Nansen's Cat: An Examination of Zen 'Oneness' Richard Oxenberg I. A Koan This essay is a reflection upon a koan (of sorts) that I encountered while reading D. T. Suzuki's Essays in Zen Buddhism. It is not a koan that appears in the book itself, nor is it a traditional Zen koan. Rather, it is a koan that occurred to me during the course of my reading. I will express it thus: If a Zen master kills a kitten, and does not hear its scream, does it make a sound? We will use this koan to reflect upon the nature of the Zen experience of 'oneness' or 'nonduality,' at least as we can glean it from Suzuki's treatment and some other accounts. But before doing so, it will be helpful to say a bit about how koans function in the Zen tradition. A Zen koan is a paradox or riddle that the Zen master presents to a disciple in order to conduct the disciple into an awareness of the truth to which Zen points. The disciple is not to seek an analytical or intellectual solution of the koan; rather, contemplation of the koan is to lead to an intuitive, or what we might call 'epiphanous,' realization of the koan's meaning. Such intuitive realization is to have a transformative effect on the disciple's mind and spirit. In this respect, the true 'solution' to the koan is this transformation itself, which the disciple is then asked to demonstrate to the master. As an example, let's consider the classic Zen koan: "What is the sound of one hand clapping?" Of course, the paradox here is that we generally suppose that it takes two hands to clap. One hand strikes another and produces a sound that we call 'clapping.' In what way then can one hand clap? What sort of sound would the clapping of one hand make? This is the paradox the Zen disciple is asked to sit with. Again, a mere intellectual solution to the riddle is 2 not what is sought. Rather, the disciple is to seek an intuitive, indeed transformative, insight into the koan's fundamental meaning, an insight that, when had, will effect a revolution in his or her orientation to life. As Suzuki puts it: "Zen works miracles by overhauling the whole system of one's inner life and opening up a world hitherto entirely undreamt of."1 What is the nature of this hitherto undreamt of world? What is the inner revolution to which Zen points? As is well known, Zen is loath to describe it in conceptual terms. On the one hand, Zen maintains that it cannot be properly grasped conceptually and, on the other, that even if it could, such a conceptual understanding would be of little or no value, any more than a photograph of food would be of value to a starving person. One must experience this new orientation oneself in order to understand it and benefit from it. Indeed, it is suggested by Zen adepts that the very attempt to understand the truth conceptually can become a barrier to its realization. In this respect, the following essay may appear to be very 'unzenlike,' for we will indeed endeavor to understand the meaning of our koan analytically or intellectually. Nevertheless, I can give something of a zenlike defense of this unzenlike approach: for my own attempts to enter into the meaning of the koan has led me to realize that an analytical or intellectual approach to understanding life and the world cannot be utterly dispensed with; not if we wish to achieve anything that might reasonably be called "enlightenment." To see this, we will need to engage in an imaginative attempt to envision what the Zen state of enlightenment is like. We will use Suzuki's accounts of it for this purpose. 3 II. Non-Duality At the heart of Zen enlightenment, at least as presented by Suzuki, is an experience of nonduality, an experience of identity between self and other, subject and object. In enlightenment, writes Suzuki, "one's inmost being gets purified and sees itself as it really is, not indeed as an ego standing in contrast to the not-ego, but as something transcending the opposites and yet synthesizing them in itself."2 Suzuki makes a point of noting that for the true Zen adept non-duality is not a mere metaphysical concept, rather, it is a direct, unmediated, experience that leads to a "reconstruction of one's entire personality."3 Suzuki notes that many of us receive a taste of this in romantic love: "Through the awakening of love we get a glimpse into the infinity of things. . . When the ego-shell is broken and the 'other' is taken into [one's] own body, we can say that the ego has denied itself or that the ego has taken its first steps towards the infinite."4 Of course, Zen enlightenment is not an experience of romantic love, but like romantic love, it involves the breaking of the ego-shell that divides the world between an I and a not-I. If we wish to understand it, then, we might first consider the manner in which the ego makes this self-other division. As Suzuki presents it, and as is generally said in the Zen tradition, the ego constructs the division of self and other largely through the operation of intellection or conceptuality. Rather than experience the world as it immediately presents itself to us, we experience it as mediated through our thoughts and concepts. We do this quite automatically, without noticing, and thus experience the world, not directly, but through a conceptual film that distances us from it, and indeed from ourselves: "Ever since the unfoldment of consciousness we have been led to respond to the inner and outer conditions in a certain conceptual and analytical manner. The discipline of 4 Zen consists in upsetting this artificially constructed framework once for all and in remodeling it on an entirely new basis" 5 Hence, the Zen enlightenment experience does not result from the application of new concepts to the world, but rather from a relinquishment of our conceptual approach to the world altogether. Suzuki writes, "Enlightenment is not the outcome of an intellectual process in which one idea follows another in sequence finally to terminate in conclusion or judgment. . . In judgment there is subject and predicate; in Enlightenment subject is predicate and predicate is subject; they are here merged as one, but not as one of which something can be stated, but as one from which arises judgment."6 In other words, enlightenment conducts us to place in consciousness prior to intellection, from which intellection itself arises. It results, not from coming to understand something new about the world, but from connecting with a more primordial region of our own consciousness than we are generally in touch with, a region prior to the distinction the mind makes between self and other; a region, indeed, hidden to ordinary consciousness due to this distinction itself. It is just this division of self from other and subject from object, says Suzuki, that is at the core of what the Buddhist tradition calls Ignorance (avidya). Such Ignorance "is not merely not knowing or not being acquainted with a theory, system or law. . . In Ignorance the world is asserted as distinct from the self; that is, there are always two elements standing in opposition."7 In this respect, Ignorance may be seen as an overlay upon our originally non-dual mind, with enlightenment the more primordial, more originary, mind-experience. This is why, says Suzuki, the enlightenment experience has the quality of a home-coming: "The will as actor is bent on going back to his own original abode where there was yet no dualism, and therefore peace prevailed."8 5 What prevents our home-coming? Again, it is the dualistic nature of cognition: "As soon as cognition takes place there is Ignorance clinging to its very act. When we think we know something, there is something we do not know. The unknown is always behind the known, and we fail to get at this unknown knower, who is indeed the inevitable and necessary companion to every act of cognition."9 Thus, cognition itself – subject-object cognition – has the effect of hiding us from ourselves. We become for ourselves the object of our own cognition and see ourselves as standing apart from a world that is other than us. In this way, the very act of cognition alienates us from ourselves. "Until we transcend this condition," writes Suzuki, "there is no peace of mind, life grows unbearable."10 It was the Buddha's transcendence of such dualistic mind-activity that constituted his enlightenment: "In his search for the 'builder' [of our world experience], the Buddha was always accosted by Ignorance, an unknown knower behind the knowing. He could not for a long time lay his hands on this one in a black mask until he transcended the dualism of knower and known. This transcending was not an act of cognition, it was self-realization, it was a spiritual awakening and outside the ken of logical reasoning. . . The knowledge the knower has of himself, in himself – that is, as he is to himself – is unattainable by any proceedings of the intellect, which is not permitted to transcend its own condition. Ignorance is brought to subjection only by going beyond its principle."11 A well-known Zen koan captures the notion that enlightenment involves a return to an originary or primordial mode of consciousness. The Zen master asks the disciple: "What was 6 your original face before you were born?" We may understand this "original face" to refer to our primordial state of consciousness prior to the division between subject and object. Similarly, this understanding of enlightenment helps us grasp the meaning of the famous Zen koan mentioned earlier: "What is the sound of one hand clapping?" We may understand 'two hands clapping' as a