The Mind and Emptiness

      The biological nature of the human mind is to make distinctions, to separate the reality of One-ness into pieces. Without the boundary that separates a naked tree branch and the winter sky, we would not see the branch and the sky as separate objects. In order for a thing to exist it must stand out from something else. There must be boundaries; lines that separate one thing from another. The questions that arise from this simple but obvious fact are these.
      What are all the different objects carved out from? If we had a different computer (brain) for processing the raw data from the world around us, one that did not require the carving out of distinct and therefore seemingly different objects, what would there be? The answer of course is an undivided whole - the One. Do you see? The One contains all the parts, and the parts are no different than the whole because they are never separate from one another. The appearance of separateness is just that: an appearance. Individual things cannot actually be separated from the existence of the whole or they too would not exist.
      Each of our senses employs the identification of differences in order to function as they do. We are able to see objects, hear sounds, smell odors, and taste tastes because the human brain, along with the rest of the human organism, has the ability to compare, to differentiate variations of sound, color, taste, and smell. However all these apparently separate variations are inseparably linked with one another for their very existence.
      The process of creating a ruler or odometer in the measurement of distance, a spectrometer in the measurement of light, or a scale in the measurement of weight or music is about choosing where we want to put the line. Nature has no miles or inches, no separation of ultraviolet and white light, ounces and tons, sharps and flats. In reality each is, and always will be, inseparable from the whole: a seamless whole. It is the process of the human mind that draws these distinctions and for good reason. We need these criteria to function comfortably in our world. We are biologically hard-wired to do so, it’s the nature of the organism, but it’s only part of the story.
      Each of the individual "things" that are the object of our senses must be carved out from a larger whole, and that whole is “the One” that cannot be named, the ground of our being. Only when we forget that these separate entities are distinctions of convenience do they become a problem. Let’s take a closer look.
      Individual "things" are created when the human mind draws its distinctions based on the givens of brain chemistry. At the psychological level, individual things are distinguished one from the other by their name or function (also a name). In this way each thing achieves the appearance of separateness as well as its meaning. Each thing is made to appear more concrete and its distinctiveness is cemented firmly in place.
      However, let’s imagine for a moment that we could eliminate naming and abstract thinking from our neighbor’s mind. He or she would no longer compare, judge, or measure one thing against another. What would remain after the naming stopped; when distinctions were no longer made? The answer is ‘no-thing’, or the ‘One’. All the “things” he had previously seen, heard, felt and otherwise sensed through his physical senses, would remain unchanged but they would no longer be set out against one another creating what we agree upon as reality. No-thing is all things; everything (every thing), contained in the body of the "One". To complicate things even more, at this point in our recognition of the meaning of "Oneness," a name is no longer useful and it too must be jettisoned. This is because there would be nothing to compare to this "All-Without-An-Other" and since everything is all-inclusive in this "One", a name is no longer necessary.
      Let’s try an experiment to help clarify my point. Say we’re sitting in a coffee shop in front of a large window beyond which is the objective world and we are not part of it. We are just viewing what is beyond the glass barrier as if looking out the window of a space ship and it is not our world; it is an alien world we have never seen before. As observers, or aliens to this world, all the things we now see and recognize, we do not recognize. Ok, come on stretch yourself. If I can imagine it, you can too.
      Let’s assume for our experiment that what we are seeing is as follows. At the very bottom of the window opening there is an asphalt drive that goes across right to left in front of us (or left to right depending on your point of view). As we move up the window we see a cement sidewalk, then a two lane street, and beyond that another sidewalk, all forming horizontal lines across our view. This accounts for the lower half of our picture and the remaining top portion is filled in by a wooded area with evergreen trees, bushes and other types of multicolored plants and trees. In the center a dirt path connects the sidewalk beyond the two lane street to a small, red, wooden cabin situated in the longitudinal center and the latitudinal top of our picture.
      If I have described this scene adequately you have a picture of it in your mind, and can imagine it as it is without naming each individual thing mentioned. Since this scene is of an unfamiliar planet all that we see is…what? We don’t have words for all the things I’ve mentioned. I was able to mentally paint this picture for you only because we agree on the names of the objects I placed in the scene.
      Being from another planet we’re without benefit of these names, we don’t know what any of these objects are. We don’t even have the names of colors, up and down or left and right for direction, or any of the objects noted. We are not privy to anything except the raw data observed through the window. Again, we don’t have names or functions for anything we see.
      In our little experiment it is important to recognize that the scene itself is not altered when we move into our imaginary position as alien; the scene remains exactly the same. So imagine you are this alien and answer these questions. Are there still beautiful and ugly objects? What exactly do you see in this now alien scene? A collage of sorts? An abstract of raw data perhaps? The scene itself doesn’t change when we drop our words for particular things, colors, or directions. Everything remains exactly the same and yet to us it’s not the same any more, is it? One minute we are looking at a coherent scene made up of a multitude of distinguishable, identified parts, and the next minute we have no clue whatsoever to what it is we’re seeing. Would I think a perfectly formed evergreen was beautiful if I didn’t know what a tree was? How would I determine that a red house is ugly or beautiful, if "red" and "house" are not objects of my world?
      If there were no human beings in this world what would remain? Did you say the world “as it is?” That’s right - suchness. Without the human mind there are not things as they are named but, things just as they are; is-ness, the One. So without the process of discriminating thought there would be No-thing. But wait, is that actually right? Would there really be no-thing? Remember I didn’t say nothing; I said "no-thing."
      There would be no individual things apart from others, which means there would be all-things…in Oneness. This is the meaning of Emptiness of Zen.