Tantra and Zen "What is the shortest path to enlightenment?"
Tantra and Zen
"What is the shortest path to enlightenment?"
Buddha said: "Eliminate the Three Poisons: greed (貪), anger (瞋), and delusion (癡)."
Free yourself from the mind that covets, rages, and remains ignorant. What could be easier than this in words? Yet in reality, it is difficult for you to escape from these. It is truly more difficult than death itself. While it can be easily understood conceptually, putting it into practice is not simple. For a thief who makes stealing his profession, a great feat might seem like pulling off a major heist without being caught by the police. But in truth, the most difficult thing for him would be to stop stealing altogether. Enlightenment is not about pulling off one great heist, but about washing your hands of such work entirely. It is perhaps the easiest thing, yet also the most difficult.
Though Buddha was one, the streams of teaching that flowed from him branched into several paths. The most representative among these are Tantra and Zen (禪). Tantra and Zen are the same thing, yet their manifestations are completely different. Tantra is, so to speak, a psychotherapeutic method. For example, there is a desire to eat. If you suppress this desire, many complexes will arise from it. So instead of suppression, Tantra releases it.
"If you want to eat, eat to your heart's content. Eat with all your attention."
In this way, it unravels each desire one by one. Through eating, one realizes that their demands are not truly satisfied, and thus abandons them.
And there is sexual desire. If this desire is suppressed, many complexes and frustrations accumulate. Tantra releases this desire. Contrary to suppression, it dives deep into sexuality. By thoroughly experiencing sexuality and observing that experience, when one knows everything about sex, the desire for it dissolves away. Thus, through sex, one transcends the desire for sex.
Someone once asked about the following story from the Transmission of the Lamp:
"Master! What is enlightenment?" "Have you eaten your rice porridge?" "Yes, I have." "Then wash your bowl."
You have eaten the porridge. Then wash away the traces of having eaten porridge. Abandon the thought that you have eaten porridge. If you have understood something, wash away the traces of that "understanding." If you are a thief, now stop stealing.
Tantra is not about pursuing desires. It seeks to transcend desires through desires themselves. However, this method requires much time and experience. In some ways, it is undoubtedly the most solid path of spiritual practice, but it requires much time and wandering.
In response to this, China developed the method of Zen (禪) by combining it with Taoist practices. This is truly the most intense method of meditation. Regardless of what one desires, it is about transcending one's own desiring mind. The mind that wants to eat, the mind that wants to possess - one gathers and condenses the world of this desiring self into a single question, and when reaching the ultimate point where one can go no further, one realizes that this world of desires is one, and destroys it in a single moment. Thus, Zen has a unique spirit. It is the refreshing charm and energy of Zen. And the "Transmission of the Lamp" is the scripture that records the essence of this.
Zen (禪) does not fill the bowl only to discard it. Rather than discarding through filling, rather than washing the bowl after eating porridge, the moment one clearly sees what the bowl demands, one transcends it in a single instant. This is the method of Zen. Mastering this method of Zen is precisely "sudden enlightenment" (頓悟). One gains enlightenment instantaneously. One achieves seeing one's true nature. However, this "sudden awakening" requires the gradual removal of habitual tendencies (習氣) after enlightenment. That is when effort is needed, and when meditation and tantra in their true sense are required. This is called "gradual cultivation" (漸修).
When one achieves seeing one's true nature, one can clearly know what desires are moving within oneself. However, the habits of desire continue to cast shadows of desire. That is precisely what habitual tendencies are.
Then what are habitual tendencies? You smoke cigarettes. If I ask any one of you, "Do you smoke?" that person will answer "Yes!" even if they are not smoking right now. That answer comes from habit. That answer itself is also a habit. If I tell that person to quit smoking from now on, they become somewhat troubled. They say, "How can that be done so easily?" The habit of smoking is a representative habit. It is a simple habit. They know this too. They also know that cigarettes are harmful to the body. Yet breaking that habit is not easy. They watch TV programs about the harm of cigarettes. The effects of cigarettes on the lungs, on the liver, factors that cause cancer, and so on... They truly feel the harm of cigarettes.
"Cigarettes are really harmful to the body."
Yet even while thinking this, they will unconsciously take out and light a cigarette. How does one escape this unconscious world of habit? That is precisely the problem. How does one erase these habitual tendencies that have been conditioned since childhood? It is difficult. However, if one can master the mind that can pierce through that very difficulty, the diamond-like power, the Para, then that difficulty would be nothing more than something that could be blown away like a thread.
Your world is dominating you. You experience joy and sorrow, loneliness and pleasure, while judging and transforming yourself, sometimes with regret, and you live your life enjoying it in your own way. You claim that this world of "I" is different from the world of "others," asserting your own unique and individual world. You call this individuality. You think your world is changing. The self at 3 years old, the self at 23, the self at 43. You are innumerable. You are as numerous as the sands of the Ganges River. Within this, you suffer. You suffer like Mount Sumeru.
Try drawing lines here and there on a blank sheet of paper. Let's draw lines throughout a lifetime. Lines from age 10, lines from age 20, drawing one each year. Finally, after drawing the last line, look at it. There was only one blank sheet. Your unique suffering, or the other person's suffering that doesn't understand yours - suffering is the same. The suffering of a 3-year-old or the suffering of a 12-year-old - it's just one sheet of paper. One blank sheet, you are just one sheet of paper. Burn it all in a single moment. It is nothing more than a speck of dust. When you blow it away in one breath, your true individuality - or more precisely, your totality - will be revealed and blossom.
Enlightenment is the path to eternal life. Eternal life is a single death. It is eternal death, complete death. You must not die many times, but die once. You must not suffer many times, but burn it all with one suffering. When you have truly died completely without remainder, that single death will enable you to live an eternal life.
