Koans, Creativity and Consciousness
Transcendence in Zen Buddhism and Consciousness

By
Albert Low LLD.


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Smashwords Edition
Copyright 2012 Albert Low
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“All true good carries with it conditions which are contradictory and as a consequence is impossible. He who keeps his attention really fixed on this impossibility and acts will do what is good… In the same way all truth contains a contradiction.”[1]


- Introduction -
Science has consistently rejected subjective data in science. Undoubtedly the main reason for this is that most scientists consider it to be unreliable and difficult to verify. Our immediate experience is, indeed, often incomplete, distorted, or simply false. Another important reason for rejecting subjective data is the scientist’s unconditional commitment to materialism and this automatically precludes the possibility of a consciousness distinct from matter. Most scientists, therefore, believe that third person, objective data, available to all is the only reliable source of data. Inner observation of our own experience is unacceptable because it cannot be subjected to similar public scrutiny and manipulation.
Yet, what is most important, but invariably overlooked, is not what I am conscious of, but that I am conscious. The only way this can be verified or even considered is by “first person” enquiry. A way by which first person enquiry can be established is by koan practice developed by Ch’an Buddhists in China during the T’ang dynasty (600-900 CE.)
In what follows, I explore ways to allay scientific suspicion towards subjective accounts, and show how koan study is used as first person scientific inquiry.
What is Zen Practice?
Koans are enigmatic stories used by Zen masters in teaching students. For the Westerner, the most famous koan is the Sound of One Hand Clapping. The full koan reads, “You know the sound of two hands clapping. What is the sound of one hand? Another koan made famous by Gregory Bateson is: a master help up a stick and said to his students, “If you call this a stick, I shall give you thirty blows. “If you say if it is not a stick, I shall give you thirty blows. Now what is it?” Bateson used this koan to illustrate what he meant by the expression ‘double bind ‘ that he had coined.
I have practiced Rinzai Zen koan practice for fifty years. During many years I practiced for two to three hours each day for six days a week, meditating mainly on koans. I attended many weeklong retreats as well as innumerable shorter ones. The retreats involve continuous meditation on koans throughout the day, although not always in the seated posture. For the first twenty years I worked on koan practice with a teacher, Philip Kapleau. Twenty-five years ago, after having spent seven years as a probationary teacher, I was authorized to teach students using the koans as a basis.
Work on Zen koans has some similarities to working on a mathematical problem or a scientific research project. It involves the intellect but it also involves that aspect of the mind concerned with discovery/creativity. Koan study is an objective study and subject to rigorous verification by the Zen teacher. In turn, the teacher will have received similar training and authentication. The purpose of the work is to probe the depths of human existence: its meaning and purpose, as well as to see into the nature of consciousness and intention.
About 1700 koans are available, although in the Rinzai tradition that I follow only two hundred of these are used. These two hundred include forty-eight from a collection called the Mumonkan [2] and one hundred from another collection called the Blue Cliff Record Cleary J.C and T).[3] The Mumonkan was compiled in the 13th century by a Zen master, Mumon. The Blue Cliff Record, which is also known in Japanese as the Hekiganroku, was compiled by Zen master Setcho in the 11th century and each koan was later given an introduction by another Zen master Engo.
The basis of the practice is zazen.[4]. Zazen has three aspects: concentration, meditation and contemplation, and involves all aspects of the mind, including the intellectual, intuitive and creative aspects. The word ‘zazen’ literally means ‘sitting beyond the opposites,’ or beyond the dualistic conceptions of the mind. [5] Concentration means what its etymology suggests: with a center. The mind is focused on a center. In meditation one allows the mind to dwell on, or ponder, an idea. One allows understanding to emerge without actively seeking to understand. Contemplation in Zen means ‘to be one with the koan’ or as one writer has expressed it, one ‘inhabits’ the koan.
Another example of a koan and of how one approaches it is given in the following. Anyone who practices with Zen koans will know it well [6]. A monk asked Zen master Joshu, “Does a dog have the Buddha nature (transcendent nature) or not? Joshu replied “No!” (Mu! in Japanese.) A fundamental tenet of Buddhism proclaims that all beings have the transcendent nature and Joshu should have answered, “Yes!”
When working on, or contemplating this koan, one would have to enter into, or become one with the state of mind of the monk. The monk was deeply troubled about life and death; he was not interested in theoretical or doctrinal matters. He was confused and lost. He was asking, if a dog––which in China was as low on the scale of life as a rat or cockroach is in the West––has the transcendent nature there will be hope for me. He was looking for some reassurance.
Why then did Joshu say “No!” ? This is not only contrary to Buddhist doctrine, but would have had the effect of destroying the last shred of hope to which the monk could cling. To answer this one must ‘enter into’ the mind of Joshu. To enter into, to inhabit, in this way means that one goes beyond the surface, logical way of using the mind, beyond either ‘yes’ or ‘no.’
A koan addresses what cannot be expressed in concepts or grasped in understanding. This partly explains the rather enigmatic formulation of most koans. For example a teacher might ask, “Where are you when a bird sings?” The student is expected to ponder on the koan, to enter into its import, and then to demonstrate to the teacher what this import is. The emphasis is on the demonstration. This means that explanations or theories are rejected. Most often the response is given in action. A master put a jug on the floor and asked a monk,[7] “What is this?” and the monk kicked the jug over. A demonstration is required because the response must arise spontaneously from a source that operates prior to the emergence of the conscious mind. This source, as I shall show, is the transcendent discovery/creative source, which is also the source of the conscious mind.
