IZen is about finding the true self. But there is no such thing, and that is the mystery of our existence. In a world of representations, cognitive dissonance and alternative facts, it is good to sink into the essence of existence, into a non-dual being. Thinking only helps to a very limited extent, because thinking is actually always a Thinking about somethinga Thinking about something. Thinking is an activity that relates to something that deals with representations of the world. What I think, whatever it may be, is not real in the material sense. It can represent something material. Thinking, or more generally mind and matter, we think differently. This is the basic problem of thinking: thinking cannot be non-dual. It is trapped in duality, but cannot dissolve it.
The self is quite different, but similar in its paradoxes. The self is what drives us, what makes us conscious, what identifies and differentiates us; it is unique and individual. But it does not exist, neither materially nor logically-transcendentally. It may be connected to the soul, to the heart-mind, but that doesn't help at this point because it becomes dangerously tautological. We cannot understand something that we do not understand by equating it with something that we also do not understand. That only distracts us.
The true self emerges when it ceases to exist - and I mean that very seriously. When I go into meditation, become calm and concentrate on emptiness, i.e. when the pauses between the events of the head cinema become longer, a window opens that initially fills with a kind of trance state. This is beautiful and allows for completely different experiences. I've already written about this a few times: Thinking becomes fast, it understands intuitively, it can penetrate areas that remain blocked to everyday thinking; it is blissful and intense. But it has only detached itself from the self to a certain extent. It has to detach itself a little from the self, otherwise it cannot gain this lightness, but it remains anchored in the self. It is still me who is doing something that is difficult to understand and that gets caught up in similar problems as normal thinking. What is real, what is just imagination?
So I have managed to free myself a little. I have calmed these thoughts that relate to the world, and I have activated a way of seeing that is fed by memory, knowledge, vision, imagination, but only moves in that world of pure consciousness. It is an intuitive knowledge, an omnipresence, it is almost outside of space and time; it is the place where it is identical with itself, i.e. the self ceases to exist and connects with the deepest ground of our existence. The deepest ground of our existence is mysterious and based on something we cannot grasp. It is beyond our self.
Zen brings me closer to this mystery. It anchors me in my physical existence and at the same time shows me that this existence is non-dualistically one with everything. I am Buddha, you are Buddha, we are all Buddha. There is only Buddha - kill Buddha when you see him.
