There is a saying in Zen, “enlightenment is easy . . . for those who have no preferences.” Of course, we could swap the term enlightenment with the term realisation, awakening, seeing things clearly, having right understanding. Whatever reason we practice for, the question that could spontaneously arise here is, how do we cultivate this open-minded perspective of no preferences? How do we cultivate this kind of wisdom? How do we cultivate this enlightening seeing?
I guess that in general we can talk about different types of wisdoms; there is a wisdom that comes from our experiences, our knowledge, what we have learned and done in life and, there is a wisdom that is the ability to have good judgement in any specific situation. All these types of wisdom are definitely valid and very useful to navigate life. However, when we talk about cultivating wisdom in our practice, we are talking about a different kind of wisdom.
Cultivating wisdom involves reflecting, practising and realising, seeing. Reflection plays a very important part, same as practicing, of course. Reflecting and practising will ignite, most likely, a different type of seeing, realising more clearly how things are, or, are not, perhaps we can call it a shift in perspective.
Let’s start with reflecting, reflection. How do I understand this moment? What is this moment? What is this? When we pose this question to ourselves, most likely we ignite something in us which bring many different answers to our mind. The mind starts a beautiful work of analysing what we know, what we have learned, what we have been told, the knowledge we have inherited from our backgrounds and upbringings and so on and so forth. We can definitely come up with a good idea/picture of what this moment is. However, can we trust that? Yes and no, is my answer. At a conventional level, definitely yes, we need to call a chair, a chair so that we can all agree and understand that when we ask for a chair to sit down, we all know what we need. At the absolute level, if we want to explore that, of course, we can start noticing that all is in a state of flow, all is in a state of causes and effects, all is a result of something that previously happened, whether that is a chair, a car, a house, our believes, our opinions, our views, our emotions, thoughts, sensations and so on. Nothing is fixed, separate and alone. There is something which we call chair but that is simply the result of an endless series of causes and effects, can we see that? Can we stop for a moment to explore that possibility? There might well be a thought or a believe you have. Do we have any evidence that that thought, that belief is fixed, separate and standing on its own?
So, how do we understand this moment? What is this moment? What is it? Is my seeing better than yours? Is my understanding of it the right one, or, is it the wrong one? Perhaps, we can spend sometime reflecting on this and what this is telling us about the way we relate to things, people, situations and so on.
Practising. Practising to me means coming back to this moment, coming back to this open awareness, coming back to this open-minded perspective, if you like. Practice, perseverance and patience. Practising to me is to notice how, perhaps, we keep holding on to our individual views, opinions, ideas. Of course, nothing wrong with that unless, I guess, they create suffering for ourselves and for people around us. Holding on to our conditioned views, beliefs, ideas can create unnecessary suffering and, for me, cultivating wisdom is to see right through this holding on, this grasping. Seeing through the conditions of my mental formations. When we sit to meditate, we just want to remain in this open mind space, we don’t judge, we don’t grasp or hold on to anything, we just simply sit with whatever is going on. We give ourselves the opportunity to simply be in the midst of what is happening without reacting out of habit or, out of our mental conditionings; simply relax into this open awareness.
Through reflecting and practising, we might transform the way we see things and, in turn, the way we relate to things, to life experiences. We can come to this more natural shift in perspective. Perhaps, going from seeing things as a series of fixed entities or elements to seeing the natural flow of things; causes and effects, because of that, then this. This moment, this thought, this idea, this opinion, nothing really fixed and absolute. This transformation is our realisation, it is our original enlightened open mind that can allow us to act in this moment as the moment requires.
Our job as practitioners is to clarify within ourselves this letting go of what we hold on to, letting go of what we perceive as fixed and definite. How can I develop this staying present to things as they are without being pulled in? What happens when we let go of thoughts? What happens when we don’t grasp anything? Our practice is to develop the right conditions to become more intimate with what is going on within us so that we give ourselves a chance to see more clearly. Calming things down, taking a few seconds to just being present with things arising in us, notice, notice, notice.
“Enlightenment is easy . . . for those who have no preferences.” But, of course, if in this moment you are having an ice cream and you prefer chocolate to vanilla…..
Have fun exploring the enlightening mind! Have fun not having preferences!
Zen Mindfulness Cambridge Zenways Italia 