A contemporary Zen master, Zenkei Shibayama who died fairly recently, said the following.[8] “[Koan practice] is the most difficult and rough means for the student to go through. Good koans are those that are the most intricate, illogical and irrational, in which the most brilliant intellect will completely lose its way. When one is working on a koan one must demonstrate to the teacher one’s insight into the koan.” Shibayama goes on to say, “We are finally like a blind man who has had his stick, by which he had found his way, suddenly torn from him and will not know where to go or how to proceed. He will be thrown into the abyss of despair. In the same way, the koan will mercilessly take away all our intellect and knowledge. In short, the role of the koan is not to lead us to satori easily, but on the contrary to make us lose our way and drive us to despair.”
On terminology.
In the ensuing discussion I propose to use the words ‘knowing,’ and ‘being’ instead of ‘consciousness’ and ‘the body’ (or brain.) The full reason for my doing so will become clear as the paper progresses. But briefly, the word ‘consciousness’ is a word that is loaded with meanings and overtones that would tend to obscure what I have to say. I use the word being to speak about what underlies experience and makes it possible. I use it in the simplest and most naive way: ‘the world is;’ ‘the body is;’ the ‘brain is.’ In my study I will also include ‘intention’ as a third essential ingredient.
I will argue that all three are unknowable. To make this easier to understand, let me use a metaphor. A film is the outcome of the interaction of a projector, a film and a screen. When we go to a cinema we go to enjoy the drama, which has a different order of reality to that of the projector, screen and film. As far as the drama is concerned these three are ‘unknowable.’ Science is based upon the faith that everything in principle is knowable. As long as one adheres to this faith then, as I shall show, knowing, intention, being, which are unknowable because they have a different order of reality to experience, will be ignored, or even denied existence altogether. Nevertheless, they are the very source of the scientific endeavor.
Professor Robert Pollack [9] of the University of Columbia points out, “The unknowable as a notion does not come easily to the scientific minded. Dealing with it is a project full of paradox, requiring one to talk about the unutterable and anatomize the immeasurable.” As I shall show the notion of the unknowable is, nevertheless, essential to my argument and to understanding the complexities of first person enquiry.
Zen and the transcendent
Zen Buddhism does not make the distinction between science, religion and philosophy that we make in the West. Zen could be said to be all three, or beyond all three depending on the context. One characteristic common to most religions is transcendence. Most people would agree that the word ‘religion’ is connected with what lies beyond ‘ordinary’ experience. Religious experience transcends, and differs from, mundane experience. The nature and content of this transcendent experience varies widely from religion to religion as well as within a religion, but the fact of transcendence does not.
Let me show, then, what part the transcendent plays in Zen Buddhism and how this connects with a study of consciousness. This discussion is necessary because I will show that what I refer to as the “transcendent” relates to what might be called, “consciousness itself,” when one makes the distinction between ‘consciousness itself’ and the ‘content of consciousness.’ To move attention from the content of consciousness to consciousness itself, I will show, is to move attention from the content of consciousness to what transcends all that we can be conscious of.
On what I know and that I know
I might be with someone, say Joe, who asks me, “What is the weather doing?” I go outside. I return and say, “The sun is shining.” Strictly speaking, when I report to Joe, I should say, “I know that the sun is shining.” The ‘I know’ is so obvious[10] and taken for granted that, in the interests of simplicity, we do not say it. The ‘I know’ is understood. It is understood because ‘I know’ is invariable and underlies all experience. We only report on what can vary.
I can say, “The cat wants to go out,” or, “It is Thursday,” or, “A new movie has just started.” In fact any experience that I can have, whether it is of the world, of thought, feeling or sensation, is always preceded implicitly by ‘I know.’ Yet, though ‘I know’ is implicit, the full statement is, [‘I know] the sun is shining,” or [“I know] the cat wants to go out.”
The statement “the sun is shining” is about experience that I have. Experience always has a subjective aspect, a knowing aspect. This is true even when the experience is gained through a telescope, microscope, oscilloscope, or any other scientific instrument. I have used the expression, ‘I know,’ to designate this subjective aspect. In making this distinction I am saying that what is most fundamental to consciousness is not the contents of consciousness, but the activity of being conscious, not what I am conscious of, but that I am conscious. (Not what I know , but that I know.)
‘The sun is shining’ is what I know; it forms part of the content of my consciousness. ‘That I know’ is consciousness itself. This means that consciousness transcends its own contents in much the same way as the clay of a pot ‘transcends’ its form..
Subjective and Objective.
In any discussion of the first person enquiry, the terms ‘subjective’ and ‘objective’ play key roles, but they are both ambiguous terms as each has at least two meanings . ’Subjective’ can mean clouded by wishes, emotions, desires and prejudices. This is the subjectivity that science justifiably seeks to eliminate from any scientific enquiry. This subjectivity includes assumptions, theories, hypotheses, and explanations, as well as prejudices and unfounded opinions. It also includes the chattering mind. I use a lower case ‘s’ to refer to this subjectivity. Subjectivity can also mean a direct, unmediated experience, without reason or cause; alternatively it could be called direct knowing. I shall use a capital ‘S’ to designate this.[11] The ‘I know’ of “I know the sun is shining ‘ is an example of Subjectivity. It is also an example of “consciousness itself.’
The word objective also has at least two meanings. A small ‘o’ will be used to speak of the first. This objectivity is unmixed with personal desires, emotions and prejudices, which include one’s theoretical orientation and academic training. This is the scientists’ ambition: to be free of subjective bias. Objective can also mean knowledge based on information gained initially by the senses (or extensions of the senses through instruments or through mathematical reasoning.) We also call it empirical knowledge. I will use ‘O’ when writing of this kind of objectivity.
Although we can distinguish between these, nevertheless in fact they cannot be separated. For example the statement ‘[I know] the sun is shining,’ is Subjective because the fact that the sun is shining is directly known, objective because the statement is unmixed with personal desires and Objective because the fact is gained by way of the senses.
