© Stephen Doetsu Snyder

Author’s note: Trust in Awakening is a re-working of an ancient Zen poem, often translated as “Faith in Mind.” I wrote this book to give a modern presentation to “the path of no path” – the flowering of awakening. I wanted to sharpen the poem stanzas to better reflect specific realization and the lure, the pull of each of our personalities to keep us in an ordinary state of mind as a solo individual rather than resting in the undivided oneness of realization of the source – the Absolute.

The Xin Xin Ming is considered the first poem of Zen (Ch’an). It is far more than simply a poem. It is a direct pointing to the source—the Absolute—and the Absolute in each of us that we call “true nature.” It is considered a direct teaching in Zen. A direct teaching is presented with as little conceptual framing as possible. It is pointing to the source itself again and again in different voices. A direct teaching cuts through theorizing and lands us directly in the Absolute or in one of its functions—Absence (emptiness) or Presence being core functions.

During my nearly fifty years of Zen practice, I have turned to this poem as a source of inspiration, a map of sorts to the path of no path. This poem gives subtle pointers, then removes the concepts from those pointers, leaving the direct knowing of truth.

I wrote this book to be a companion to my books Buddha’s Heart (describing the ancient Buddhist heart practices) and Demystifying Awakening (revealing the process, impact, and path of Awakening). I want this book to be a nonconceptual vehicle of direct pointing to the source, the truth, the inherent nature of us all. While this book can be used at any stage of spiritual development or realization, it is most beneficial in the hands of one who feels the burn for Awakening, that all-consuming fire drawing one toward deeper and deeper absolute truth.

This book can be the catalyst for that explosion of Awakening we call kenshō in Zen. Kenshō is seeing your true nature—that is, seeing the Absolute, the source, fully manifesting as you.
May this book spark your Awakening!

Here are a few stanzas from Trust in Awakening with my commentary for each stanza:

The Great Way is effortless

The Great Way is the path of spiritual development and the unfolding of Awakening. “Being effortless” means no doer or sense of self is taking action. When we bring effort to an activity, we bring our thoughts and conceptual understanding to it. But neither thought nor concepts abide in the Absolute. When we understand how to dismiss the sense of self from effort, our action becomes effortless and we begin walking the path. We are following the Great Way.

With no preferences

Preferences derive from our internal self-talk of “I like this” and “I do not like that.” Our preferences support our customary self-identity. Only when we drop preferences, drop like and dislike, can we see the Great Way before us.

Surrender desire and aversion

In Buddhism we discuss three defilements. Defilements are core inclinations that drive the sense of self, making it appear real to us. The three defilements, which everyone has, are desire, aversion, and delusion. Desire is a longing for things. We believe these things will make us feel safe and whole. Conversely, aversion is a dislike for things. We believe pushing bad things away from us will keep only good ones close. Finally, delusion is a misperception and misunderstanding of reality. We believe the customary self-identity is something real and solid. By surrendering desire and aversion, we allow what is unfolding in our life to be here while viewing it as exactly right for this moment. We can be with the natural flow of reality.

Clarity dazzles

By releasing desire and aversion, even temporarily, we can witness the natural quality of inner spaciousness. When concepts are few, we can see the dazzling clarity, the crispness, the precision, and the inherent perfection of our deeper true nature.
— Do you see it, right here, right now?

Clutch likes and dislikes

When we hold tight to our likes and dislikes, we eliminate other possibilities. We fixate on the concept of only two options as answers to a particular issue: right or wrong. This position takes away all other possibilities for a different result.
Further, our customary self-identity is composed in part by the aggregation of our likes and dislikes. As we release and put down likes and dislikes, we become open to a variety of choices while untethering our sense of self from fixed opinions.

The principal mind disease

In Buddhist practice, we notice that by holding fast to our particular likes and dislikes, we are continually recreating a sense of self that feels substantial or real. This deep-seated belief, this conviction, of the authenticity of the self is the principal mental hurdle to returning home to nibbāna.
In Awakening, we perceive that any sense of self is really an absence of self. The core of our beingness is actually a form of emptiness, an infinite spaciousness, a lack of substantiality. This absence of self does not hold opinions or positions. When deeply in absence of self, awareness finds itself in each new moment, with each fresh breath.

Not consummating true nature

When we do not make contact regularly with our deeper true nature, we lose the perception that we intrinsically belong with all that manifests now, in this very moment.
Touching into our true nature has the felt-sense qualities both of being objective and unconditioned: objective in not reaffirming any sense of self; unconditioned in always being present right here now, rather than created or born.
We can make contact with our deeper true nature through different meditations and spiritual practices. The ancient Buddhist heart meditations are a way to directly touch and rest in the qualities of our true nature. (These meditations are presented in my book Buddha’s Heart.)

