The Pathless Path

Insight into the core tenet of Buddhism

Zen talks about terms like PathLess Path, PositionLess Position, and Gateless Gate (paradoxical indeed!) a lot in their koans to their texts and their discourses. These terms have intrigued me for all 14 years of my spiritual journey. But what do they really mean?

The structure of the world is such that there is suffering and entanglement at both ends of asceticism and hedonism. Buddha suggested Middle Path as the way to counter this suffering and gain enlightenment. So what really is Middle-Path?

Middle-Path is definitely a way of life, hence is a path, but what really is its mandate? there is no mandate attached to it apart from being conscious of not falling into one of the extremes. It is not defined by what it is but by what it is not, the same way how buddha has defined an individual as. So the middle path cannot really have a definite path, it is just “being”, being conscious of extremes. It is a non-dualistic way of living life in the way, that there is no right or wrong, good or bad way to walk on it, it's precisely to exclude those dichotomies from our lives and just be. Because these dichotomies are the result of a logical way of thinking which is very divisive and demarcating by its inherent nature and is mired in binaries, the logical nature of the mind, and dichotomies of its creation produce a sense of perpetual longing as whichever dichotomy, ‘path’ you choose there would always be a different one to choose and hence the longing for perfection. Zen uses these contradictions in language to stress on non-dual nature of existential reality and to break logical thinking patterns, so Pathless Path, Positionless Position symbolizes something which cannot be put in words but can merely be defined by what it is not, Pathless Path is hence a Path with no Path stressing on ‘just being’. In fact, Buddhists stress that Buddhism is neither Dualistic nor Non-Dualistic as once Non-Dualism is put in words it doesn't remain Pathless and the very definition of Non-Dualism gives rise to dualism controverting its very nature.

The Very Perception Is Action — J. Krishnamurti

Buddhism’s Heart sutra and Diamond sutra which explain individuality, the nature of reality, and Emptiness(a.k.a Sunyata, the essential nature of reality according to Buddhism) are all full of these contradictions as the coherent style of phrasing would make the very knowledge imparted by Buddha as Dualistic, as everything one says can have a diametrically opposite counterpart. But ‘Sunyata’(Emptiness) is essentially positionless and cannot have a counterpart as that would defeat its very meaning hence to describe sunyata which is neither dualistic nor non-dualistic only the definition of exclusion can be used, transcending all dichotomies like ‘neither dualistic nor nondualistic’.And since sunyata is related to the middle path as all other paths lead us away from our essential nature and to suffering, it is the exclusion of everything(or inclusion of everything, they are one and the same). Hence Pathless Path(Middle Path) is the path to Sunyata(which is PositionLess Position).

Thank you for reading.

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