The Face of the Universe

Scott Bradley

Blyth (Zen in English Literature) relates a mondo which, though familiar, has only now touched me. Like most of what he shares of Chinese literature, it comes through Japanese, and thus the documents and actors are not always recognizable, but no matter:

"Think not of good-evil, think not of good-evil! At this moment, what is your real face (nature), Myojoza? Emyo suddenly became enlightened." (Rokusodankyo)

Whatever "enlightenment" might be thought to be within the various traditions and among the individuals who experience the something of it, there seems to be something to experience. We need not speculate on what that is objectively; on this side of the river, only the experience matters.

"Good-evil" is simply dualism; it is a discrimination which divides. He might just as well have said, "Think not of self-other." But the power of this momentary transcendence of good-evil is that it identifies and eliminates a clear and palpable manifestation of what psychologically separates us from Reality: the sense that we fall short of it and therefore must change to be it. We believe that unity requires that conditions be met. We believe ourselves unworthy and that unity must therefore be earned.

Emyo knew where he wanted to go, what he wanted to happen. This is Zen, after all. His reality is Reality; he knew this. He knew that his "real face" is, as Spinoza has it, "the face of the Universe". But he had not yet experienced it. And that makes all the difference.

The substance of Emyo's enlightenment was seeing his real face, and that face is not other than Reality. And this was facilitated by the transcendence of a normal reflexive expression of the self-other dualism at the heart of our sense of identity. Believing ourselves to be separate, we likewise find ourselves to be unworthy. The restoration of psychological unity can be facilitated through the identification and transcendence of that in us which separates.

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