Agitates the mind

When we are not in contact with our true nature, we are unsettled, discontented, or ill at ease. We are agitated, trying to get from here to there, somewhere other than right here. We are seeking certain specific experiences to get away from who we take ourselves to be. The mental process of believing “I am here and I want to get or go there” stirs the mind and agitates our inherent peacefulness.
Resting in and as our true nature pacifies the choppy waves of self and our ceaseless efforts to fortify and maintain the customary sense of self. Resting in and as our true nature lets us relax deeply in the truth of who we are.
— Where is your mind in this very moment?

Unbind thought and concept

As we rely more upon inner intuitive knowing, seeing, hearing, tasting, and touching, we unbind thought and concept from defining and maintaining the placement of reality. We relax our allegiance to thought and concept; we withdraw from them. We may witness firsthand that the inner knowing of Absence holds objective truths that are unconditioned, that are not subject to birth or death. These are everlasting qualities of true nature, always fully available in our consciousness.

Roam openly

When we roam openly, we traverse the length and breadth of our inner spaciousness, of our consciousness, from this world to other universes, including the source of the Absolute. When we are not invested in maintaining a particular self, we are home everywhere. We can then rest in knowing the wholeness of perfection of manifested reality, what actually is here.

Inhabit the source

When we inhabit the source, we become a vessel, a conduit, through which the Absolute flows, witnessing itself as the source and manifestation of all reality. Rest in the truth that you are fully Absence and Presence.

Know all meaning

When Absence, true nature, and the Absolute are the sources we check in with to confirm our identity, we understand everything in proper relationship. There is nothing added or subtracted in reality. When we abide continuously in pure love and Presence, see the world in all its divergent parts as being expressions of seamless love coupled with Presence, we know all meaning.
— Everything is right here, right now. Do you see it?

Awakening dawns

When our consciousness wakes to the present reality of our true nature, we know “this is me/I am this” always and without qualification, and Awakening recognizes itself. True nature as our core abides without insisting, waiting to be experientially witnessed. When we witness it or rather when true nature witnesses itself, Awakening dawns.

Eclipse form and Absence

In sustained deeper Awakening experiences, we drop everything because we are resting in the embodied knowing, the unrestricted perception of the infinite Oneness of all reality. We drop all concepts and all realities built upon the foundation of fabricated, conditioned thought. Even the conceptual positions of form and Absence are eclipsed. In reality, there is no form or Absence. When we dwell in no form and absence of form, then we truly know form and Absence by direct contact rather than through conceptual frameworks, affording us direct knowing.

No beginning, no end

When we hold the concepts of a beginning and an end, we commit to the passage of time from past to present to future. But all time is an unconditioned present moment. The unending present moment. It is free from birth and death. It has always existed and always will exist. No beginning or end means right here, right now, nothing added or deducted. When we are one with Cessation— with Absence and simultaneously Presence—we see there is nowhere to go and no one to go there. We have already arrived.

Sever every opinion

We must voluntarily release any and every opinion about the world, even the world of Awakening. We must sever ourselves from opinions about Cessation, the unmanifest, the manifest, pure love, pure Presence, pure awareness, and the lack of these. All are points of view. Reality always is, right here and right now.
— Where are you looking?

Abiding in Absence

Absence is a core quality of Cessation and the unmanifest functioning of the Absolute. It is a core quality of each being in creation. When we are not deluded by appearances, we rest in and as Absence, in and as the boundless potential of vast spaciousness.

Conceit humbles

One of the last opinions to fall away is conceit. (I’m referring to conceit not in terms of worldly abilities but rather in the experience of realization itself.) A mind harboring conceit because of realization is not a mind resting in and functioning from realization itself. This clinging to experience reveals that despite deep realization, investigation of personal conceptual convictions and beliefs remains. This is the ceaselessness of the spiritual path.

There is no end to realizations and no end to unconscious personal material needing to be engaged, excised, and liberated.

Realization does not make us special. It makes us profoundly ordinary. We become a conduit for our true nature, for truth to spontaneously, joyfully, authentically express itself as it wishes and as needed. We are the servants of truth, which is the Absolute in its manifest and unmanifest functions.

Residing in wisdom

“Wisdom” means to see clearly and take action that is appropriate, attuned precisely to what is needed in each new moment. Wisdom is not discerned by concept or thought. There is no self to get anything, to go anywhere, or to be anyone in particular. Then we can be unique, special, and express true nature’s wisdom with a natural, authentic humility.