One should not be surprised therefore to find that the meanings of these words are often confused. For example, we say scientists are Objective and we tend to think this means that they are always objective, and that emotions such as egoism, jealousy, and bias do not enter their minds while they do their experiments. Nobel Prize winner, James Watson, in his book The Double Helix [12] dispels any such illusion. He shows that a scientist can be as subjective as any New Age devotee.
One result of this confusion in the meaning of the words ‘objective’ and ‘subjective’ is that, because the subjective is rejected from scientific considerations, and indeed every effort is made to expel it, the Subjective has suffered the same fate. Not only is the Objective alone acceptable, but also some scientists believe that the Objective alone is real. Yet, insisting that the Objective is the only legitimate viewpoint and dismissing the Subjective is an example of scientists being subjective!
The immanent and the transcendent
When I say, “I know the sun is shining,” the fact that the sun is shining is immanent to my experience; ‘I know,’ is transcendent. The content of experience, what is immanent, is ‘what I know.’ That I know the sun is shining is not part of that content. Because that I know is not part of experience––and to the extent that understanding is arranging what I know in an orderly fashion[13]––the transcendent lies beyond all possible experience and comprehension.
That I know (the transcendent) and what I know (the immanent) are quite different. What I know is rooted in, and dependent on, the brain. As I will show, that I know is not so dependent. That I know cannot be reduced to what I know, even though as a rule, the two cannot be separated.
The importance of ‘I know’
When I told Joe, “The sun is shining,” I ignored the ‘I know.’ Because I did this, and because everyone else would have done the same, we come to believe that ‘I know’ is unimportant or even meaningless. Even so, while it may well be unimportant, even meaningless, for me to say “I know,” the truth ‘that I know’ is very important and must not be ignored. It must not be ignored because, as I have said, it underlies, and makes possible, all experience. The belief that ‘that I know’ is unimportant, and can be ignored by hard science,[14] is made plausible because ‘ that I know’ cannot be made an object of consciousness.
Others might deny that ‘that I know’ is inaccessible and cannot be made an object of consciousness: they might well say, “But I know that I know.” However, to say, “I know that I know” transforms ‘that I know’ to ‘what I know.’ ‘That I know’ becomes an idea among other ideas. The idea-that-I-know, and ‘that I know’ are quite different, just as the idea of a meal is quite different from a meal. This means that we cannot talk about knowing; we can only talk about the idea of knowing. We can now see why ‘knowing’ and ‘consciousness,’ have been banished from the domain of third person science. How can one research what cannot be known or talked about? That I know is formless and has no characteristics. A monk asked a Zen master, “If it is formless and has no characteristics, why talk about it at all?” The master replied, “Because without it you cannot talk about anything else.”
Another objection yet could be made to what I am saying. “You say we cannot talk about knowing, yet what are you doing at the moment?” This is the paradox that Pollack spoke of when he said that we “talk of the unutterable.” I say that I know the sun is shining. Yet if you ask me, “What do you mean by knowing?” or, “How do you know that you know?” “Is knowing a reality?” I would have to say that I cannot answer those questions. If you ask me to prove that I know, I would have to admit that I cannot do so. If you said that the ‘I know’ of the statement, “I know that the sun is shining” is redundant, and that the statement “The sun is shining” is enough, I would agree with you. I just cannot know knowing because, apart from the idea of knowing, there is nothing to know. Even so, although we cannot talk about knowing we cannot therefore deny knowing.
Although ‘I know’ is redundant in the sentence, “I know that the sun is shining,” and in spite of the caveats that I have given in the last paragraph, the “I know” is not a meaningless statement, even though I cannot say what the meaning is. It is precisely in face of this ambiguity that koans have come into being. It is also to meet the difficulty of this ambiguity that a first person science becomes necessary.
Speaking the unspeakable
To illustrate how Zen speaks of the unspeakable let me cite the following koan, taken from the Mumonkan.[15].
This koan is number nineteen of the Mumonkan; it is a challenge, and one to which Nansen[16] responded.
The monk Joshu asked Zen master Nansen, "What is the Way?”
Nansen answered, “Everyday mind is the Way.” (Your ordinary mind is the Way.)
“How does one get on to it?”
“The more you pursue it, the more it runs away.”
“How does one know that one is on the Way?”
“The way does not belong to knowing or not knowing.[17] .Knowing is illusion. Not knowing is lack of discrimination. It is like vast space. Where is there room for this and that, good and bad?”
Upon this Joshu came to sudden awakening.
The word ‘Way’ is a translation of the Chinese word Tao. For our purposes, at the moment, the Way is the unknowable. Lao Tzu, a Chinese sage, commenting on Tao, the Way, said, “He who knows does not speak; he who speaks does not know.” When Joshu asked what is the Way he was asking, “What is the transcendent?” or “What does ‘that I know’ mean?” As Nansen pointed out, to talk about the transcendent simply makes for confusion, as it is in principle unknowable. Knowledge, whether philosophical, religious or scientific concerns what we know. The transcendent, ‘that I know,’ could be likened to space in that it is without content or limit. When Joshu came to awakening he ‘crossed over’ from ‘what I know’ to ‘that I know.’
On knowing and koans.
I cannot really say what koans mean for the same reason that I cannot speak about knowing. The genius of the koans is that they enable us to do as Joshu did, that is to awaken as knowing. But they do it without talking about knowing. A famous Zen saying is that one should not confuse the finger with the moon that one is pointing to. However, I can show the kind of thoughts that one who is working on a koan might have.
Koan number thirty-two of the Mumonkan reads,[18] “A non-Buddhist once asked Buddha, ‘I do not ask for words, nor do I ask for silence.’ Buddha just sat. The non-Buddhist came to awakening.” The actual koan was more complicated than this and I have just given its essence.
