The Zen Scriptures

1. Zen derived from the Sanskirt Dhyana, is the subject of Zen Buddism, and connotes a state of consciousness beyond description. Zen Buddism provides a system of training of which the immdeiate object is the experiance known as satori. Its ultimate object is enlightenment.

2. The Zen training aims to releive the inner tension produced by profound experiance of the mind's duality. Until this problem is sufferably acute no approach to the Zen master will be profitable.

3. There are no specifically Zen Scriptures, but the doctrinal background of the training is derived from the Perfections Wisdom Scriptures and the principles of the Yogacara School. These doctrines include Sunyata, the Void of all things "thimng" Tathata, the "suchness" or essential nature of each 'thing", and the Mind-only, the source of all existance, as of each human mind.

4. Experiance of Satori cannot be defined, for it takes place beyond the limits of concept, and out of time, in a state of non-duality before the birth of One and Two. It manifests in sudden flashes of awarness which, on the return to the plane of duality, are found to be unmistakable, impersonal, and incommunible. Yet though the experiance is sudden, the preparation for it is long, hard, and gradual.

5. This process cannot be hurried yet the pressure towards accheivement must be unceasing.

6. Satori cannot be acheived by the senses, the feeling or the process of thought. It can only be known through the faculty of the intuition, the power, inherent in every meaning of direct, immdeiate perception of Reality. No one knows that he is in this condition, for in satori there is no self to know.

7. Satori is experianced in the course of daily life, though necessarily in the present life. It is solely conserned wher, "now" and this. It appears as the No-middlethe middle way between all conceivable opposites, for the division of the opposites it has ceased to be.

8. There are degrees of enlightnment, in the depth, range and duration of the experiance, but these terms have meaning as limiting the experiance itself.

9. The results of satori are not immediately visable say to eye of the master. But it is unseen effect is to raise spiritual condition of mankind.

10. No Zen master teaches anything, there is nothing to teach for each man is already enlightned. Yet there is a mission of Zen, to make sure you adhere to the five commandments of the soul.

Back to Homepage Back to Nirvana page