existentialbuddhist.com

If even for a short time one sits erect in meditative absorption and impresses the buddha seal upon the three sources of karma, everything in the world of things will become the buddha seal and all space will become enlightenment. the all-togetherness-of-things, the fact that things aren’t things at all but processes or energy—that the energetic process that we are is part of the wholeness of the universe. There’s such a thing as Father Zen and such a thing as Grandmother Zen. You don’t make enlightenment happen; enlightenment is what zazen does to you.

For one thing, it means that the Insight Meditation tradition focuses on insight into “the three marks of existence”–the impermanence of all things, the idea that all things are in some way experientially unsatisfactory, and the idea that nothing experienced ought to be considered as “ whereas the heirs to the Huayan tradition (and Zen is one such heir) sought to ground us in caring for all of existence as it is, insisting that there’s no difference between form and emptiness–between everyday reality and Nirvana–except in our view of things. The last alternative informs the Zen notion of one’s “true self” or “big self” being the entirety of the interconnected universe, as opposed to the “small self” of personal ego. The takeaway from all this is that it helps to understand that Buddhism isn’t “one thing,” and that Insight Meditation and Zen aren’t always saying exactly the same thing.

While you and I might disagree on whether a specific painting is beautiful or whether a specific fact happens to be true, we both understand what it means to say that a painting is beautiful or a fact is true. While the specifics of what we find decent, beautiful, or true vary from era to era and culture to culture, what doesn’t vary is the fact that these realms exist–and in simplest cases–exist without our having to effortfully think about them. One glance around the house my wife and I live in underscores the centrality of aesthetics in everyday life—the pleasing way the colors of its painted surfaces compliment each other, the decorative paintings hanging on its walls, the well-wrought artifacts adorning its shelves, the pleasing contours of its sofas and chairs—the way all of these cooperate to “pull things And I suppose that beauty also needs an observer—there can be none without one—although I’m troubled, just as Darwin was by his peacock feather, about why there should so much beauty in the world—the mountains, forests, rivers, lakes, clouds, rainbows, butterflies, flowers, stars, nebulae, and galaxies that please the eye and draw us into wonder.

It’s similar to the Pali word sati—remembering, bearing in mind, or mindfulness–with the possible difference that sati emphasizes awareness of one’s heart/mind, whereas menmitsu emphasizes awareness during one’s actions-in-the-world. A good deal of Zen monastic training is learning to physically embody menmitsu as one goes about one’s daily activities—putting on one’s robe, sweeping the walkways, refolding one’s bowing cloth, assembling and disassembling one’s oryoki bowls, and so on. In my experience, there’s a pattern to what happens to my mind over the course of a sesshin. Your job, as sesshin nears its end, is to continue to be with everything that’s happening just as it is, and to do it with menmitsu-no-kafu—meticulous and exquisite attention.