To work on this koan we must ask ourselves, “ What is the non-Buddhist asking about?” I mean, by the expression, “We must ask ourselves,” that we must enter into, or ‘inhabit’ the mind state of the non-Buddhist when he addresses Buddha. He says he does not want words. Words about what? Why does he not want words? In view of what we have been saying about the transcendent, about ‘that I know’ being distinct from what ‘I know,’ the answer to those questions must be fairly obvious. We must, even so, avoid reaching for that answer in thought, concepts or words.
He also says he does not want silence. Why not? Many teachers remain silent when questioned about the transcendent and, with their silence they are saying that the transcendent cannot be talked about. As I have just pointed out, Lao Tzu said, “He who knows does not speak; he who speaks does not know.” Other teachers remain silent because they want to convey that in silence one will find the truth. However the non-Buddhist does not allow silence as a possible response. He knows one cannot truly speak of the transcendent, that is why he says, “Do not give me words.” Words are inadequate but silence is not the answer.
The non-Buddhist is posing our dilemma: we cannot talk about knowing, yet, ‘that I know’ is the condition for any knowledge to be possible, and therefore we cannot ignore it. The koan goes on to say: “Buddha just sat.”
Once again we have to inhabit, or be one with, Buddha. To ‘just sit’ does not mean that one sits doing nothing. To sit doing nothing requires very serious effort. Nor does it mean to sit vacantly with an empty mind, or to sit thinking of nothing.
One of the criticisms of Zen koans that one often hears is that they are too enigmatic, too illogical. However, I have shown that first person knowing is enigmatic and illogical in exactly the same way. ‘What I know’ is easy to relate to, it is experience and can be pointed to, or at least spoken about. ‘That I know’ is puzzling; it is not an experience, it cannot be experienced just as “your face before your parents were born” cannot be experienced. “What is your face before your parents were born?” is a koan that challenges us to go beyond all possible experience. Any enquiry of consciousness itself must make the same demand. To claim that what can be experienced is alone worthy of scientific study will severely limit any serious scientific study of consciousness itself. It would be like someone studying reflections and denying that the mirror is of any real significance. Yet, for reasons that I have given , traditional ‘third person’ scientific methods cannot be used and a first person science must be developed.
Knowing and being
The transcendent is not just knowing. Being, too, is transcendent.[19] When we try to talk about being we encounter the same difficulties as when we try to talk about knowing: we just cannot talk about being. In The Diamond Sutra (Anon 1983)[20] Buddha says, “ A world is not a world that is why it is called a world.” The idea of being is not ‘being.’
We have no doubt that the room we are sitting in ‘is.’ The walls are there; the floor is there. Of this we have no doubt. In other words, when we talk about ‘being’ we talk about what is the most familiar, the most immediate. Although we have no doubt the room, the walls, and the floor are real the question remains, what does it mean that things are? Or, as we are more likely to ask, “What does it mean that things are real?”[21]
Another celebrated saying of a Zen master that has a bearing on what I am saying is one made by Zen master Hui Neng who affirmed, “From the beginning not a thing is.” This was a dramatic way of stating a basic Buddhist dictum: anicca, which means ‘no thing.’ Hui Neng’s statement, if one takes it seriously, throws into doubt what we mean when we say that the room is real. One should not however believe that this propels Buddhism into the idealists’ camp. An equally basic dictum is Anatman, which means no-self.
In the 1930’s Alfred Korzybski wrote Science and Sanity.[22] This was based almost entirely on an insight, or even an awakening that he had had. In the book, he declared the map is not the territory, the word is not the thing. By this he gave the impression that words are labels stuck onto things. This implies that, if I take away the label, I am left with the thing. If this is true then, although I may take away the labels ‘room,’ ‘floor,’ and ‘world’ and even the label ‘being,’ nevertheless something, albeit unnamable, remains. Hui Neng does not say this. He says that there are no things.
Another koan, number 40 of the Mumonkan [23] has a bearing on this.
Zen master Hyakujo took a pitcher, placed it on the floor, and asked: “This must not be called a pitcher. What do you call it?” The head monk said, “It cannot be called a clog.” Hyakujo asked Isan, a senior monk and head cook at the monastery, the same question. Isan walked up, kicked over the pitcher, and left. Hyakujo said, “The head monk has been defeated by Isan.”
The head monk believed there was something, but it could not be called a clog. This might imply that Zen is a form of nominalism. However the response of Isan belies that interpretation. But how he does this cannot be explained any more than we can talk about being.
Another basic Zen Buddhist text, The Prajnaparamita Hrydya declares, “Form is only empty.” Things have no thingness. According to realism the world is more or less as we find it. This way of seeing is also called naïve realism. “A rose is a rose is a rose,” as Gertrude Stein would say. The brain, the body, genes, molecules, atoms, these are things that exist independently in their own right. All sentient life could be destroyed and mountains would still be mountains, trees would still be tress. The being of the world for the realist is ‘something.’
On the other hand idealists would declare that mountains, trees, atoms, molecules, are ideas, perhaps God’s ideas, but ideas nevertheless. In this case mountains and trees would not have their own self-being. All would be dependent upon ––that is, they would get their thingness from––being known. The being of the world is mind, thought or idea.
The Zen attitude, which is neither realist nor idealist, is given in the following verse that was written by a monk on coming to awakening,
The moon is the same old moon
The flowers are not different
But now I see that I am the thingness of things.
Martin Heidegger, in his writings has brought home to us the problematic nature of being and, as is well known, he was inspired by Zen Buddhism. [24] The epigraph to his book Being and Time states very clearly what I want to say. It is a quotation from Plato who said, ”For manifestly you have long been aware of what you mean when you use the expression ‘being’. We, however, who used to think we understood it, have now become perplexed.”[25]
The famous discussion between Einstein and Neils Bohr, which has been carried on by the realists and antirealists, on the nature of reality points equally to the problem of being. Yet even the realists recognize the problematic nature of saying that the room ‘is.’ Norris, a realist, says, “Whatever the notional reality ’behind’ ….phenomena, it cannot be grasped, described or represented in conceptual-intuitive terms [26] (italics added)
A thing is, but what we mean by ‘is’ is beyond experience and understanding, ‘it cannot be described or represented in conceptual-intuitive terms.’ This is what I am calling transcendental and unknowable.
