Why is ultimate Truth-Prajna, which Zen Buddhism wishes to present, so indefinable, abstract and inaccessible?
“To define” really means to put intellectual limits to, or to declare the sense of a certain thing.
“To grasp” as in the sense used here, means to understand something and retain it in the memory.
As the act of defining, itself, consists in confining something within a certain limits it must necessarily be finite, narrow or restrictive by its nature. Just as “to understand” means to mentally grasp something yet not everything, “to understand” is equally as limited and exclusive.
The ultimate “Truth- Prajna” which the school of Zen wishes to point out cannot possibly be something narrow, finite or exclusive. It must be something vast, universal and infinite, something that includes and reaches everything, something beyond definition and designation.
The very word “To define” visibly suggests a human finger which points to a definite object and “To grasp” a hand which holds something and does not let go.
Given this regrettable limitation and attachment, which is profoundly emphasized in the rationalism of the intellectual animal mistakenly called man, it is not at all surprising that the free and all-inclusive “Truth-Prajna” becomes something evasive which is always mysteriously elusive for every thinker.
Illumination. This mighty word is in essence and potency used in this chapter to empathize the transcendental mystic experience that consists of experiencing the TAO, True Zen, the Real.
It is not enough to understand something, we need to secure, to conceive of, to capture, its inner significance.
The sixth Patriarch asked the Bodhidharma: “How is it possible to reach TAO?”
The Bodhidharma answered: “Externally all activity ceases, internally the mind stops its agitation. When the mind has become a wall, then TAO comes.”
It is important to know that Japanese Zen is the same Hindustani Dhyana, the Jnana Pali, the Chinese “CH’AN NA” – an extraordinary form of Mahayana Buddhism.
Unquestionably Zen studies and practices allow us to secure the innermost significance of the Buddhist teachings recommended by the Mahayana School, which is simultaneously marvellous antithesis and a complement to the Hinayana School of Inner Self Realization.
Illuminating Emptiness is impossible to describe in human words. It is indefinable or indescribable. As was said by the Zen Teacher Huai Jang: “Anything which is said fails in the principal point.”
Buddhist teaching about Emptiness is comprehensive and profound and requires much study before being understood.
Only in the absence of the EGO, can we directly experience Illuminating Emptiness. To deify the mind is an absurdity because it is in itself only a fatal prison for the Consciousness.
To affirm that the mind is Buddha, to say that it is TAO, is nonsensical because the intellect is only a jail for the Consciousness.
Mystic experience of Illuminating Emptiness is always attained outside the intellectual field. Buddhist Illumination is never achieved by developing mental power nor by deifying reason.
On the contrary, it is attained by breaking any ties which attach us to the mind.
Only by liberating ourselves from the intellectual jail can we live the happiness of Illuminating Emptiness – free and entirely insubstantial.
Emptiness is simply a clear and precise Buddhist term which denotes the insubstantial and impersonal nature of beings and an indication of the state of absolute detachment and freedom outside of time and beyond the mind.
Drink the wine of meditation in the delightful cup of perfect concentration.
Samael Aun Weor
