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Like every long lived scientific and
religious tradition, the history of Zen includes numerous examples of persecution
and hostility wreaked upon its visionaries by the orthodox authorities that we
have identified as “devotees of the conventional perspectives of science
and religion.” Also in common with other scientific and religious tradition,
many of the Zen visionaries escaped suppression during their lifetimes only to
be subjugated by the devotees of orthodoxy in death – most commonly by means of
that well guarded trump-card of institutions everywhere – interpretation.
When expressions of truth fail to pitch us
out of our familiar surroundings, fail to engender wonder or dread, awe or
rapture we can be sure our conditioning has been effectively implemented. The
kind of conditioning that serves to veil truth, rather than reveal it is designed
by cunning rather than intelligence, its aim is exploitation rather than
cultivation. The methodology of such conditioning, which Blake calls
“Priestcraft,” is deception, and it agents are the servants of fear and greed called
the devotees of orthodoxy. Despite its comprehensive reach and effectiveness,
the primary means of this Priestcraft is simple; reduce expressions of truth –
the images and figures of myth and metaphor – to mere signs, indicators,
historical facts, and literal definitions. If the alchemists of the “opiates of
the masses” have revealed any truth, it is that concocting “interpretations”
that classify, categorize, codify, or otherwise reduce expressions of truth to
systematic generalizations is extremely effective for redirecting human awareness
from the reality (i.e. dharmas) plainly before them to conceptual notions in support
of orthodox authority. This method so effectively embalms dead forms that encouraging
dissection, amputation, eradication, and detachment (of or from the self) has
become a distant second as a method used by devotees of orthodoxy.
When the moon in a Buddhist scripture is
defined as a symbol for enlightenment, the image of a Zen koan explained as an
allusion to emptiness, or the sayings of a Zen masters described as expedient
devices, expressions of truth become dispossessed of authenticity, thus of
liberating potential. Such definitions and explanations subjugate the
exceptional and visionary to the mediocrity of orthodox standards by reducing
the paradoxical, multifaceted figures of myth and metaphor to stereotypes and
generalizations that conform to established principles and codes of
institutional convention. Thus, species of pseudo-Zen long ago established by
sectarian and institutional authoritarians, under the pretence of
“interpretation,” continue to be widely perpetuated. This method of
mummification has been so successful that even the iconoclasm of Zen has been effectively reduced to a convention of
the dullest and most witless kind – manifest as an infantile exaltation of
vulgarity, crudity, and anti-intellectualism.
In contradistinction to its sophomoric
imitations, authentic Zen iconoclasm is a subtly refined rhetorical art,
proficiency in which requires years of diligent cultivation. Even with
sustained cultivation adept performance may not be realized, though cultivation
is still necessary for increasing an accurate appreciation of Zen iconoclasm,
as well as the significance of Zen rhetoric generally. For Zen iconoclasm is
not so much the result of methodological development as it the result of
mythological (metaphorical) insight. Its insight into the metaphorical nature
of the self provided Zen with a clear understanding of the vastness of our
inherent creative potential, the capacity to actualize reality (i.e. dharmas)
through (by means of) the six modes of human experience (seeing, hearing,
smelling, tasting, feeling, and thinking). While it is this capacity that
facilitates all human experience, it can only be activated deliberately
(consciously) by those awake to true nature, that is, through
practice-enlightenment. While all eyes (ears, noses, etc.) participate in the
actualization of the forms they see (hear, smell, etc.) it is only the
Dharma-eye (Dharma-ear, Dharma-nose, etc.) that can actively (consciously)
influence this process of actualization. And, as previously discussed, this
“active influence” is exerted through the mythopoeic capacity of human beings,
the capacity to transmit wisdom from mind to mind (Buddhas alone together with
Buddhas) through the figures of myth and metaphor (self-expressions of
Buddha-nature).
Clearly seeing the true metaphorical nature
of the self (nondual with the world, self/world, thus all dharmas) clearly
reveals the true dangers of ontologically reifying the self through
conceptualization or literalism. Here then we would point out that Zen
iconoclasm is not confined to those instances wherein it appears in eccentric,
shocking, deviant, and sacrilegious words and deeds; rather, Zen iconoclasm
permeates the whole corpus of Zen literature. For, in light of its vision of
the self as root metaphor, the injurious potential of substantiating the self through
dualistic literalism could “literally” not be overstated. For what this light
reveals is that reality itself is iconoclastic by nature. Thus, the dark humor,
subversive tone, shocking images, and similarly unorthodox aspects of Zen
expression are not only the deliberate application of deeply cultivated
skillful means; they are inherent characteristics of expressions of truth
(self-expressions).
Our statement that “this light reveals that
reality itself is iconoclastic by nature” will be clearer when we later explore
the significance of existence-time (uji); here, then, a brief explanation on how the light of true nature
demonstrates the inherent iconoclasm of reality will have to suffice. If all
dharmas are self-expressions, each dharma is a unique instance of existence-time,
therefore each dharma is by nature iconoclastic. The very actualization of a
dharma is a shattering, a casting-off of every possible preconception; in its
“becoming,” a dharma advances the whole of existence-time. In Dogen’s terms, the
actualization of a dharma is the “total exertion of a single thing.” As seen in
light of existence-time, each dharma actualizes a unique,
once-in-an-existence-time dharma-position, a particular location-moment
manifestation (in and as experience here and now). The becoming of each dharma
is a manifestation of what was (previously) not-manifest, thus its
manifestation is not simply iconoclastic in itself (in that it destroys any and
all preconceived images, containers, forms of itself) it is the iconoclastic
“kalpa-ending conflagration” (i.e. the Buddhist version of the apocalypse). In
short, each and every particular thing, being, and event actualizes an
apocalypse/revelation of the universe, utterly destroying the old world (which,
in lacking that dharma, was a totally
different world), and giving life to a completely new world (the first world ever to contain that dharma).
...
Peace,
Ted