Who am I?
Another question must now arise: who or what is the ‘first person’ that is generally referred to as “I am”? Without having answered that question we cannot begin to develop a first person science. This same problem is posed in Koan number one of the Hekiganroku [27]. It tells of Bodhidharma, the first patriarch of Chinese Zen. He arrived in China from India in the year 500 CE. On arriving he visited the emperor, Wu. During their conversation the emperor asked him, “What are you?” Bodhidharma replied, “I don’t know.”
If I were to ask someone, “What are you?” The reply would most likely be, “I am the body,” “I am a person,” or, “I am a woman, or I am a man,” The neuroscientist would say, “I am the brain.” Another might well say, “I am the soul” Yet another still might say, “I do not know what I am, but I am surely something.” All of these are talking about their idea of being, and furthermore, about their idea that they are something that could, at least in principle, be known. Even so, just as ‘that I know’ and ‘what I know’ are quite different, so ‘that I am’ and ‘what I am’ are also quite different.
After Bodhidharma had left the emperor, a courtier asked the emperor, “Do you know who that man was, my lord?” The emperor replied, “I don’t know.” These two––Bodhidharma’s ‘I don’t know’ and the emperor’s ‘I don’t know’––are quite different. The emperor’s ‘I don’t know,’ means that he lacks information, but that, in principle, he could know who Bodhidharma was. Bodhidharma’s ‘I don’t know’ does not mean that. He is saying that 'I am' is beyond all possible ways of knowing; I am unknowable.
Zen master Hakuin, in his verse In Praise of Zazen affirms, “True self is no self.” In order to see what Hakuin means many Zen Buddhists work with the koan, “What is my face before my parents were born?” This koan wipes away completely ‘what I am.’ If this is wiped away, then even the possibility that I am a soul or a spirit must go also.
Ignorance is the cardinal klésa (sin) in Buddhism. Ignorance is not a passive lack of knowledge, but an active ignoring. We ignore the transcendent; for example, we ignore the knowing of “I know the sun is shining” In ignorance we ignore that we are and affirm what we are: ‘something:’ a person, a body, a brain, woman, man, or else that we are angry, sad, or in pain.
Creativity, koans and consciousness
Working on a koan involves all aspects of the mind: intellect, intuition and creativity. To explain why I say this I shall have to explore creativity. This exploration will allow me to introduce the third unknowable, but essential, element a first person science of consciousness. This element is intention. At the same time I shall also introduce briefly a new logic: the logic of ambiguity. I will do this because, as I will show, classical logic, the prevailing logic of the day, is too restrictive to allow an adequate study of consciousness. In introducing this new logic I do not intend to supplant classical logic but to put it into a wider framework, just as quantum physics has not supplanted Newtonian physics but has put it into a wider framework.
Defining creativity
Creativity has as many definitions as there are writers on the subject. However I shall use two quotations that have a particular relevance to koan practice. The first is Arthur Koestler’s, the second T.S.Eliot’s.
In The Act of Creation,[28] Koestler says that creativity arises when a single situation or idea is perceived in “two self consistent but habitually incompatible frames of reference.”[29] T.S.Eliot [30], when speaking of creativity, quoted a German poet, Benn, who said that the creative impulse is like
A bodiless childful of life in the gloom
Crying with frog voice, 'what shall I be?'
Eliot goes onto say, “He [the poet] does not know what he wants to say until he has said it.” Eliot then says, “He is oppressed by a burden that he must bring to birth in order to obtain relief. Or, to change the figure of speech, he is haunted by a demon, a demon against which he feels powerless, because in its first manifestation it has no face, no name, nothing; and the words, the poem he makes, are a kind of form of exorcism of this demon.”
Fundamental to koan practice is what Hakuin called Great Doubt. Shibayama, in the quote that I gave earlier, said, “The role of the koan is not to lead us to satori, (awakening) easily, but on the contrary to make us lose our way and drive us to despair.” In other words the koan evokes Eliot’s faceless demon, the cry of the childful of life; this is Hakuin’s Great Doubt. He likened the feeling that Great Doubt evokes to a feeling a rat might have in a bamboo tube. It cannot go forward it cannot go back and it cannot stay where it is. The Great Doubt or demon arises because a koan confronts the mind with a contradiction and the mind is impelled to seek some kind of resolution in a new unity or harmony. In a similar way a mathematician or scientist is impelled to find some resolution if he or she comes across a contradiction in a set of equations or an anomaly in a scientific experiment. The contradiction in a koan is not always obvious, and koan practice involves teasing out the contradiction. The contradiction complies with Koestler’s “two self consistent but habitually incompatible frames of reference.” The search for unity is the search for the ‘single idea.’ An example of a koan that clearly shows this contradiction is: a non-Buddhist once asked Buddha, ‘I do not ask for words, nor do I ask for silence.’ Speaking and not speaking are clearly two incompatible frames of reference
Logic and Creativity
I have said that classical logic is too restrictive for a study of consciousness. It is certainly too restrictive for a study of koans. As Shibayama said: “Good koans are those that are the most intricate, illogical and irrational, in which the most brilliant intellect will completely lose its way.” One reason for saying that classical logic is too restrictive for a study of consciousness is that it does not allow knowing and being to have equal status. The principle of the excluded middle requires that either mind is the outcome of the activity of matter, or matter is the outcome of the activity of mind. The eternal discussion between idealists and realists, and between realists and anti-realists confirms this. When working on a koan we transcend classical logic by means of creativity. This, as I shall show, is how we can find knowing to have equal status to being.