metaphor for the clamor the world makes due to the clash of subject and object, a clamor characteristic of our everyday experience. The 'one hand,' then, is our consciousness prior to this division. To hear 'the sound of one hand clapping,' thus, is to experience our originary consciousness prior to the division between self and other, which is the enlightenment experience itself. Of course, to state this in words, as we are now doing, is not enlightenment, and, thus, not a true solution to the koans. We might well expect, then, that were we to submit this analysis to a Zen master we would be greeted with a loud "No!" III. Nansen's Cat What I would like to do now is consider the Zen enlightenment experience, as we have sketched it above, in the context of the story Suzuki tells of Nansen and the cat. This story is a well-known Zen 'mondo' – disciple-master dialogue – and is sometimes regarded as a koan in its own right. Suzuki presents it in a chapter entitled, "Practical Methods of Zen Instruction." I will record it here in Suzuki's own words: When the ownership of a kitten was disputed between two parties of monks, the Master Nansen came out, took hold of the animal, and said to them, 'If you can say a word [of Zen], this will be saved: if not, it will be slain.' By 'a word,' of course, he meant one that transcended both affirmation and negation, as when Joshu was asked for 'one word of the ultimate truth.' No one made a response, whereupon Nansen slew the poor creature. Nansen looks like a hard-hearted Buddhist, but his point is: To say it is involves us in a dilemma; to say it is not puts us in the same predicament. To attain to the truth, this dualism must be avoided. How do you avoid it? It may not only be the loss of the life of a 7 kitten, but the loss of your own life and soul, if you fail to ride over this impasse. Hence Nansen's drastic procedure.12 There are many questions we might raise with respect to this passage, but the one I would like to focus on is the most glaring one: In what way is the killing of a kitten consistent with the Zen enlightenment experience? Clearly, Nansen kills the kitten in order to drive home some point to his disciples, although it is less than clear just exactly what the point is. Nor is it clear what sort of response Nansen was looking for from the monks. What would they have had to do to save the cat? In a follow-up to this story we are told that later that evening, Joshu, Nansen's most advanced disciple, who was not among the monks at the time of the incident, was told of the incident by the master. Suzuki writes: "Joshu at once took off one of his straw sandals and putting it over his head began to depart. Upon this, said the master, 'What a pity you were not today with us, for you could have saved the kitten.'"13 From the standpoint of our ordinary understanding, Joshu's behavior seems simply absurd, and Nansen's response to it equally absurd. And there is some suggestion that the absurdity itself is part of the point; for in the Zen tradition such absurdity seems employed to express the creative freedom of the enlightened mind, which is not bound by ordinary norms of subjectobject cognition or, for that matter, of social convention. If the monks had done some absurd thing in response to Nansen's challenge to them, would this have led him to spare the cat? Or is there some particular thing, or sort of thing, that they would have had to do? It's unclear. But what is not unclear, what stands out in stark relief from all this Zen absurdity and obscurity, is a plain fact there seems to be no getting around: Nansen kills the cat. 8 And what strikes me as especially troublesome in all this – leading to the "koan" I began with – is that there seems to be no recognition, on the part of Master Nansen, on the part of Joshu, or, for that matter, on the part of D. T. Suzuki, that the cat has a reality unto itself that demands some consideration and respect in its own right. In light of this, we might now ask the question: What is the cat from a Zen point of view? Is the cat to be regarded as a mere phenomenon in Nansen's mind that he should therefore feel free to do with as he likes, or is the cat to be regarded as a being unto itself, distinct from Nansen, that therefore demands consideration and respect? What is the 'enlightened' answer to this question? Notice that if we assert that the cat is a being unto itself, this calls into question the legitimacy of the experience of non-duality that seems at the heart of Zen enlightenment, for the cat, understood as a being unto itself, cannot rightly be reduced to Nansen's mere experience of the cat as it appears within his own mind. In other words, in order for Nansen to recognize the cat as a being unto itself, he must also recognize a distinction between himself and the cat, a distinction between subject and object, self and other. The being of the cat cannot be reduced to the appearance the cat makes in Nansen's direct experience. Nansen must acknowledge that there is that about his own direct experience of the world that points him beyond his own direct experience of the world, a beyond, indeed, that he cannot, even in principle, experience directly; in this case, the being of the cat. This implies that there is a duality inherent to human experience that cannot and should not be undone, not if we are to live responsibly or even knowingly. How might Nansen know that the cat is a being unto itself with an inner reality inaccessible to his own direct experience? Only through some form of subject-object cognition. Nansen would have to recognize that the world that appears to him in direct experience, what Kant calls the 9 phenomenal world, is not coextensive with reality as such. He would have to recognize that the phenomenal world that appears to him subjectively is, at best, a window upon a reality that transcends his subjectivity; a world, further, that is not entirely accessible to his own consciousness and, thus, a world that he cannot simply be 'one' with, at least not in the sense presented by Suzuki. Was it his failure to recognize this that allowed him to kill the cat without, apparently, any qualms? Does this suggest that there is something not quite right about the Zen experience of enlightenment? We need to consider this question carefully. IV. Phenomenal Non-Dualism To examine this question, we will reflect upon a mode of non-dual experience that I am going to call 'phenomenal non-dualism.' Whether or not Zen non-dualism actually corresponds with phenomenal non-dualism is a question for us to carefully consider. But in order to do so let us first look at some of the features of phenomenal non-dualism. By 'phenomenal non-dualism' I refer to an experience of non-dualism that may result from connecting with that region of our own consciousness that is prior to the distinction we make between subject and object, self and other, I and not-I. Those familiar with the phenomenological tradition in Western philosophy may notice that what I am here calling 'phenomenal non-dualism' bears a resemblance to what Edmund Husserl calls 'transcendental subjectivity,' which we can become aware of through engaging in what Husserl calls a 'transcendental reduction.' Husserl was not searching for mystical enlightenment 10 when he sought to examine 'transcendental subjectivity,' rather he was seeking to understand the basis of cognition. Transcendental subjectivity refers to the world as immediately present to, or in, one's own conscious experience. One's transcendental subjectivity, thus, includes what we ordinarily think of as both self and other. For instance, though I ordinarily take the desk I am looking at to be other than me, I can nevertheless recognize that the desk, to the extent that it appears to my looking, appears within my own consciousness, a consciousness I associate with myself. Thus, though I may cognitively recognize the desk to be other than me, in order for me to do so I must engage in a cognitive act through which I tell myself that the desk as it appears in my consciousness, the phenomenal desk, refers to a desk that exists apart from my consciousness. Apart from this cognitive act, I would not understand the desk as other. The ordinary person performs such acts automatically; it is basic to our subject-object experience of the world. Husserl developed what he called the 'transcendental reduction' in order to have us attend to our original subjective experience, prior to the cognitive acts through which we divide self from other. "Transcendental reduction," writes Husserl, "restricts me to the stream of my pure conscious processes and the unities constituted by their actualities and potentialities. And it seems obvious that such unities are inseparable from my ego and therefore belong to its concreteness itself."14 Again, Husserl engaged in the 'reduction,' not in order to achieve enlightenment, but as a procedure for examining human cognition. And, of course, there is a profound difference between Husserl's transcendental reduction and what we may surmise to be the experience of Zen enlightenment. For Husserl, the transcendental reduction is a deliberate act through which we quite consciously and intentionally 'bracket' our ordinary self-other understanding of the world, whereas the Zen experience is not one of 11 bracketing ordinary understanding but of somehow getting beneath it to a more primordial and – according to Zen anyway – more authentic self-awareness. Nevertheless, in both cases we become aware that what ordinary