For me, Nature is Zen.
When I am walking in the mornings and see a bird sitting there watching me or greet a cat that actually replies, time stops and all I feel is an overwhelming calm that brings tears to my eyes. I think it is within these moments when my ego is replaced by awe that I understand Zen.
In The Ten Bulls the Self is explained as the "bull" symbolizing the eternal principle of life in all things (ZFZB, p. 140). Psychologically, the bull is simultaneously both the ego and collective unconscious because in order to reach the Self one must use the ego.
By reigning the ego through intentional, directed focus, the collective unconscious is able to find its way free. Once freed, the unconscious unites with the "bull" and in turn, enters the "gateless gate."
When he enters this condition his ego-shell is crushed and he can shake the heaven and move the earth. He is like a great warrior with a sharp sword (ZFZB, p. 90).
Reigning the ego in order to free the unconscious is what I feel our purpose is on this planet. Many Eastern philosophies state that self-mastery is the most divine action a human being can undertake. The Ten Bulls discusses how the ego's "great will and power are inexhaustible" and that "the whip and rope are necessary" in order to tame the ego so that it becomes "naturally gentle", allowing the unconscious to escape. At this moment, which can be transitory, enlightenment is reached and "when the first thought springs from enlightenment, all subsequent thoughts are true."
It is easy to discuss the ego and unconscious as though they are just things or states of mind; however, truly comprehending their role in our lives has busied philosophers, priests, and psychologists for centuries. Zen masters along with Jungian psychologists devote their efforts to studying and deciphering how and why the two work and their relation to a collective unconscious or eternal principle of life.
Both disciplines express the necessity for joining these halves of our psyches because doing so brings both mental and spiritual health causing mediocrity and limitation to disappear (ZFZB, p. 150). It is here, in this limitless, supreme state when attachment to negativity and addictions vanish that Zen can be felt. Words make such a feat sound trite in relation to how magnificent the task of attaining a balanced mind can be. However, the fact that all humankind endeavors in at least some small way to reach peace of mind is what makes Zen moments possible. Once and if a person can get a handle on Zen they are able to recall it at will and doing so fuels the "bull" so that everyone touched by him/her becomes enlightened (ZFZB, p. 154).
© Copyright Paula Vaughan
Zen Flesh, Zen Bones: A Collection of Zen and Pre-Zen Writings
by Paul Reps, Nyogen Senzaki
After examining Mumon's comments in The Gateless Gate and The Ten Bulls, I find my clearest understanding of Zen in The Ten Bulls. Perhaps because I feel Zen through poetic metaphor rather than story form, I am drawn to The Ten Bulls as well as the poetic endings to Mumon's comments in The Gateless Gate. Zen Buddhism is like Loki - a trickster who brings enlightenment. You try so hard to get a glimpse of it yet it remains hidden then jumps out scaring you into the present. Regardless, I have a difficult time maintaining my grasp of Zen which is probably the beginning of true understanding.
I hear the song of the nightingale.
The sun is warm, the wind is mild, willows
are green along the shore,
Here no bull can hide. (Zen Flesh, Zen Bones: A Collection of Zen and Pre-Zen Writings
by Paul Reps, Nyogen Senzaki, p. 140)!
It can happen to you. In a flashing moment something opens.
You are new all through. You see the same world with fresh eyes. This universe- renewing power comes by grace, not logic...It doesn't make sense. It makes you (ZFZB, p. 85).
All is one law, not two. We only make the bull a temporary
subject. It is as the relation of rabbit and trap, of fish
and net (ZFZB, p. 148).
Enlightenment always comes after the road of thinking is blocked. If you do not pass the barrier of the patriarchs or if your thinking road is not blocked, whatever you think,
whatever you do, is like a tangling ghost (ZFZB, p. 89).
"Whip, rope, person and bull- all merge in No-Thing" (ZFZB, p. 150).
Not to be reprinted without permission.
References
Resources for further study