individual is no longerordinary, but extraordinary. Yet, he or she is quite ordinaryin appearance. All of these points are synthesized into a Zenperson.

8.2 Zen's Freedom

How then does the Zen person, thus understood, live freedom? The termthat Zen uses to express the idea of “freedom” is“jiyū” and it consists of two characters;“ji” meaning “self on its own,” while“yū” means “out of.” When theyare used together as a compound, the phrase as a whole designates anaction arisingout of self on its own. This action thencarries a sense ofspontaneity, much like the spontaneouscreative act of living nature. This idea of freedom is foreign toWestern intellectual tradition, however. For example, consider howfreedom is defined by British empiricists like John Locke. Accordingto Locke, freedom (or to be specific, liberty) is defined as a lack orabsence of external constraint. According to this model, freedom is toexpress an ego-desire save in the name of will arising from anindividual in “the state of nature” where and when thereis no external constraint. By contrast, because it arises out of theself on its own, where the self in Zen is a groundless ground that isnothing, Zen's free action is not delimited by ego-desire, because itarises out of nothing. It “kicks through the bottom of thebucket,” that is, it purifies all the “defilements”interlaced with the activity of the ego-consciousness, as well as thepersonal and collective unconscious. For this reason, there is noissue involved in the Zen person's action that addresses the will ofego-consciousness. For what motivates the Zen person to action is athrust he or she feels, surging from the creative source inthe bottomless ground. Moreover, the Zen person does not experience,as Nietzsche has it, “bad-faith” or“self-deception” when explaining a motivation for actionas a rationalist would, because a rationalist must rationalize anirrational desire rooted in the body and the unconscious. (See, forexample, Nietzsche'sBeyond Good and Evil.)

Does this mean then that the Zen person has eliminated the demand ofinstincts or desires? If they areeliminated, the Zen personwould turn into a living corpse. Such a person can perform no action,let alone afree action. Obviously then, the Zen person doesnot eliminate them, but rather transforms them into“non-defilements,” into a higher spiritual energy. We seea heightened spirituality upheld by Zen master Baso (Chin.,MÄzū; 709–788), which he insists to be concretely expressedin the everyday “life-world.” He expresses it by phrasingit: “the mind as it is is the way.” (Yanagita, 1974, 147.)This statement, “the mind as it is is the way”(heijōshin kore michi) is sometimes rendered in Englishas “the everyday mind is the way.” This rendition can bemisleading if we ignore Baso's qualification that this “everydaymind” operates without defilements such that it is not“[entrenched in thesamsāric cycle] ofbirth and death,” and moreover that it is not dominated by ateleological intentionality, i.e., it negates the “in orderthat.” Otherwise, there is a danger of interpreting Baso'sstatement as promoting an evil naturalism. That is, whatever a persondesires in the state of “nature,” i.e., “theeveryday mind,” is the expression of the Way. There is noproblem of a misinterpretation then, as long as Baso's “everydaymind” is understood to mean the mind which is freed from“thesamsāsric cycle of birth anddeath,” and yet it is the mind which is concretely instantiatedin the everydayness of a human everyday “life-world.”

Let us see how Baso's idea of “the mind as it is is theway” is carried to a highly artistic action, whether it be aperformance technique of martial artist, dancer, actor/actress ormusician. Takuan's reflection on this point is illuminating. Hespeaks of a “nondiscriminatory knowledge” realized inaction as “immovable wisdom”: “It [immovable wisdom]moves as the mind is wont to move: forward or back, to the left, to theright, in the ten directions and to the eight points; and the mind thatdoes not stop at all is called immovable wisdom.” (Takuan, 1986.) Zen's free action is predicated on the fact that the mind“does not stop at all,” what Takuan paradoxically calls“immovable wisdom.” Here one can discern an echo ofJinne's mirror analogy. Takuan calls it“immovable” because the mind remains absolutely still(i.e., not two) in themidst of action, like thestationary shaft of a top. Such a mind does not fluctuate in itscenter, in the deep region ofpsyche. Inthis state, because the mind moves in such a way that it does not dwellon anything, there is no obstruction for the mind to move freely.

Generally Zen describes the freedom of bodily movement as“stillness in motion” (dōchūnosei) and is contrasted with “motion in stillness.” Itis noteworthy that “stillness in motion” cannot accuratelybe analyzed by appealing to the active-passive scheme, whichpresupposes a dichotomy as a proper method for understanding. Howevercontradictory it may seem, this is a description of how Zenunderstands its freedom as expressed through an integrated mind andbody. In order for this sense of freedom to be embodied, however, Zenemphasizes that a performer of any kind repeatedly undergoes mind-bodytraining. Takuan calls this the “body'slearning,”—that is the core meaning ofself-cultivation—because in “body's learning,” boththe mind and the body are brought to action in one integratedwhole. (The “body's learning,” neurophysiologicallyspeaking, is closely related to an activity of the cerebellum inconjunction with the hippocampus, although it is only that.) When askill or performing technique is learned through this method, one'sown body moves freely as it is habituated to move without waiting fora command from the mind. This describes a freedom of action in a Zenperson for whom the mind is completely assimilated into theobject-body, while the body is equally rendered into thesubject-body. They are one. At such a time, Takuan says, a spirituallife-energy of psychophysiological nature, called“ki,” permeates “one's body”—anenergy that cannot be delineated by either the mind or the body.(Yuasa, 1993) In this connection, Zen also speaks of Zen's free actionas a purposeless purpose, as an actionless action, for neither thepurpose nor the action arises from the everyday consciousness whichsets up a purpose or a goal for action. Zen calls it“samādhi-at-play,” where there is noindividualqua the trans-individual, but what there is isjust “play,” for the Zen person isabsorbed inthe activity when engaging a thing of the everyday“life-world.” In short, Zen freedom designates a term ofachievement. What Zen says of freedom of action has animplication for every action people perform in daily life, from thesimple act of opening a door to the magnificent play of a greatathlete or performer of any kind. In them, Zen contends however, thespirituality of a performer must be expressed. Zen extends aninvitation to all of us to act in this way, so that the quality oflife will be enhanced with a sense of satisfaction and fulfillment,free from stress and anxiety.

9. Concluding Remarks

This essay has articulated a Zen Philosophy, though asanti-philosophy, by thematizing such topics as “overcomingdualism,” “Zen-seeing,” “Zen'sunderstanding of time and space,” “Zen person,” and“Zen freedom,” in which process is noted a sense of themovement from “not two” to “not one.” This was to indicate Zen's sense of achieving personhood. Zen's methods of meditative practice are concrete ways foran individual to become a Zen person by awakening to the fundamentalreality in the everyday human “life-world.” In sodoing, it teaches to participate in the whole, and to express freedomin daily action, by showing one's “original face”right here-now and right in front of one's eyes.

In closing this essay, a cautionary remark is in order, however: allof the preceding accounts are simply aheuristic way ofconceptually articulating Zen philosophy. Or to use a Zen phrase, thisconceptual articulation is only “a finger pointing to themoon,” where Zen insists that there should not be a confoundingof the moon with a finger. In Zen language, the moon metaphoricallydesignates an experience of enlightenment and the finger a linguisticor reflective endeavor.

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