consciousness generally takes to be 'other' appears, first of all and immediately, as a feature of our own consciousness, our own subjectivity. This experience of the world, and of what we generally take to be 'other' in the world, as immediately present to our own consciousness is what I am calling 'phenomenal non-dualism.' Is such phenomenal non-dualism the same as Zen non-dualism? It certainly seems to bear a relation to it. When Suzuki writes that Zen non-dualism involves experiencing the world without the mediation of subject-object cognition, what else can he mean than experiencing it as it appears immediately to consciousness, unfiltered by the cognitive acts that split self from other? It might be noted, though, that even phenomenal non-dualism is not altogether non-cognitive. Suzuki writes, "Spiritually a state of perfect freedom is obtained only when all our egoistic thoughts are not read into life and the world is accepted as it is, as a mirror reflects a flower as flower and the moon as moon."15 But actually a mirror doesn't reflect a flower as a flower; it reflects it as a colored shape. To see a flower as a flower is to see it as falling within a conceptual category, the category of 'flower.' This is true of anything we might see and understand. To see a desk as a desk, a chair as a chair, a pen as a pen, is to understand what appears to immediate sensation in terms of cognitive categories. A person who did not, or could not, apply such cognitive categories to immediate sensation would not be able to get by in the world at all. Such an entirely non-cognitive experience of the world would be more akin to Alzheimer's disease than to enlightenment. 12 The Zen proponent might well respond that Zen enlightenment is not a condition of ignorance with respect to cognitive categories but of freedom with respect to them. The Zen master understands as well as anyone else that flowers are seen as flowers because they fall within the cognitive category we call 'flower,' but recognizes that our cognitive understanding of the flower as a flower is the result of a contingent act of cognition that we are not bound by. We might think of it as anything we like, or not think of it as anything at all. Indeed, this freedom with respect to cognition might explain the apparent 'absurdism' that seems to characterize so much Zen discourse. But is it indeed the case that the truly enlightened person can, without error, make anything that he or she likes of whatever appears in his or her direct experience? In particular, can Nansen, without error, make anything he likes of the cat? A philosophy of phenomenal non-dualism would suggest that he can. If I understand the being of everything I encounter to be identical to the phenomenal appearance of that thing in my own direct experience, if I acknowledge no distinction to be made between me and a world that is other than me, then this seems to imply that I may rightly feel free to behave in whatever way I like with respect to the things I encounter. But is this enlightenment or narcissism? Surely, we want to say that the cat is a being unto itself. Surely, its being cannot rightly be reduced to the way it appears in Nansen's (or anyone else's) experience of it. In order for Nansen to be properly cognizant of the cat, in order for him to be 'enlightened' with respect to the cat, he must acknowledge this, i.e., he must acknowledge a duality, a division, between himself and the cat. 13 Thus, no truly enlightened person could suppose reality to be non-dual at the phenomenal level. Might it nevertheless be non-dual at another level, say a metaphysical or ontological level? Yes, and we will consider this as we proceed. But Nansen cannot, without delusion, suppose that both he and the cat, as each appear in his own experience, are simply 'one.' But now we must consider more closely whether the Zen experience of non-dualism is indeed the same as what we are calling phenomenal non-dualism. This is the next question for us to take up. V. Zen Non-Dualism Is the Zen experience of non-dualism equivalent to what we are calling 'phenomenal nondualism'? Perhaps it is not. Perhaps it is non-dualism of another sort. If so, then what sort of nondualism is it? A review of Zen literature yields a somewhat ambiguous answer to this question. In an article entitled, "Who Is Arguing About the Cat?: Moral Action and Enlightenment According to Dogen," Douglas Mikkelson provides an account of Dogen's commentary on the story of Nansen and the cat.16 Dogen was the founder of the Soto school of Zen Buddhism and lived from 1200 to 1253. I think it will be helpful to take a close look at Mikkelson's presentation of Dogen's commentary. As Mikkelson presents it, Dogen distinguishes between: three kinds of mental activities: thinking, not-thinking, and without-thinking. What is meant by the first two terms are processes familiar to all of us. We can certainly think about a cat – analyze it, worry over it, decide whether or not to kill it, and so forth. We can also not think about the cat or, for that matter, anything at all; that is, we can stop the thinking process altogether. Beyond the dichotomy of thinking and not-thinking, however, can be found without-thinking. 14 Actually, it would be more accurate to describe without-thinking as before thinking and not-thinking. . . Without-thinking encapsulates what is meant by the pre-reflective experiences of life. We might, for example, suddenly find ourselves looking at a cat. In this initial moment of without-thinking, there is only the experience-of-looking-at-thecat. Only subsequent to this moment does the mental act of thinking set in, wherein there emerges the sense of a subject (oneself, or one's self) looking at an object (a cat). Thus without-thinking is a mental process prior to this emergence of self and other in everyday life. Mundane as this without-thinking may appear, in fact it is central to both Dogen's moral theory and the theme of moral causation articulated in the [Nansen] passage. From without-thinking, we see things 'as they really are.'17 What Mikkelson here calls "without-thinking" certainly sounds a good deal like what we have been calling phenomenal non-dualism: the identification of the being of things with how they appear in our "pre-reflective" consciousness, prior to the division of subject and object. It is only through such an identification that we can equate the cat "as it really is" with the "experience-oflooking-at-the-cat." To further develop this point, Mikkelson quotes a line from Dogen's Shobogenzo: To study the Way is to study the self. To study the self is to forget the self. To forget the self is to be enlightened by all things.18 And comments: 'Being enlightened by all things' expresses the mental activity of without-thinking wherein the 'self' (and also 'other') is 'forgotten,' because awareness of such distinctions is not present. No separate self is present to perceive 'other' things. Rather, the self is all these things, and vice versa, in this moment. From without-thinking flows the only identifiable 'reality,' namely the unceasing, ever-changing, impermanent unfolding of experience. From without-thinking/enlightenment, therefore, we see things as they really are.19 Again, what is described here sounds very much like what we have been calling 'phenomenal non-dualism,' where "the only identifiable reality" is the "unfolding of [one's own] experience." 15 According to Mikkelson, Dogen takes it for granted that one who experiences the world in this way will spontaneously manifest the compassion considered a central virtue within Mahayana Buddhism. Of course, the Nansen story calls this into question. Dogen's response is to suggest that perhaps Nansen's enlightenment was less than complete. Mikkelson writes: "Even as he [Dogen] acknowledges this enlightenment, he challenges its depth of attainment. In Dogen's mind, releasing the cat would have revealed a spiritual progress superior to Nanchu'an's [Nansen's]."20 But it seems to me there is a more fundamental problem with the idea of "without-thinking" than can be resolved by simply suggesting that Nansen's enlightenment was less than perfect. The cat is a being unto itself and cannot properly be reduced to the way it appears in Nansen's, or anyone else's, consciousness, regardless of how compassionate or uncompassionate that person may be. And it may well be that it is only through some mode of thinking, some cognitive act, that we can fully recognize this. Indeed, there is a strange ambiguity in Dogen's suggestion that Nansen, had he only been more enlightened, would have shown more regard for the cat. What need would there be to show regard for the cat unless the cat were a being unto itself and not a mere appearance within Dogen's "unfolding experience"? In other words, the very fact that Dogen thinks Nansen should have shown more regard for the cat indicates that, on some level anyway, Dogen recognizes that the cat "as it really is" is not equivalent to Nansen's "experience-of-looking-at-the-cat." VI. Agapic Non-Dualism Perhaps, though, we can follow Dogen's very ambiguity into a more robust, and more coherent, understanding of the experience of non-duality. 