What is Zen?

By Scot Kelchner

Zen is the essence of Buddhism. It can strip away the trappings of religion and dogma and go straight at fundamental reality. Realization of this absolute reality is called enlightenment.

The principal tool for realization is attentive meditation. With practice, we recognize that thoughts are not the same as mind. We develop the ability to experience what lies at the bottom of all things, and we see clearly the interconnection of all forms. This liberates us from our dissatisfaction with the human condition and its many conventions.

Zen practice also makes it clear that you are not a “self”. You are in fact a part of everything around you which is always changing, moment by moment. Touching the truth of this provides the opportunity to experience the world as it really is.

Zen is practiced, which means that repeatedly bringing one's attention to this moment will eventually become the way one experiences the world. There comes a profound sense of relief when one learns that the relative world of human interpretation is not in fact absolute reality.

To an outsider, Zen can seem puzzling and intellectual. The purpose of certain Zen communications, however, is to puzzle you beyond your intellect. Practitioners have found that words are not adequate for describing absolute reality; it must be experienced. Therefore, Zen attempts to push you beyond words and into experience. Adepts “point” to the true nature of reality with their expressions, which take many forms other than written or spoken words.

Science meshes nicely with Zen because both systems value skeptical inquiry and both use experimentation to investigate the nature of reality. Scientific method and Zen practice are both tools that humans use for discovery. They tend to operate at different levels of human experience, but both are susceptible to error in perception because, after all, we are so very human and therefore likely to make mistakes.

In the West, the word "Zen" has become commercialized. Marketers seem aware that Zen is widely respected as a means of projecting serenity and balance. In our modern Western culture of commercialism and self-satisfaction, it is not surprising that such a word would be co-opted by those who wish their products to be viewed as "serene" or "enlightened". But no product can bring self-satisfaction or enlightenment, and that is where the word "Zen" will fail marketers.

Lay practice of Zen can be done by anyone, but formal Zen teaching requires structure and tradition to preserve the "cleanest copy" of its message, methods, and history. Zen centers offer instruction and guidance, often overseen by a teacher who has received transmission and whose quality of realization and teaching ability has been confirmed by another enlightened practitioner. 

As Zen propagates in the West, its system is facing new challenges that require our understanding, appreciation, and support of its history and method.

Relative and Absolute

Think for a moment about your world. What comes most readily to your attention? Your career? Politics? How you get along with your friends and neighbors? What others might think of you? Whether you have enough money? Whether you will ever be happy? Whether the universe is against you, or just seems to be?

At Zen and Science, we call this the World of People. It is a 'virtual world' constructed entirely of human perceptions and ideas. No person completely shares the perspectives of another, and each person believes his/her own perception of the world is true, so there are as many "Worlds of People" as there are people in the world!

In Zen terms, the World of People is the Relative. The world appears to each person relative to his/her expectations, senses, and thought. It cannot be the real world because no two people share the same conclusions about what is the nature of reality. The Absolute, by contrast, is the world without human ideas and description. It is the true nature of the world, the universe, everything.

If you can do so now, look outside a window, or step into your backyard. The trees, the sky, the clouds, the sun, the moon, the birds, the ground you walk upon...you are perceiving the absolute reality of things, but through the filter of your human brain and its conditioning. This world is not concerned with your career, your relationships, the amount of money you have or owe, the status of your personal health. It...just is. 

What is more, this absolute reality is perfect. There is not a single thing "missing" from it! There is not a single thing that the universe can "improve" upon. When is a mountain not everything that the mountain is? When is a river not everything that the river is? There is not a single thing to be fixed.

Zen helps us live more in the Absolute, and less in the Relative. By doing so, we realize that we ourselves are seamlessly a part of that absolute reality. To the absolute universe, we already are complete, and that is a wonderful thing!

Only this Moment

What is now? Can you live in the past? Can you exist in the future? Do you want to?

The place and time in which you can live, and the place and time in which you can be happy, is this moment. There is no other time available to you. You can remember "the past", but you cannot go there, and you cannot live in the past or correct it in its time frame. Likewise, you can have hopes for "the future", but the future is not where you live right now. There is only this moment.

If you want to be happy, you have this moment in which you can be happy. There is no other time available to you. But you can be happy in this moment. It is your choice to be so. 

How can you live and be happy in this moment? The difficulty of living in the World of People is that we think there is a way to become happy in the future. We are told that owning more things helps. We are told that being more important helps. But when the future arrives, it is always this moment. When is there anything but this moment? 

The problem facing us is how to be happy right now.

Happiness comes from awareness. Awareness of this moment. Awareness of what we really are. Awareness of how we can use this moment to help others. Happiness is a decision we make about how to live now in the World of the Absolute, and not later in the World of People.

If you are going to attempt anything, it must be now. If you are going to understand anything, it can only be in this moment. Each moment, you are given this opportunity. Each moment, you can make a change.