To illustrate the point, let me refer to the example I have already given. A master held up a stick and said, “If you call this a stick I will give you thirty blows. If you say that it is not a stick I will give you thirty blows. Now what is it?” This falls readily within Koestler’s definition of creativity. A single situation or idea is perceived in “two self consistent but habitually incompatible frames of reference.” The single idea is the response that the master is calling for. The two incompatible frames of reference are: ‘it is a stick’ and ‘it is not a stick.’ Classical logic insists that it is either a stick or it is not a stick; it cannot be both a stick and not a stick. Yet a perfectly ‘reasonable’ and satisfactory response to this koan can be given. The problem that the master poses is very similar to the problem that consciousness poses, is consciousness a function of neurological activity or not?
To arouse the Doubt sensation one must concentrate intensely over a considerable period of time in order to reach this point where both horns of the dilemma have equal weight. Ghiselin [31]. described what is needed in koan practice even though he is also talking about the creative process :
The concentration of such a state may be so extreme that the worker may seem to himself or others to be in a trance or some similar hypnotic or somnambulistic state. But actually the state of the so-called trance, so often mentioned as characteristic of the creative process, or of stages in it, differs markedly from ordinary trance or hypnosis, in its collectedness, its autonomy, its extreme watchfulness. And it seems never to be directly induced. It appears rather to be generated indirectly, to subsist as the characteristic of a consciousness partly un-focused, attention diverted from the too assertive contours of any particular scheme and dispersed upon an object without complete schematic representation. In short the creative discipline when successful may generate a trancelike state, but one does not throw oneself into a trance in order to create.
Creativity and Being and Knowing
I am calling being and knowing two ‘transcendentals.’ They are habitually incompatible. Logic decrees that either matter or mind is basic. The result has been that one has subsumed the other: either, mind is an epiphenomenon of the brain, or, the world is an idea. Parallelism, a third alternative, affirms that mind and matter run on parallel tracks; neither has any connection with the other. A fourth alternative is interactionism: mind interacts with the brain through some link or across some bridge.[32]
Owing to the technological success of materialism, the belief that matter is basic and all else is derived from it, the other three alternatives have been artificially suppressed. I should like to propose a fifth, creative alternative. In order to justify doing this I must introduce the logic of ambiguity. This logic will show all four alternatives to be equally valid. It will also break open many of the logjams that at the moment are obstructing the development of a first person science.
The logic of ambiguity
I can best introduce the logic of ambiguity by using an illustration.
What is this picture? A young woman? an old woman? both? neither? The young and old woman are two self-consistent but habitually incompatible ways of understanding the illustration. The picture is either of a young woman or of an old woman, but it is also of both a young woman and of an old woman.
A very similar ambiguity is to be found in the wave/particle ambiguity of quantum mechanics. A photon is either a wave or a particle but it is also a wave and also a particle. This obviously violates the principle of the excluded middle of classical logic. Neils Bohr introduced a principle of complementarity to deal with this anomaly. Nadeau and Kafatos, [33] probably in order to avoid the difficulty of an apparent arbitrariness in its use, developed criteria that must be met if this principle is to be both necessary and useful, and elevated the principle to a logic of complementarity. These criteria are “(1) the theory consists of two individual and whole constructs (2) the constructs preclude one another in a description of the unique ... phenomenon to which they both apply (3) the complete situation cannot be reached through an addition of the two constructs.”
Referring back to the picture we see that it conforms to these criteria. (1) The picture consists of two individual and whole constructs: the old and young woman. (2) the constructs preclude one another in a description of the unique ... phenomenon to which they both apply because if we see the old woman we do not see the young and vice versa. (3) the complete situation cannot be reached through an addition of the two constructs, because if one adds the old to the young woman one would just get either a mess or two women side by side.
The picture can be understood in another way: it is simply a collection of black and white shapes. When one interprets the picture as a young or old woman it is ambiguous. When one interprets it as black and white shapes it is not. However, interpreting it as black and white shapes reveals another ambiguity. It is this extra ambiguity that turns the logic of complementarity into a logic of ambiguity.
Let me use (/) to indicate ambiguity. The full ambiguity reads as follows: black and white shapes/(young/old woman). If one sees the black and white shapes, one does not see the young and old woman. In the same way if one sees the young woman one does not see the old woman. A further observation is in order. The young and old women come out of the black and white shapes. The black and white shapes are potentially the young and old women.
A definition of the logic of ambiguity can be derived from what I have just said: there is an ambiguity, one face of which says there is an ambiguity; the other face says there is no ambiguity[34]
Let us now say that the old woman stands for ‘being’ (the brain) and the young for ‘knowing’ (the mind.) As we know, knowing and being, mind and brain, materialism and idealism are two-self consistent but habitually incompatible ways of understanding the world. By making the substitution of the Old and Young woman for knowing and being (mind and brain) we can see that the Nadeau and Kafatos criteria apply also to the problem of knowing and being, as well as to the body/mind problem. This means that the logic of ambiguity, and not classical logic may be used to understand the relation of mind and body. When using this logic, mind nor body need be subordinated to the other. The mind -body ambiguity can be stated as X(mind/body) where X is substituted for the black and white shapes. I am suggesting that the logic of ambiguity would be the logic of a first person science.
What is X?