16 To aid us in this, we will look at yet another Zen dialogue presented by Suzuki, that between Yejaku and Yenan: Yejaku asked Yenen, 'What is your name?' and Yenen replied, 'My name is Yejaku.' Yejaku protested, 'Yejaku is my name.' Thereupon said Yenen, 'My name is Yenen,' which brought out a hearty laugh from Yejaku.21 Suzuki comments: These dialogues remind one of the famous Hindu saying, 'Tat tvam asi!' [Thou art That!], but the difference between this and 'My name is Yejaku' is that between Vedanta philosophy and Zen Buddhism, or that between Indian idealism and Chinese realism or practicalness. The latter does not generalize, nor does it speculate on a higher plane which has no hold on life as we live it.22 The problem with this comment, however, is that it may be only on this "higher plane" that non-dualism can be legitimately affirmed or, for that matter, experienced. On the plane of practical living, Yenen is not Yejaku and Yejaku is not Yenen (just as the cat is not Nansen); for them to suppose that each is the other from a practical point of view is not enlightenment but confusion. What I would like to suggest in the following is that enlightenment involves an elevation of consciousness to a "higher plane," not a reduction of consciousness to a non-cognitive plane, despite the fact that it is often misrepresented in this way in Zen literature. How might such "higher plane" non-dualism be experienced? To distinguish it from what we have been calling 'phenomenal non-dualism,' I will refer to it as 'agapic non-dualism.' Agape is the Christian term for divine love. Agapic non-dualism is a non-dualism rooted in an experience of divine love. What might such an experience be like? In his book, Love, Power, and Justice, Paul Tillich writes, "Love. . . drives everything that is towards everything else that is. . . Love is the drive towards the unity of the separated."23 17 Tillich's ontology posits a primal Unity that gives rise to, but is also distinguishable from, our existence as distinct beings. At the individual level we know ourselves to be separate from one another: Nansen is not the cat and the cat is not Nansen. But, for the spiritually realized person, all of reality is experienced as communally bound together in the spirit of divine love. Dante expresses something of this in the vision of God he relates toward the end of the Paradiso: O grace abounding, through which I presumed to set my eyes on the Eternal Light so long that I spent all my sight on it! In its profundity I saw – ingathered and bound by love into one single volume – what, in the universe, seems separate, scattered.24 The question to consider is whether this conception of a reality united in agapic love can be anything more than a mere conception (or poetic exclamation). Is there a way to immediately experience it in a manner analogous to the Zen experience of enlightenment? Surely one of the great appeals of Zen is its promise to bring us into a direct experience of non-duality, rather than a mere intellectual or even devotional appreciation for it. Suzuki writes: An appeal to the analytical understanding is never sufficient to comprehend thoroughly the inwardness of a truth, especially when it is a religious one. . . We must experience in our innermost consciousness all that is implied in a doctrine when we are able not only to understand it but to put it in practice. There will then be no discrepancy between knowledge and life. The Buddha knew this very well, and he endeavored to produce knowledge out of meditation; that is, to make wisdom grow from personal, spiritual, experience.25 What is the personal, spiritual, experience of agapic non-duality? 18 To reflect upon this, it will be helpful to consider a question we have not yet asked, but one basic to the issues we have been examining: Why do we seek non-duality in the first place? What is it about 'duality' that should make us wish to overcome it? The answer, I believe, has to do with the contingent nature of our individualized existence. Subject-object duality presents the subject with an existential paradox, even dilemma; for the subject is not only divided from the world that is its object, it is, at the same time, dependent upon it. The subject experiences the objective world upon which it depends as separated and separable from it. At the extreme, such separation is death. The prospect of death looms before us with the force of inevitability. The desire for non-duality, then, is the desire to overcome this dread, to unite with that upon which we ultimately, ontologically, depend, both for our basic sustenance and our ultimate well-being. We see a symbolic expression of this in the Garden of Eden story. Eden represents the realm of non-duality, prior to the division between "good and evil," prior to the dread of death, where Adam and Eve are able to eat directly from the Tree of Life and live in unconflicted innocence, "naked and unashamed" (Gn. 2:25). When this is disrupted, Adam and Eve are ejected from Eden. Now they must struggle "by the sweat of their brow" to sustain themselves in an inhospitable world, and are doomed to the inevitability of death. They now live in a world that is divided from them. They have been exiled – separated – from their ontological home. Some modern psychologists have associated this nostalgia for an ideal home with a desire for return to the womb. The womblike experience of the fetus must be one in which there is no division between subject and object. All the fetus' needs are taken care of immediately, with no effort, no struggle, no need to reach out beyond itself or distinguish itself from its environs. Even were the fetus intellectually capable of distinguishing between subject and object, it would 19 have no need to do so. In the womb all is 'one.' It must be a rude awakening indeed when this peaceful condition is shattered at the moment of birth. It might be supposed by some, then, that our desire for non-duality is really a desire for return to the womb. But this would be to put things backward. Rather, it is our idealization of the womb that is really a desire for non-duality. Were there no ontological desire for non-duality, the womb itself would have no appeal. What then lies at the root of this desire for non-duality? It appears a function of the life urge itself. Life wants to live, and to live as fully, as wholly, as possible. This is ontologically basic. But this very desire of life for life creates a 'duality' in our experience of life; for finite life is situated between that which is beneficial to it ("good") and that which is harmful to it ("evil"). This duality, between the beneficial and harmful, is, I believe, the fundamental duality. All other dualities are echoes or reflections of this one. Of course, there are an almost limitless number of ways in which things can be beneficial or harmful. A beautiful painting is beneficial in that it gratifies our aesthetic sensibilities. A satisfying meal is beneficial in a different way. An insult is harmful in that it can erode our selfconfidence and sense of social standing. A tornado is harmful in a different way. If we look carefully into the ways things are meaningful for us, we find that their meanings refer, almost always, to the many varied ways in which they may benefit or harm. In this respect, there is some rather bad news. Finite life, by its very nature, is subject to deterioration, decay, and annihilation. This finds one of its most striking expressions in the Buddhist legend that the young Siddhartha Gautama – destined to become the Buddha – began his spiritual quest in response to his shock at seeing an old man (deterioration), a sick man (decay), and a corpse (annihilation). That which is born is naturally subject to deterioration and 20 death. In Buddhism, this is referred to as the 'cycle of birth and death' (samsara). Given this, the underlying valence of finite life appears to be negative; the harmful is fated to overwhelm and defeat the beneficial. Thus, the first of Buddhism's Four Noble Truths is: Life is "dukkha." 'Dukkha' is generally translated 'suffering,' but it means something more nuanced and basic. We might translate it: painfully futile. Life as it is ordinarily lived is an incessant struggle to secure what cannot finally be secured. An image Buddhism provides for this is that of a burning house. It is like we are trapped in a house that is burning to the ground and cannot escape. Our frenzied efforts to escape create greed, violence, despair, egoism, rage, lust for power, lust for sex, war, drug addiction, hatred, etc. All this, however, just adds more fuel to the flame; just adds to the dukkha. At the root of dukkha, says the Second Noble Truth, is tanha, generally translated 'desire,' although, again, it means something more nuanced and basic. It is not desire as such that is the problem, but the conflict between what life desires and what the finite world is able to provide. Desire, of course, is related to the duality of beneficial-harmful. We desire to have what is beneficial and to avoid what is harmful. This is entirely natural. But given the cycle of samsara, given the decay to which finite life is inevitably subject, such desire is destined for frustration and defeat. It is just in this sense that desire is the root of dukkha. The incommensurability between what life desires and what finite life is able to provide leads to 'dukkha' – painful futility. This dukkha-tanha complex is the 'burning house.' Buddha is called the Buddha – the "awakened one" – because he is said to have found a way out of this burning house. Or, to state it more aptly, he discovered that the burning house is itself an illusion; there never was a burning house. Our sense of being trapped in a burning house is like a bad dream from which we must wake up. 21 What we must wake up to is the realization that our