Quiet confidence

When concepts and thoughts are stilled, profound quiet serenity pervades our consciousness. Seeing there is no me or you, no here or there, no time other than the endless now, our confidence is expressed as a lack of hesitation, of questioning, and of doubt. Truth knows itself. From intimately knowing itself, truth can be perfectly attuned in each moment.

— Where is your seat in this moment?

Awake

Awakening experiences open our consciousness to the multilayered reality of life. We can be aware simultaneously of a physical level, Absence and Presence qualities, and psychological structures. In other words, the personality can be perceived while also directly experiencing the depth of Absence and the functioning of Presence and love. This is awakeness.

Who is holy or wise

Should we wish to be seen by others as holy or wise, it usually indicates we are neither. It is the subtlety of conceit of the spiritual experience that is operating. After the sense of self, the me, is thoroughly seen through to its core conviction of deficiency and that deficiency is resolved, the self-identity drops and does not return. The simple functioning of love replaces the clinging and grasping motivations of the customary self-identity. How can the core of Absence have any desire, even any wish, to be seen as holy or wise? When we truly know through direct experience what we genuinely are, we know simultaneously what everyone is. Everything is unfolding in a unified field of love and Presence.

Uninhibited trust

When we see the Absolute abiding as the source and core of all reality, we perceive and know the universe is intrinsically benevolent and well-intentioned toward all. We have a thorough, uninhibited trust that all will be well and love will always heal hatred.

Heartful modesty

As the Absolute functions as a particular person or other being, it is functioning as love and Presence. Love is at the cellular core of all intention and action. The Absolute is contacting Absence and Presence in every single interchange, moment by moment. We have no urge to control or direct any aspect of reality because of our arising trust in the love quality of the Absolute. We also recognize that we never have all the information to fully understand the subtlety of the Absolute’s functioning. Both this core love and acknowledgement of the Absolute’s subtlety opens a natural, authentic humility in us, a heartful modesty.

— Do you claim your spiritual experiences?

Heavenly contentment

When we know with every fiber of our being that love and Presence are the function of the Absolute appearing in the everyday world, reality opens our awareness to the peace that surpasses understanding. This peace is the contentment, the uncontracted satisfaction, of the heavens operating as our everyday world. What more can we ever need?

Everything necessary is always right here, resting here, offering itself with breathtaking generosity and thorough abundance without insistence.

Without past or future

With no self-identity functioning, we give no weight to the concepts of past or future. There is just this particular moment, always. Landing here affords us a freedom from regret of the past and from compulsive planning to ensure a particular future. This does not mean we can avoid the work of healing from past trauma and of reconciling our past with its landmines of guilt and shame. It does mean we do what is obvious and wholehearted in this moment, seeking always to be true to the purity and clarity of the Absolute.

Without here or there

All time and all locations are always present, right here and right now. When the concepts of time and distance drop, there is only an eternal now and an eternal here. When awareness is everywhere, how do we divide everywhere into a here or a there?

Trust in Awakening

Awakening challenges our firm conviction in our sense of self and our being in a particular point in time as delusion. Our commitment to the customary self-identity omits the truth of the Absolute: love and Presence are the creative, generative forces of all reality. Only through the process of Awakening can we know that the self, as we hold it, is all Absence and Presence of the Absolute. And Absence and Presence are both propelled by pure love. As Awakening then deepens through penetration of increasingly subtle levels of reality, the roots and defenses of our customary self-identity weaken and fall away. All our action and all we witness is realized as an expression, a function, of love. This pure love generates wholesome trust in the benevolence of the Absolute. We then know and trust that love is always returning to itself as each and every form, always in this very moment, right here. Experiencing further levels of reality, we experience deeper and deeper trust in the reality of Awakening.

— Do you trust in Awakening?

These stanzas are offered to highlight the relationship of ordinary mind and the Absolute. These point to the conceptual holdings that bind us to the world of suffering, delusion, and identity. As we relinquish control with its function of doing while shifting to deeper acceptance of universal truth, we begin to live a life of Being. Then the path of no-path unfolds revealing the splendor and mystery of the Absolute.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Stephen Doetsu Snyder is a Zen and Theravada Buddhist teacher. He has maintained a daily and retreat practice for nearly fifty years. He combines the beauty and power of the ancient heart practices called the “divine abodes,” the bharma viharas, with deep awakening practices to support students in opening the fulness of their hearts while deepening contact and realization of the source of all manifestation and creation – the Absolute.
You can find information on his teaching, interviews, and books on his website – AwakeningDharma.org.

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Posted by mkeane on Thursday, December 15th, 2022 @ 8:43AM
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