The question arises, ‘what is X’ that resolves the body/mind ambiguity?” In other writings[35] I have called X dynamic unity, but for this paper I prefer to use the term intention, a word that brings it more in line with a discussion of consciousness. To help put what I am saying into perspective let me quote the physicist David Bohm. [36] He wrote of an “Undivided Wholeness in Flowing Movement,” which is similar to X. Bohm says that flow, in some sense, is prior to things, which he says, “can be seen to form and dissolve in this flow.” Instead of using the word ‘flow’ I have preferred the word ‘dynamic,’ but the gist of the two words is similar in that both refer to a condition that is not static, and is prior to things. He says further that flow “cannot be defined explicitly but … can be known only implicitly” I have said that X is transcendent and unknowable rather than, as Bohm says, ‘known implicitly.’ Then he says, “Mind and matter are not separate substances. Rather, they are different aspects of one whole and unbroken movement.” [my emphasis] Similarly, I am saying that X is flowing, and prior to mind and matter; it is transcendent and mind and matter are different aspects of it, or different ways that X manifests.
Zen Buddhism also has a dynamic X. The late Yasutani [37], a contemporary Zen master, called it by its Japanese name ku, which, although unknowable, “is not mere emptiness. It is that which is living, dynamic, devoid of mass, beyond individuality or personality––it is outside the realm of imagination. Accordingly, the true substance of things that is their Buddha or Dharma-nature, is inconceivable and inscrutable.” [38] (my emphasis]
At the beginning of this paper I said that there are three transcendentals: knowing, being and now X that I am calling intention. Intention however is not a property that ‘I’ have. Nor is it a force which resides in the body and which the mind uses. Intention is the mind as well as the body, just Bohm’s wholeness is mind and matter and the black and white shapes are the young and old lady.
How can a scientist studying consciousness come to grips with the use that I am making of the word ‘intention?’ It seems mystical and far from the realm of hard science. When I spoke to a scientist about intention as an unknowable he asked me whether he is supposed to worship it. Yet, energy too is unknowable. The term ‘energy’ is of comparatively recent coinage and, according to the Dictionary of Philosophy. [39] it is: “The power by which things act to change other things. Potentiality in the physical. The capacity to do work ” [emphasis added in each case] We cannot say what energy is, only what it does. I could use all these phrases to define intention. Karl Popper says, [40], “We accept things as ‘real’ if they can causally act upon, or interact with, ordinary objects.” What I am saying is that intention causally acts as things in action.
A Zen master Rinzai, speaking of what I am calling X, said (Sazaki 1975) [41], “Followers of the Way, mind is without form and pervades the ten directions.” To be without form is to transcend form. To pervade the ten directions is to be one with all. He went on to say:
“In the eye it is called seeing,
In the ear it is called hearing.
In the nose it smells odors,
In the mouth it holds converse.
In the hands it grasps and seizes,
In the feet it runs and carries.
[My emphasis]
Fundamentally it is one pure radiance; divided it becomes the six harmoniously united spheres of sense.”
The Transcendence of Intention.
Eliot, in the quote I gave above, points out that the poet does not know the words he is going to use until he has said them. But this is true of all of us. I do not know the words I am going to use when I speak, or when I write, until I have used them. The source of speaking and typing, is not in, but transcends, consciousness, even though I may be conscious of speaking or typing. Scientists have researched this well.[42] ‘Not knowing’ is true not only of speaking. 'I' do not know how to walk, grasp or run. This is quite obvious if I try to decide which muscles to use to stand up, or even lift my arm. The source of action, which I am calling intention, lies upstream of the conscious mind. This is why at the beginning of this diiscussion I said that the response to koans must arise spontaneously from a source upstream of the conscious mind. Koans tap directly into intention and so must be demonstrated in action not talked about in words. .
The dynamism of intention arises from a drive towards unity. This drive is clearly manifest in science in the drive towards simplicity and completeness that is at the heart of any attempt to produce a viable theory. The principle of identity of classical logic draws its power from this same drive. Gestalt psychology has shown the influence of this drive towards unity in our perceptions and actions. The definition of creativity includes this drive under the guise of a ‘single idea.’
The drive to unity means that contradiction and ambiguity are intolerable and some attempt must be made to resolve the tension that they arouse. This resolution may be achieved by ignoring half of the contradiction, or it may be resolved creatively. Jokes give us a simple and immediate access to what I am saying. The following notices actually appeared on church bulletin boards:
“Wednesday, the ladies Liturgy Society will meet. Mrs. Jones will sing, ‘Put me in My Little Bed’ accompanied by the pastor.”
“Thursday at 5.00 p.m. there will be a meeting of the Little Mothers Club. All wishing to become little mothers please see the minister in his study.”
“This being Easter Sunday, we will ask Mrs. Lewis to come forward and lay an egg on the altar.”
In each example, two contradictory interpretations of the one statement are possible. An ‘impossible’ situation arises that can only be resolved explosively in laughter. The satisfaction that a good joke gives is the satisfaction coming from the release of pure unity.
One of the basic characteristics of intelligence is the perception of sameness and difference. As ambiguity involves simultaneous sameness and difference, it follows that intelligence and creativity are intimately connected. Without the intelligence to perceive the contradiction, there can be no creativity
This, incidentally, shows why computers cannot, as yet, be creative or intelligent. The binary logic of computers cannot cope with contradiction. Machines can play chess, but one must doubt that this proves that they are intelligent. When computers start laughing at the programmers, then we will know for certain that they intelligent.
Intention, knowing, being
Our illustration can help us understand the interaction between intention, knowing and being. This will show that intentional acts are the outcome of all three. Let us give the young lady a necklace: 	
We find that the old woman’s mouth, as well as the black and white shapes have changed. This is so because we do not have three different unknowables or transcendents, but three aspects of one ‘transcendent.’ An analogy would be the plan, side elevation, and front elevation of a house. A house too can be viewed in three different ways.