lives are not inherently tied to the cycle of birth and death – samsara. If we understand birth to signify all that 'gives life,' i.e., all that falls under the category of the beneficial, and death to signify all that deprives us of life, i.e., all that falls under the category of the harmful, then we might put it this way: life in its fundamental nature is not tied to the duality of beneficial/harmful. To realize this, not just intellectually but viscerally, is liberation from the cycle of birth and death: Enlightenment. If we now ask how it is that life, in its fundamental nature, is not tied to the cycle of birth and death, or what is the nature of life such that it is not tied to the cycle of birth and death, we must enter into a speculative metaphysics that Buddhism, and especially Zen Buddhism, generally tries to avoid. Nevertheless, I believe it will be helpful to try to say something about this. What is life? Where does life itself come from? What grants us life? If we confine ourselves to what we can observe, we see that every child's life comes from its parents. The fetus grows from a combination of the mother's egg and the father's sperm. In this respect, the life of the fetus is something of a continuation of the life of the parents. But actually it is not as simple as this. In order for the child to grow it must eat and breathe, it must be sheltered and nurtured. The child requires food, which itself requires the sun and earth, the rain and air, which each arose (according to modern science) from the 'big bang.' In other words, every individual thing is part of the greater whole and, in some sense, made up of the greater whole. This leads to the Buddhist doctrine of no-self, which might better be rendered no-isolation. Nothing exists as an entirely separate, isolate, independent entity. Everything is related to everything, is part of everything, indeed, is composed, in some sense, of everything. 22 Though each individual thing, or form, comes and goes (is born and dies), the whole of which everything is a part, and of which everything is composed, does not come and go. Thus, our lives, which we take to be subject to birth and death, are actually instances of the whole of life, which is not subject to birth and death. Expressed just this way, this is a mere metaphysical observation. The Buddha's discovery, however, was that there is that about us that can come to know this inwardly, come to experience our essential unity with the whole that is beyond birth and death. To come to this experience is to 'wake up' to our true nature. This awakening liberates us from the dukkha-tanha complex. But how does it liberate us? Are we not still subject to the duality of beneficial/harmful? Will we not still grow old, get sick, and die? Yes and no. Much now depends on what we understand by 'we.' To explore this, we need to enter into a fuller understanding of what is beneficial about the beneficial and harmful about the harmful. And to do this we need a fuller understanding of 'desire.' Why do we desire anything at all? Where does desire itself come from? Empirically, again, we can see that we desire what we need to sustain our individualized existence. What we desire, primarily, is life, but precisely because our individual lives are ontologically dependent on the whole of life, we require, and hence desire, what we need from the whole in order to sustain ourselves as individuals. If we step back and look at the 'big picture' we see that it is of the nature of the whole to break up into contingent individuals, and then the nature of the individuals to desire reconnection with the whole, through which they are sustained. 23 It was the Buddha's discovery – in many ways a discovery that lies at the core of all the world's great religions – that the individual can come to know itself as united with the whole. This does not eliminate desire (as is sometimes said) but recontextualizes it. We no longer see ourselves as fundamentally rooted in our individualities. Rather, we see our individualities as rooted in the self-sustaining whole, the whole with which we are, ultimately, identified ("one with"). Will we still grow old, get sick, and die? It depends on what we mean by "we." Our individualized lives will grow old, get sick, and die. But our deeper selves are rooted in the selfsustaining whole that does not grow old, get sick, and die. At the deepest level, then, we are not subject to the cycle of birth and death. We see this basic insight expressed – in a variety of formulations – in all the great world religions. At the core of Judaism is the Sh'ma: "Hear O Israel! The Lord our God, the Lord is One, and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might" (Deut. 6:4-9). God is the eternal (self-sustaining) One out of which arises the contingent many. The many – the individuals – achieve their highest good through uniting with (loving) the One. Of course, implicit in this command is the revelation that it is possible to "love God with all your heart, soul, and might." In other words, there is already within us that which can come to know our rootedness in the eternal. The Torah makes this explicit: For this commandment which I command you today is not too difficult to you, nor is it out of reach. It is not in heaven that you should say, "Who will go up to heaven for us to get it for us and make us hear it, that we may observe it?" Nor is it beyond the sea that you should say, "Who will cross the sea for us to get it and make us hear it, that we may observe it?" But the word is very near you, in your mouth and in your heart, that you may observe it. (Deut. 30:11-14) Jesus, in turn, speaks of the Sh'ma as the "greatest" of the commandments and supplements it with a commandment he says is "like" it, the commandment to "Love your neighbor as yourself" 24 (Mt. 22: 36-40). In what way is the second command like the first? We learn this in the first epistle of John: "Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love" (1Jn. 4: 7-8). To love God is to love your neighbor as yourself, for God is not an individual being apart from other beings, rather God is the font – the life – of all beings. God is the One from which the many emerge, and since life 'desires' life in its inherent nature, God (the life of all life) affirms the life of all life. This is agapic love. The spirit of God is love. To be united with God is to be united with the love that is God. Hence, "Anyone who does not love does not know God." What we learn from virtually all the world's religions is that life, in its fundamental nature, is inexhaustible and eternal – and that our individual lives are rooted in this inexhaustible storehouse of life. Since life desires life, we desire the furtherance of our individual lives. But this desire becomes a dilemma when we lose sight of our provenance in the eternal. This failure to recognize our rootedness in the eternal, then, is the basis of what Buddhism calls Ignorance (avidya). Such Ignorance is the core our troubles. As a result, we come to see ourselves as rooted in our individualities rather than in the divine. But our individualities cannot sustain themselves. Hence, our desire for life becomes desperate, and this desperation manifests itself in a great host of self-destructive and other-destructive attitudes and behaviors: Dukkha. What is needed is a shift in our existential orientation, our basic sense of self, such that we come to know ourselves as connected to, rooted in, encompassed by, eternal life. It is possible for us to make this shift because our finite life is already a 'spark' of eternal life. We are already rooted in eternal life; it's just that we don't know it. 25 We will still grow old, get sick, and die. But our primary identity is no longer 'attached' to that of us that grows old, gets sick, and dies. We now identify with the eternal, which is beyond the cycle of birth and death (samsara). It is through this shift in orientation that we transcend our anxious bondage to the opposition between the beneficial and the harmful. Such transcendence is reflected in the words of a psalm often recited at Jewish and Christian funerals: "The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away; blessed be the name of the Lord." The divine life is the source of "giving" (birth) and "taking away" (death), but stands beyond them, and we transcend the duality of birth and death to the extent that we come to know ourselves as united with the Lord who stands beyond them. This is the way to spiritual peace. To come to know this, not as an abstract concept but in one's 'heart of hearts,' is what I am calling agapic non-duality. As individuals we are fragments of the whole and have a fundamental desire to resolve this fragmentation. Our desire for non-duality is our desire for wholeness, a desire to be united with the basis of our existence. This ultimate, ontological, basis is called by different names, and conceived differently, in the different religions: God, Brahman, Tao, Great Spirit, etc. To come into an experience of unity with it is to come 'home.' In light of this, we can see the appeal of what we have called 'phenomenal non-dualism,' insofar as it seems to resolve the duality presented to us in our ordinary experience. But if it is to escape the problems we have already cited with it, it must be embedded within, and qualified by, a higher order, more comprehensive, non-dualism. Let us now consider what this more comprehensive non-dualism – 'agapic non-dualism' – might be like experientially. 