Zen Buddhism

Author(s): Christmas Humphereys
Publisher: William Heinemann LTD

Page 34

}
BEYOND THE INTELLECT
13
varieties of grey. Compromise may palliate the tension of the opposites. It cannot solve the antithesis.
A better solution is to seek a synthesis above the opposing pairs. "Truth lies beyond the extremes, not in the middle; is beyond good and evil, not partly both".1 Above good and evil is Good; above the ugly and the beautiful is Beauty; above the true and the untrue lies the True. Once a glimpse of this state of affairs is experienced, and this is the operative word, a new truth dawns in the awakening consciousness. It is that the opposition from which we seek to escape never in fact existed. In the "higher third" of the triangle we do not identify the opposites. Rather do we realise that there never existed, any opposing terms.
"Identification presupposes original opposition of two terms, subject and object, but the truth is that from the very first there are no two opposing terms whose identification is to be achieved by Zen. The aim of Zen is to restore the experience of original inseparability, which means, to restore the original state of purity and transparency."2
In other words, to find and function in "the Essence of Mind which is intrinsically pure".
This viewpoint involves the transference of the point of habitual consciousness.
"Only the truly intelligent understand this principle of the identity of all things. They do not view things as apprehended by themselves, subjectively, but transfer
1 Zen in English Literature . . ., BLYTH, p. 84.
2 Zen Buddhism and its Influence on Japanese Culture, SUZUKI, p. 233.