From the jungle of the Buddha's scriptures to the waters of Zen clarity. - Dosti Regmi

I was contemplating the springboard that catapulted Buddha into his undertakings.

It was the sight of sickness, aging, and death. The suffering inherent with life. And lastly the sight of the ascetic.

The ascetic must have been a promise that one can overcome or deal with life's inherent suffering, obviously by detachment.

So what he started with was the physical dimensions of the suffering.

In his 49-day-long meditation, he must have mused upon a lot of things. One thought leads to another into monotonous addition and leads to no conclusion.

So is life. As Albert Camus said, we try to search for meaning and life does not seem to care.

Buddha takes reference to his own life and that is the most fail-safe and authentic reference. He remembered when he was a child and there was a farm plowing, he had sat under a tree and had been absorbed into a deep meditation and he was oblivious of the time and at that time he was just conscious of the coming in and going out of breath.

He implemented the same exercise. 

With a hungry stomach, the eyes don't see things clearly and the mind does not think clearly. So his meditation was deepened only after he took food from Sujata, a village girl. 

So his questions must have shifted from the physical conditions of suffering to the mind as a cause of suffering.

Attachment is the cause of suffering. So there is a particular sense of peace and tranquility in detachment.

There are layers and layers of suffering. The physical causes of suffering. Then the mental, emotional, and existential causes of suffering:  cravings for sensual desire and craving to be what we are not and not be what we are.

In the day of enlightenment, he saw the mental formations as a flux, both his as well as that of other people and creatures. 

They were impermanent; arising, sustaining, and ending.

Nothing lasts forever. Be it pleasure or pain. Pleasures are followed by frustrations.

Everything was linked to others in a cause-and-effect phenomenon and was lacking an inherent essence. everything tied up to a link to other. The twelve links of: ignorance, mental formation, consciousness, name and form, the six senses, contact, feeling, craving, clinging, becoming, birth, and old age and death.

Breaking down the phenomenon into layers and links gives us the ability to make skillful decisions on where to intervene. 

When Buddha had to teach the laymen, he had to use the binaries: Avoid the unwholesome thought and cultivate the wholesome thought. Follow a right and skillful way of life, speech, and action.

But the whole division of the wholesome and unwholesome is cumbersome and puts a burden on the individual. If there is a right way of life, still freedom from suffering is not guaranteed. 

Just like you can advise healthy food and exercise for good health and longevity. Disease and death are inevitable. 

Similarly, healthy thoughts are beneficial for peace of mind but freedom from any kind of suffering is not guaranteed.

Suffering (Dukha) is the first noble truth. And the causes of suffering (Samudaya) is the second noble truth.

You can scrutinize your ways of thinking and replace it with beneficial thoughts making better decisions but still, it will be just wandering in the woods of scriptures and suggestions. 

Everybody seeks pleasure and avoids pain. But why do the same good intentions pave the way to hell? 

One evening you go out on a dinner date by a riverside and look at the setting sun and discuss how everything is so amazing and how dharma has helped you so much to appreciate the beauty of life. Your partner sees the man of her dreams and sees an emotionally and spiritually fulfilled life with you. The whole world seems to be settled and perfected. While returning you get trapped in terrible traffic and even sad, you get stuck in your mental traffic. The promises fade. 

Such is the nature of the mind. It changes the parties, and rhetorics more often than the politicians. And every time you have a valid reason for it.

Desire: I am desiring the desirable.. the peace of mind, happiness

Anger: I have the righteous anger. Against the war, deprivation, poverty, and homelessness

Delusion: A thought can think a thought out of that thought.

Laziness: No, I am just relaxing.

Restlessness: I am the chosen one to do that and be that.

I think if you know that thought itself is the distraction there is no use of the scrutiny of the thought. Just watch it.

It snowed today. There were homeless people out in the snow. Where did the homeless couple I often see by my son's school go? I am anxious about my son's surgery scheduled for Monday. I am feeling so alienated these days think as if people are intentionally being careless. I had a difficult thought, and I tried to meditate on it. I just lay in bed meditating. To buy some solitude, told my wife that I was having a headache.

Only after several minutes, did my racing mind come to a still. Thoughts take you to no logical conclusion but just blow dust into the air. The first thing I realized after my mind stopped racing was I was breathing. And the breathing was calm. Then I realized focusing on breathing is not the start of the meditation. It is the attainment of meditation. It is the accomplishment of meditation. Unlike today, in some of the fortunate times, you have good thoughts in your mind and just flow with those thoughts and say I had a good meditation today. No. The relaxation due to wholesome thought is relaxing and satisfying. A thought, just being relaxing and satisfying is not a meditation.

Zen masters are right when they say. Staying in the meditation is itself the purpose and accomplishment. There is already Buddhahood in that posture of meditation, focusing on breathing and just letting thoughts come and go but not serving them tea.  And this is the cessation of suffering. Hence Zen starts with the third noble truth (Nirodha: the end of suffering). So true.

So the waters of your mind get settled and have clarity. You should not scrutinize and say this is a nice hue and I want it, this is bad dirt and I want to get rid of it. This is boiling with anger and I don't want it, This is beautiful ripples from the evening breeze. It's beautiful and I can afford to enjoy it.

Don't trust your mind in meditation.

Let the waters settle. It will reflect eternity.

I think this is what Sun Tzu meant to say in his book The Art of War when he said, " You should just watch the river flowing long enough. You will see the corpses of your enemies floating and carried away." Your defilements will die a natural death. You don't have to kill them.

Zen has no right or wrong. No binaries. No path and no gate. It is the gateless gate. It is the resolution of the fourth noble truth (Marga: the path to the end of suffering).