Down-to-Earth Zen
Misguided Zen in the West: How to See the Essence Beyond Words
I once read an article that quoted a passage from Jack Kornfield’s book “After the Ecstasy, the Laundry,” which roughly suggested that those who achieve enlightenment find it hard to adapt to life afterward.
The author later wrote several other books, generally indicating that many people pursuing spirituality are too lofty and detached; they cannot handle real relationships or face real life.
However, I must tell you that the author of “After the Ecstasy, the Laundry” probably did not thoroughly study “Zhuangzi” and did not truly understand Zen Buddhism.
The Grounded Spirit of Zen in the Song Dynasty
Suzuki Daisetsu once said that the true golden age of Zen was during the Song Dynasty because, at that time, no Zen monk stayed permanently in one monastery.
Almost all Zen monks were wanderers; they had no fixed place, staying at most a month or two in one temple before moving on, spending their lives wandering.
One can imagine the strength of their life skills and independence. They were not detached; they were down-to-earth practitioners, grounding themselves even more deeply than ordinary people.
If you were asked to wander the world now, you would likely complain, lacking the independent living skills of those Zen monks.
This is why Suzuki Daisetsu said that the true golden age of Zen was during the Song Dynasty, illustrating that Zen is far from being detached.
Misconceptions of Enlightenment
The people exemplified in “After the Ecstasy” might not be truly enlightened. If you understand Zen Buddhism, you will find that truly enlightened individuals never float in paradise; they return entirely to the world.
Even when planting rice in the fields, they see heaven in the water, unaffected by anything.
You will find that many Westerners have not truly grasped Eastern concepts; their foundation is insufficient. Westerners excel in logic and writing, and their logical thinking allows them to write extensively.
If you are an outsider, you might find their writing very logical and reasonable. But if you are truly knowledgeable, you will see that their work is full of flaws. They do not understand the essence of Zen.
In their minds, Zen, Dzogchen, Zhuangzi, and Laozi are all lofty and detached. But they do not realize that if you truly understand Zen koans and poetry, you will see that Zen practitioners are more grounded than anyone else. They achieve a very solid state, with nothing ethereal about it.
Real-Life Example from Zen Tradition
In the Caodong school, an old Zen monk once stayed in a large communal room in the monastery. The old monk was very ill, unable to get out of bed during the sweltering summer, barely alive.
He asked someone to call Dongshan, the master, for a final meeting. He said, “Master, I’ve practiced Zen all my life but never attained enlightenment. I have one practical question before I go. As I’m dying in this heat, my heart is extremely troubled and anxious. What should I do?”
He asked a very practical question. Dongshan patted the old monk’s head and seriously replied with a sentence that became one of the most famous Zen koans over the centuries.
He said, “When it’s hot, let it kill you with heat; when it’s cold, let it kill you with cold.” This means: when it’s hot, let the heat consume you; when it’s cold, let the cold consume you. This was Dongshan’s final advice to the old monk.
Practical Wisdom of Zen
Zen does not speak of paradise or mystical words. Dongshan spoke a very down-to-earth sentence. If you are a complete observer, you will find that the one enduring the heat, the one enduring the cold, the one planting rice in the fields, and the one still wandering at eighty years old, who are they?
It is said that Master Zhaozhou was still making straw sandals at eighty because he was traveling, and his sandals wore out quickly. At eighty, he was making sandals every day, enduring hardships. Who is the one experiencing all this, enduring the heat and cold? This is Dongshan’s parting gift to the old monk.
He was telling him to see who is enduring the heat and cold. Is it not your body that feels the heat and cold? Are all your worries and concerns not because your body feels the heat and cold, the hardship? Living in this world, your body will certainly experience heat and cold, love and hate, and countless experiences.
Do you, like a poet, throw them behind you as if you didn’t see them, only looking at paradise because you don’t want to see suffering? Is this the attitude of Zen? No! Or, like a rich man, do you only see the stench of the world and can’t see paradise even if you want to? Neither extreme is correct.
Zen’s way is to integrate your body into the world, fully experiencing everything in the world, letting your perspective merge with heaven and fully reveal its vastness.
Unless you have a heart like “heaven in the water,” a vast heart, a heart that “shouts and the world becomes autumn,” you cannot endure the suffering of this world because your heart is too small. You will find that a person with poor endurance often has a particularly small heart.
A Zen practitioner, someone like Nüyu, someone who has attained the Dao, has a vast heart, a heavenly heart, a heart as boundless as the sky. He returns to the world with this heart, not leaving it behind. His eyes become completely different!
Enlightenment and Adaptation to the World
Contrary to what Jack Kornfield says, an enlightened person is not someone who cannot integrate into the world or adapt to it. On the contrary, a truly enlightened person, like Zhaozhou or Dongshan, thoroughly integrates into the world.
Their adaptability surpasses ordinary people. The suffering that ordinary people cannot endure is nothing to them because their physical existence is no longer an individual entity separated from the world. An ordinary person always considers themselves an individual, separate from the world, in competition or comparison with it.
A person in a state of “heaven in the water,” someone whose consciousness has reached vastness, their physical existence has merged with the world. Their experiences are no longer individualized. When the whole world is in disaster, they endure the entire disaster; when the world is in joy, they experience the entire joy. Their experience is no longer personal.
Krishnamurti said, “You are responsible for every war in the world, even if you are in America, in Hawaii, in a land of gentleness, you are responsible.” You are responsible for any poverty, hunger, or violence in the world because you are one with the world. Everything that happens in the world has your part, your responsibility. This is the experience of a realized person.
Do not think that enlightenment means floating in paradise, not eating the food of the world, and unable to survive when returning to the world. On the contrary, it is completely not like that.
A realized person, like Mazu Daoyi, would slap and kick people; he was not sitting on a lotus. A realized person does not float in paradise; a realized person returns to the world.
