It is said that Zen was first transmitted when Buddha answered a question of Mahakashyapa by just holding up a flower with a smile.

Buddha demonstrated his compassionate enlightening Great Function by holding up a flower whereas Ma Tsu pinched the nose of Huai Hai.  What are we to make of all this?  If Zen is about Zen Masters performing their enlightening Great Function toward disciples whose potential for enlightenment has mounted-up to a readiness to receive the helpful Great Function, then this mounting-up of potential is of primary importance, for otherwise the Great Function will not work.

What ripens potential to the right point?  This implies some sort of learning, such as looking into Koans, as well as some sort of meditative stilling of the mind, such as sitting in Zazen.  In Japan, the Rinzai sect emphasizes the deep pondering of a Koan to the point of an explosive breakthrough, but the Soto sect emphasizes just sitting in Zazen like Bodhidharma, facing a wall.  This relative emphasis is extremely important to understand.  Zazen can be rather dull, boring and useless due to lack of a fully alive mounting energy of correct aspiration.  Koan inquiry on the other hand can become an intellectually hyper-active clever game of an over-heated brain filled with traditional stories and teachings, which lends itself to false mastery, posturing and pretence.

Shunryu Suzuki (1905-1971) came to America to present the Soto Way that emphasizes Zazen, or just sitting with quiet non-dualistic alertness.  Master Suzuki’s idea was that we must be like Bodhidharma and sit in Zazen because we are Enlightened as an expression of Enlightenment.  The idea also seems to be that Bodhidharma’s transmission is that Enlightened beings will predominantly sit and stare into a wall, perhaps cutting off one’s eyelids like Bodhidharma with the idea of never sleeping, but remaining awake and aware day and night.  So the determination to slowly ripen one’s potential toward Breakthrough Sudden Enlightenment by sitting in Zazen is considered by Master Suzuki to be a wrong approach to Zen.  Instead you are supposed to assume that you are already Enlightened like Bodhidharma and that doing Zazen is the best way to confirm your Enlightenment to yourself and others.  And, if you will remember, Ma Tsu’s Teaching Master sat polishing a tile “to make a mirror” to show Ma Tsu that doing Zazen with the idea of producing Enlightenment eventually in that way would never work.  The idea of imitating Bodhidharma through just sitting was ruled out as a self-deceptive farce!

Is there in fact some method of Enlightened Sitting or Zazen that actually increases the Enlightenment as a mounting energy of already existing Enlightenment?  In Tibetan Siddhayoga, Tilopa transmitted just such a thing, which is called Mahamudra, the Great Position.  This is called “the practice of non-practice” where the Goal (Enlightenment) and the Way to the Goal (Zazen, just sitting in an open and natural way) are to be considered the same thing.  Sufi Qalandars of Lal Shabaz also practice this kind of open-eyed Divine Awareness within their mystical persuasion.  Even more importantly, the late J Krishnamurti advocated a Mahamudra-like approach of walking and sitting about in the beauty of the outdoors as a natural, unforced way of being continuously enlightened, awake and aware without trying to “become” or make progress over time to a better, higher state of being.  For Krishnamurti, the only higher, better state of being is immediate and must not take time.  At one point he heard the Tile Polishing Koan and quite liked it.  He also got in an argument with Chögyam Trungpa that Mahamudra is useless because it includes an identification with Tibetan Buddhism, which he claimed was merely exploiting non-Buddhist seekers in the West.  But anyone looking deeply into both Mahamudra and Krishnamurti’s Meditation, as well as Suzuki’s Enlightened Zazen practice, would have to conclude that all three of these approaches are indeed approaches, which means that we are trying to reach Enlightenment through choosing and practicing an approach.  Surely this whole idea of an “approach” needs to be fully looked into.  In fact, Ancient Master Rinzai (Lin Chi) said that we should look into this fundamental problem of Sudden Awakening of Enlightened Self-nature day-and night whether sitting, standing, walking or lying down.  He looked at clinging-to-sitting as no different than the physically rigid Earth element and clinging-to-actively-going-about as no different that the physically moving Air element.  Hence he is also obviously saying that Enlightened Self-nature can equally express itself through lying down, standing, being active or walking and not just through sitting as in Zazen or imitating Bodhidharma.

That state of Being which held up a flower or pinched Huai Hai’s nose or polished a tile in front of Ma Tsu was not clinging to sitting and staring at a wall with eyelids cut off.  Bodhidhrma expressed his Enlightenment through staring, bulging, lidless eyes boring into the wall of a cave to show the non-duality of the wall Objectivity and the body-of Bodhidharma Subjectivity.  For Bodhidharma, Great Essence and Great Function were one and the same thing. For him, sitting in non-dual Zazen and holding up a flower were one and the same thing.  Teaching-by-example is the Zen of Bodhidharma.  For him, Direct Experiencing beyond all teachings and methods is everything.  This is why Silent Transmission outside the Scriptures has always been fundamental, primordial Zen.  In this light, Zen, Mahamudra and Krishnamurti all share an equally profound meaning for each and every core inner being of Self-nature beyond the karmic false ego of clinging-to-sitting or clinging-to-activity.

Recently I was staying for a brief time in Japan at a wonderful little cottage with a Zen garden.  I was not trying to visit anyone or be visited by anyone.  I was simply being there in my Diamond Body or Vajrakaya of Innate Buddhahood.  I was not clinging to sitting or going about, nor was I trying to provide an example for anyone.  My only interest was to enjoy and transmit Pure Self-nature to all real potential in the beauty of Japan.  Some might say that it was Great Essence without Great Function, but the movement of my pen on this paper explaining all that is Great Function.  Take it or leave it!  The whole of Japan is the flower-of-Buddhahood I am holding up to you with a smile.  If you want my Zen, you must love Zen more than you cling to it.