26 The agapic mystic experiences herself – along with the objective world revealed to her – as rooted in a transcendental Oneness (e.g., God, Brahman, Tao, etc.), a Oneness understood and experienced as the ontological power underlying and supporting her own self-world (phenomenal) experience. In his commentary on the Bhagavad-Gita, S. Radhakrishnan writes, "The Lord abides in the heart of every creature and when the veil of that secret sanctuary is withdrawn, we hear the Divine voice, receive the Divine light, act in the Divine power. The embodied human consciousness is uplifted into the unborn eternal."26 In saying that "the Lord abides in the heart of every creature," Radhakrishnan is pointing to what the Buddha is said to have experienced in the moment of his 'awakening': that 'enlightenment' is already embedded within us; it is inherent to our basic constitution, our "Buddha-nature." But we must 'wake up' to it. And it must be emphasized again that this mystical experience of divine Unity is not a mere idea of Oneness, but a palpable experience. This, anyway, is the report of the mystics who write about it. And yet this experience of the Oneness of all things is not an experience of the identity of all things. Each thing remains itself, distinct from others. The cat is not Nansen and Nansen is not the cat; Yenen is not Yejaku and Yejaku is not Yenen. The Unity exists on a "higher plane" (or perhaps better, a more fundamental plane) than the separateness; it does not eclipse it. The agapic mystic, we may imagine, experiences both the Oneness and the multiplicity together, in something like the way we can look at a painting and see it as a whole while, at the same time, recognizing its distinguishable elements. Our ability to recognize the separate 27 elements that make up the painting does not interfere with our ability to recognize, indeed experience, the painting as 'one.' Our experience of the painting as 'one' is due to our ability to step back from the painting and regard it in a single vision, a unifying perspective. In the case of a painting, this unifying perspective is an aesthetic one. For the agapic mystic, this unifying perspective is the spirit of agapic love itself, which Radhakrishnan calls 'the Divine.' It is through this spirit of agapic love, then, that the mystic experiences the world as One. We might think of this by analogy with our experience of white light and the colors of the spectrum. We know that white light, when it passes through a prism, will break up into a multitude of colors. But, though we know that all the separate colors have their origin and unity in white light, we would be terribly confused if we supposed that yellow light were blue or green light red. I suggest that the mystic is able to enter into a state in which she experiences the white light as such, an experience of unity with the divine. The Christian mystic Meister Eckhart expresses something of this when he writes: "The eye with which I see God is the same eye with which God sees me. My eye and God's eye are one eye, and one seeing, and one knowing, and one love."27 Upon coming out of this unitive state and looking out upon the manifest phenomenal world – the 'colors' – the mystic recognizes these colors to have arisen from and be rooted in the white light. Indeed, Eckhart's quote suggests that the spiritually realized person can have both of these experiences at once, superimposed, so to speak, upon one another, such that on one level she 28 retains something of the unitive experience of the white light, while on another she is aware of the distinct colors emerging from this white light. However, she would also understand that at the level of the colors – the phenomenal level – she is neither able to see all the colors nor all of what the colors are, for at this level, she recognizes that she herself is just one of the colors. Thus, though she would experience an intimate belonging with everything and everyone she encounters – a belonging with others that is rooted in a belonging to the One – she would not make the mistake of confusing her phenomenal self with others or with the One. At the phenomenal level, she would recognize a distinction between each individual as individual. In light of this, we might identify three distinct dimensions to the experience of agapic nondualism: a unitive, a communal, and a conceptual dimension. At the unitive level, the mystic experiences the Oneness of the divine as such. We might well imagine this to be something of a womblike experience, in which, at its height, one is no longer aware of a distinction between subject and object, but not because one identifies object with subject (as in phenomenal non-dualism) but because the unitive experience is an experience of absorption, in which there is no longer a sense of a separate self at all. But even the most spiritually realized do not remain in this state of absorption. The mystic returns to an experience of herself as a separate self, to the phenomenal reality of subject and object. This is what we might think of as the 'communal level' of non-dual experience. At the communal level, the mystic experiences – not an absolute union – but a communion of subject and object, self and other, I and not-I. At this level, the experience of non-duality finds its expression in compassion, loving-kindness, appreciation for beauty and harmony. The mystic is 29 aware that both she and the world presented to her as 'object' arise from the same ultimate source. This is the level, then, of "loving one's neighbor as oneself," of seeing the divine as "all in all." Still, she does not suppose her neighbor to be herself, and does not suppose that her "experience-of-looking-at-her-neighbor" constitutes what her neighbor "really is." She is aware of her neighbor as a separate self who must be respected in her own right, we might even say consummately aware of this. And just because she is aware that the world as it appears phenomenally is not the world as it is in itself, such non-duality will find expression in a conceptual, or rational, endeavor to understand the world. At the rational level, we strive to understand things in terms of what they are in themselves – i.e., in terms of their own ontological organization and constitution – rather than merely responding to them "without-thought" as they may appear to us in phenomenal experience. We strive to understand in order to better connect with the whole through cognition, and because such understanding is necessary for creating the loving community – the community ordered to principles of love and justice – to the benefit of all. This is the level at which we do theology, philosophy, science, etc. – the level, indeed, at which an essay such as this is written. All these levels – including the rational and conceptual – have a place within a robust experience of, and commitment to, non-dualism. And so we must take issue with Suzuki's suggestion that it is intellection as such that deprives us of enlightenment. The problem is not intellection as such, but a certain 'egoic' distortion of intellection. 30 We might note, in passing, that these three dimensions of non-dual experience bear some relation to the Christian Trinity – where the Father corresponds with the unitive, the Holy Spirit with the communal, and the Logos with the conceptual dimensions of non-dual Oneness. VII. Zen Non-Dualism Redux We might now ask whether the Zen experience of non-dualism is more akin to the phenomenal non-dualism we discussed in section IV or the agapic non-dualism sketched out above. The answer may not be a simple this or that – and it may be that not all Zen 'enlightenments' are the same. Let's recall Mikkelson's discussion of "without-thinking": "Without-thinking encapsulates what is meant by the pre-reflective experiences of life. We might, for example, suddenly find ourselves looking at a cat. In this initial moment of without-thinking, there is only the experience-of-looking-at-the-cat." The Zen monk, Thich Nhat Hanh, makes a similar point in his book, Understanding the Mind: "The realm of things-in-themselves is reality as-it-is without being distorted by our ideation and mental construction. Before ideation, before the mind begins to construct, the mind touches the ultimate dimension, the realm of suchness."28 And as we have seen, Suzuki says quite similar things. Indeed, it is a common theme in Zen writing that intellection, conceptuality, "ideation," prevents us from seeing things "as they really are" in their "suchness." If we could only approach our experiences "without-thinking," we are told, we would be able to see things in their 'truth.' But this just doesn't seem quite right. As said previously, to see the world altogether without "ideation" would be more akin to Alzheimer's disease than to enlightenment. In fact, just a few 31 pages after the remarks quoted above, Hanh writes, "If we learn the Buddhist method of looking deeply, using the meditation on impermanence, nonself, and interbeing or emptiness, we begin to get away from this [false] way of thinking and we have a chance to touch suchness."29 But "impermanence, nonself, and interbeing or emptiness" are themselves conceptual modes of understanding the world, modes of "ideation." To see the world in these terms is not to see it without ideation, or "without-thinking," but to see it in the context of one set of concepts as opposed to others. Indeed, Hanh writes: "If we look deeply enough into the teapot, we will see that it contains many phenomena – earth, water, fire, air, space, time – make this teapot. That is the interdependent nature of the teapot. A flower is made up of many non-flower elements, such as clouds, soil, and sunshine. Without clouds and earth, there could be no flower. This is interbeing. The one is the result of the all. What makes the all possible is the one."30 But actually, we cannot see that the teapot is made of "earth, water, fire, air, space, time," nor can we see that the flower is made up of "clouds, soil, and sunshine." And we certainly can't simply see the general principle that "the one is the result of the all." We can only know these things, to the extent that we can, through a process of analytical, inferential, reasoning. Indeed, Hanh makes this explicit himself, in another passage: "Using the keys of impermanence and nonself, we can open the door of reality and see that the cloud does not lie outside the rose, nor does the rose lie outside the cloud. If there is no cloud, there is no rain; if there is no rain, there is no water; if there is no water, there is no rose. As the rose decomposes, the water in it evaporates and returns to the cloud. Looking deeply this way, our concepts about boundaries disappear and we can see the cloud in the rose, the rose in the cloud."31 32 But clearly, what Hanh is here calling "looking deeply" involves a good deal of analytical, inferential reasoning. How do we know that water from the decomposing rose "evaporates and returns to the cloud"? Certainly not simply by observing the rose's decomposition as it appears to us phenomenally. To understand how the decomposing rose helps feed the clouds requires a great deal of sophisticated, analytical, thinking about water and clouds and evaporation and how they are related. And yet, in another place Hanh writes, "When we look at a flower directly, without thinking or memories, without comparing it, whether positively or negatively, to another flower we saw a week or a year ago, we reach the realm of the flower-in-itself."32 But we could not possibly know that the flower is "made up" of "clouds, soil, and sunshine" merely by looking at it "without thinking or memories." To see the flower "without thinking or memories" would be to see it as a mere colored shape. This would not at all be to see the "flower-in-itself" – certainly not if what we mean by the "flower-in-itself" is the flower as made up of "clouds, soil, and sunshine." So, what are we to make of all this? There seems a basic incoherence in the way Zen is being presented. On the one hand, we are told that enlightenment requires "looking deeply" (mindfulness), through which we come to recognize the "interbeing" (dependent origination) of things. This clearly requires analytical reasoning, as we have seen. On the other hand, we are told that enlightenment entails looking at the world without analytical reasoning, without "thinking or memories." We are left to conclude that either Zen itself is altogether confused, or that there is indeed a valid experience underlying these rather confused presentations, but that it is not being 33 expressed, and perhaps not being understood, in quite the best way. My tendency is to believe the latter. To help get to the bottom of this, let us look at yet another example of "direct perception" provided by Hanh: "When perception is direct, with no discursive mentation, you reach the realm of things-in-themselves. All of us have had this kind of experience. Suppose you are deeply contemplating a beautiful, snow-covered mountain. You don't feel separate from the mountain. You are one with it in your enjoyment of it. You are the mountain, and the mountain is you. There is no subject or object. . . When we see in this way, we are in the realm of suchness."33 What is going on in such "peak" experiences? Or perhaps we should ask: What is not going on? For a moment one "forgets oneself"; one's anxious self-awareness dissolves and one allows oneself to get "lost" in the splendor of the scene. For a moment one is transported beyond the distractions of one's all but constant defensive-protective self-concern. But such an experience is not without ideation. One still understands that the mountain is a mountain and not a mere colored shape in one's visual field. Indeed, one would not be swept away by the grandeur of the mountain if one did not understand this. But one is no longer seeing through the eyes of selfinterested calculation. One is no longer opposing the object, the mountain, to the subject, the self, in order to determine the extent to which the object is a benefit or a threat to the subject. Hence, our defensive cognition relaxes and subject and object seem to conjoin in a moment of ecstatic unity. In other words, what has taken place here is what we might call a motivational shift, not a shift from thinking to not-thinking. The enlightened person is looking at the mountain with a different motivation than the unenlightened person. The unenlightened person looks at the 34 mountain, and the world, in the context of a basic project – the project of securing his or her existential standing in the world. From the standpoint of this project, the mountain, and indeed the world, is seen merely as a means to this end, and hence not really seen in themselves at all. The enlightened person, on the other hand, is able to see the mountain 'in-itself,' 'as such,' i.e., in its 'suchness.' If we wish a glimpse into the character of enlightenment, then, we need to consider carefully the nature of this motivational shift. As we have already discussed, we are all born into the world with a basic desire to secure ourselves. This is entirely natural. It is a function of life's selfaffirmation, which seems intrinsic to life itself: life wants to live. But this presents us with a basic, existential, dilemma, for only the whole of being, in its wholeness, is ontologically selfsufficient. Individuals, on the other hand, come and go, they are subject to the cycle of birth and death. We cannot finally secure our individual selves, at least not through our individual selves. Nevertheless, ignorance of our true ontological situation propels us to try to do so. This gives rise to the dukkha-tanha complex, as we have seen. We are propelled by our ignorance to pursue existential self-reliance, but this is a futile pursuit. The very futility of it leads to a great host of self-destructive and other-destructive attitudes and behaviors. We are driven to control others and the world in our effort to establish ourselves as our own ontological basis. When this fails, we fall into despair. Thus, this "futile passion" (as the existentialist writer Jean-Paul Sartre calls it) is responsible for a great deal of the misery we suffer in ordinary life; "dukkha." Enlightenment entails a fundamental shift from existential self-reliance to what I will call (with some hesitation) existential God-reliance; where by "God' I mean the ultimate power of being that gives rise to all that is, self and other. 35 I hesitate because Buddhism avoids the word "God." Buddha's discovery was that what we are here calling "God-reliance" is an inherent potentiality of human life itself, a potentiality realized once the project of self-reliance is dropped. There is no need to think explicitly of "God," and, indeed, the idea of God can, and often does, get in the way. This dropping of the project of existential self-reliance is understood in Buddhism as the elimination of 'tanha,' generally translated 'desire.' Such elimination is called 'nirvana,' which literally means 'blown out.' In nirvana, the 'flame' of tanha (which has been burning down the house) is blown out. But actually, we might better think of enlightenment as a liberation of desire than an elimination of it. It is not that we cease to desire. It is that our desire ceases to be self-involved and desperate. The Bodhisattva vow to save all sentient beings is, of course, the expression of a desire. But it is no longer a desperate, self-involved, desire. It is now a desire in sympathy with all desire; a desire for the wellness of all. This is, so to speak, divine desire. But divine desire is not self-interested desire; it is desire for the good of all. In other words, it is love (agape). So, the shift from un-enlightenment to enlightenment takes place as a transmutation of selfinvolved desire into divine desire, divine love. This is a motivational shift that occurs at the deepest levels of the person; it is not a shift from thinking to "without-thinking." Once we recognize this, we are able to put many of the disparate pieces of the various accounts of Zen enlightenment together. We can see that the doctrines of interbeing (dependent origination), impermanence (anicca), and non-self (anatta), serve a strategic purpose. They are to help us recognize that we are not ontologically independent beings; that we exist as part of the greater whole. This recognition can 36 foster the motivational shift required for enlightenment. In itself, it will not force this shift, but it provides a framework for understanding the world that can support it. But this framework is itself a mode of "mentation," realized through the discursive intellect. So it is not mentation as such that is problematic, but a certain mode of mentation. Indeed, Hanh himself recognizes this: "Even the discursive, intellectual function of our mind can help us approach the ultimate dimension, if we use it to practice mindfulness."34 Of course, this would not be true, could not be true, if discursive intellectual thinking were itself the thing that prevents us from approaching the "ultimate dimension." But we can also see how this motivational shift can help calm the intellectual mind. The unenlightened mind is involved in a constant, frenzied, effort to figure out how to save itself, even when we are not explicitly aware of it. It is like a program running constantly in the background of our psyche – a constant hum of anxiety so familiar we take it for granted. As we've said, it is a futile effort, but this futility only makes the frenzy more desperate. Once the shift is made, the intellect can calm down. This allows us – finally – to relax in the moment; to "just look" at the mountains and the sky and the flowers and the teapots. There is a peaceful joy that comes of this. This seems to be what the Zen writers are referring to when they speak of approaching things "without-thinking." But this is not so much an elimination of thought as a relaxation of thought; a relaxation made possible by a shift in what motivates our thinking in the first place. We can also see how this understanding of enlightenment sheds light on one of the most iconic of Zen stories: A monk asks the Zen master, Joshu, "How do I achieve enlightenment?" Joshu says, "Have you eaten your breakfast?" The monk replies, "Yes, I have." Joshu says, "Then go wash your bowl." The point is that the monk's anxious striving after enlightenment, 37 after "salvation," is itself an expression of the very frenzy that is preventing enlightenment. The great Zen irony is that salvation comes from realizing that you don't need to be saved. There is nothing to do, just to undo. We are already, indissolubly, part of the whole, we just don't know it. We come to know it, not by learning something new, but by dropping our frenetic endeavor to save ourselves. But, of course, this is far more easily said than done; to really achieve it requires a revolution in our basic sense of self and our fundamental existential motivations, which are both largely unconscious. So in another sense there is something to do. We must do the undoing. We find this paradox expressed again and again throughout the Zen tradition. And finally, we can understand how this motivational shift yields an experience of 'oneness,' of 'non-duality.' The unenlightened person experiences the world as a battleground between the I and the not-I. The I needs to secure itself. In order to do so, it must control the not-I, both to ward off threats from the not-I and to satisfy its needs through the not-I. Again, this project is – ultimately – a futile one. This futility is what the Buddha saw in his early encounter with old age, sickness, and death, which propelled him on his spiritual quest. It is this futile project that creates for the I, the ego, an experience of anxious 'duality.' When the shift to enlightenment is made this sense of duality dissolves. It is not that one can no longer distinguish between oneself and others. It is that one no longer feels under siege by 'otherness.' One now feels bonded with everything else; united with that with which all else is united. One's basic experience of the world shifts from duality to unity. This shift is accompanied by a sense of liberation and joy. One has stepped off the samsaric treadwheel. Now life is an agapic dance. What we find in the Zen tradition are a lot of playful expressions of this sense of joyful 'oneness.' Yenen and Yejaku call each other by one another's names. It is enlightened play; a joyful celebration of their liberation from the life of self-other embattlement. 38 Our conclusion is that Zen enlightenment, Zen non-dualism, is indeed a variation on agapic non-dualism, although it is too frequently mischaracterized, often by Zen proponents themselves, as a version of what we have called phenomenal non-dualism. VIII. The Kitten's Scream We return, then, to the 'koan' that launched our inquiry: If a Zen master kills a kitten, and does not hear its scream, does it make a sound? Our answer, of course, is yes, it makes a sound whether the master hears it or not – and, beyond this, that a master who fails to hear the kitten's scream would not be a true master. So, then, what are we to make of the story of Nansen and the cat, the story of the master who kills a kitten because his disciples fail to 'speak a word of Zen'? In an attempt to defend this story, Suzuki writes: "The Zen method of training its followers thus appears so altogether out of reason and unnecessarily inhuman. But the master's eyes are always upon the truth absolute and yet attainable in this world of particulars. If this can be gained, what does it matter whether a thing known as precious is broken and an animal sacrificed?"35 But this does not seem a very satisfactory response. What does it matter? It matters to the animal, and, therefore, must matter to anyone who experiences a 'oneness' with the animal. So how are we to read this story? There is some indication that the story is not the record of an actual event, but a tradition passed down in order to illustrate a point. Indeed, Suzuki tells another story that seems an exact parallel to this one, except with a precious mirror taking the place of the cat: While Kyozan. . . was residing at Tohei. . . his master Isan. . ., both of whom were noted Zen masters, sent him a mirror accompanied with a letter. Kyozan held forth the mirror 39 before a congregation of monks and said: "O monks, Isan has sent here a mirror. Is this Isan's mirror or mine own? If you say it is Isan's, how is it that the mirror is in my hands? If you say it is mine own, has it not come from Isan? If you make a proper statement, it will be retained here. If you cannot, it will be smashed in pieces." He said this for three times, but nobody even made an attempt to answer. The mirror was then smashed.36 Here we don't have the problem of worrying over the mistreatment of an animal and so, perhaps, can see the intended lesson more easily. A mirror, of course, is that through which one sees oneself. To ask 'to whom does the mirror belong?' might be read as a way of asking, 'to whom should we see ourselves as belonging?' Should we see ourselves as belonging to ourselves or as belonging to the whole, the One? To see ourselves as belonging to ourselves is to see ourselves through the eyes of duality. To see ourselves as belonging to the One is to see ourselves through the eyes of non-duality. If we cannot make a "proper answer," our understanding of ourselves, our self-image, will be shattered, fragmented. We might read the Nansen story similarly. Here the kitten represents innocence, peace, warmth, unsullied life. The monks are fighting over to whom it should belong, and this fighting itself destroys innocence, peace, warmth, unsullied life. If the monks cannot rise above their fighting to "speak a word of Zen," of agapic non-duality, the kitten will be destroyed. But, in this case, the story doesn't work, because it is the master who destroys the kitten, when it should be the master who saves the kitten. Whereas the mirror can be treated as a symbol, the kitten may not be treated as a symbol, at least not as a mere symbol, because the kitten is a sentient being, a being unto itself, who therefore must be treated with care and respect. So the master's killing of the kitten makes him not a master, and in this way the story defeats itself. And this failure of the story leads to a misreading of the message, to such a degree that as notable a personage as D. T. Suzuki can say of the violent slaying of the kitten: What does it matter? 40 So, we must reject this story as a failed parable. We can find many such failed parables in the literature of religion. This is one. Indeed, perhaps the most enlightened way to read this story is not to try to justify Nansen, but to see ourselves as the kitten – the kitten who is not seen by the monks, or Nansen, or Joshu, or even D. T. Suzuki; the kitten whose peril and pain in this perilous and painful world is what propels us onto the spiritual path to begin with; the kitten whose suffering at the hands of ignorance, alienation, and error, in whatever trappings of sanctity they may appear, must inspire us on to an ever deeper commitment to the realization of agapic truth within ourselves. Perhaps, after all, this is the best way to read this story, and even, perhaps, to speak a true word of Zen. 41 Notes 1 Suzuki, D.T., Essays in Zen Buddhism: First Series (New York: Grove Press, Inc., 1961), 268. 2 Ibid., 143. 3 Ibid., 67. 4 Ibid., 17. 5 Ibid., 261. 6 Ibid., 68. 7 Ibid., 128. 8 Ibid., 131. 9 Ibid., 128. 10 Ibid., 129. 11 Ibid., 129. 12 Ibid., 276. 13 Ibid., 277. 14 Husserl, Edmund, Cartesian Meditations (Klumer Academic Publishers, The Netherlands, 1995), 88. 15 Suzuki, 140. 16 Mikkelson, Douglas, "Who Is Arguing About the Cat?: Moral Action and Enlightenment According to Dogen," in Philosophy East & West, Volume 47, Issue 3, July, 1993. 17 Ibid. 18 Ibid. 19 Ibid. 20 Ibid. 21 Suzuki, 298. 22 Ibid. 23 Tillich, Paul, Love, Power, and Justice (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1954), 25. 24 Dante, Paradiso, translated by Allen Mandelbaum (New York: Bantam Books, 1984), 301. 25 Suzuki, 81. 26 Radadhakrishnan, S., The Bhagavadgita (HarperCollins Publishers, 2014), 32-33. 27 As quoted in Suzuki, p. 126. Note that Suzuki quotes this in the original German. This is my translation. 28 Thich Nhat Hanh, Understanding Our Mind (Berkeley, Parallax Press, 2006), 128. 29 Ibid., 133. 30 Ibid., 82. 31 Ibid., 162. 32 Ibid., 151. 33 Ibid., 132. 34 Ibid. 35 Suzuki, 277. 36 Ibid.