- Conclusion -
We can now turn again to the question of a first person science and the possible contribution that Zen Buddhist koan practice make. With the help of koan practice I have uncovered an alternative structure to the structure of ‘subject-knowing-object.’ of the first person, or to use different words, the structure of I am. ‘I am’ is a manifestation of all three transcendentals. Knowing corresponds to ‘I,’ being to ‘am,’ and intention provides the sense of living individuality and integrity that is an essential ingredient of ‘I am.’ I have shown that this structure is transcendent. I have, furthermore, shown elsewhere that consciousness is a creation of this structure. [43].
The transcendental realm, or Buddha Nature, as it is called in Zen Buddhism, is not a belief that the Zen Buddhist has. Buddha insisted,[44] “Do not go by hearsay, nor by what is handed down by others, nor by what people say, nor by what is stated on the authority of your traditional teachings.” If I practice with Zen Koans in an authentic way I am obliged not only to examine all that I receive from outside, but also what I have accepted without question as my own. This of course would include the philosophical basis as well as the basis of faith on which my reasoning rests.
By doing this I eliminate from my work as many traces of subjectivity as possible. Indeed authentic koan practice demands unwavering objectivity. This means that I could no longer take it for granted that all can, in principle, be known and described. But this does not mean that I cannot dwell in, or better still dwell as, the transcendent.
T.E. Huxley described well what is required of koan practice although he was actually talking about scientific research.
“Sit down before every fact as a little child, be prepared to give up every preconceived notion, follow humbly wherever and to whatever abysses nature leads, or you will learn nothing. I have only begun to learn content and peace of mind since I have resolved at all risks to do this.” [45]


- End Notes -
[1] Weil, Simone (1986) An Anthology (Virago; London) p. 260.
[2] Low, Albert (1995) The World a Gateway (Charles E.Tuttle: Vermont.)
[3] Cleary Thomas and J.C. (1978) The Blue Cliff Record. (Prajna Press: Boulder.)
[4] Za means ‘sitting’ and Zen is the transliteration of the Chinese word Ch’an. Ch’an, in turn, is a transliteration of a Sanskrit word dhyana, one meaning of which is “beyond the opposites.”
[5] Low, Albert (1989) An Invitation to practice Zen (Charles E.Tuttle: Tokyo) p. 47/8.
[6] Low (1995) p.25
[7] This is an adaptation of Koan number 40 of the Mumonkan see Low (1995) p.234.
[8] Shibayama, Zenkei (1974) Zen Commentaries on the Mumonkan (Harper and Row: New York) P.100-101.
[9] Pollack, Robert (2000) The Faith of Biology and the Biology of Faith (Columbia University Press: New York) p. 12.
[10] For the moment I should like to ignore the question, “Who is this “I” that knows?”
[11] For the sake of completeness I should add that the term ‘subjective’ could also be applied to those experiences that are private to me.
[12] Watson, James, D (1968) The Double Helix (Signet Books: New York.)
[13] Another aspect of understanding is seeing directly into the truth of a statement. This occurs when one says, “Oh1 I get it! I understand!” In this way understanding invokes both the transcendent and immanent.
[14] While some materialists may acknowledge that one can meaningfully use the expression “I know” nevertheless knowing is still considered by them to be a function of the brain and, presumably, in strict scientific terms can be dispensed with altogether.
[15] Low (1995) p.136.
[16] This incident occurred before Joshu became a Zen master.
[17] In view of the special significance that I am giving to the word ‘knowing’ this sentence would be better rendered as “The Way does not belong to knowledge or ignorance.”
[18] Low (1995) p.202 I have adapted the koan for this presentation.
[19] Emmanuel Kant had the following to say about being as transcendent. “We can propound the transcendental hypothesis that all life is really noumenal only, not subject at all to temporal changes—neither beginning in nor ending in death; that the life of change and birth and death is phenomenal only—a mere representation, through the senses, of 'a purely spiritual life—that the whole world of sense is only a picture hovering before us, formed by our present mode of knowledge—a dream lacking any objective reality in itself. Indeed we may say that, if we could see ourselves as spiritual beings whose connections with the spiritual world of noumena did not begin with our birth and will not end with our death—both birth and death being mere appearances." Quoted by de Nicolás Meditations Though the Rg Veda: Four Dimensional Man (Nicolas Hay: New York) p. 241.
[20] Anon 1983: The Diamond Sutra (Concord Grove Press: London) “dharmas are not in truth dharmas, even though they are called dharmas” p. 25.
[21] It is interesting to note that when Dr. Samuel Johnson was told of Bishop Berkeley’s idealism he kicked a stone saying, “Thus I refute him!” By doing that Johnson acknowledged that idealism cannot be refuted in words.
[22] Korzybski, Alfred, (1933) Science And Sanity (The International Non-Aristotelian Library Publishing Co.: Lancaster.)
[23] Low (1995) p. 234.
[24] May, Reinhard (1996) Heidegger’s Hidden Sources: East Asian influences on his work (Routledge: London.) See also Kotoh Tetsuaki LANGUAGE AND SILENCE: SELF INQUIRY IN HEIDEGGER AND ZEN: Parkes, Graham (1990) Heidegger and Asian Thought (University of Hawaii Press: Honolulu) p. 201.
[25] Heidegger, Martin, Translated by John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson Being and Time (Harper and Brothers: New York) p.1.
[26] Norris op. cit. p.6.
[27] Cleary (1978) p.1.
[28] Koestler, Arthur (1964) The Act Of Creation, (Pan Books: London) p.35.
[29] This definition is strikingly similar to a definition of humor made by an English poet of the eighteenth century, James Beatty. He said that laughter arose “from the view of two or more inconsistent, unsuitable, or incongruous parts or circumstances, considered as united in one complex object or assemblage.” Sanders, Barry (1995) A is for Ox (Vintage Books: New York) p.89 Copenhaver Brian P (1992). The close tie that laughter has with creativity is underlined by the fact that, according to one hermetic source, the world was created by laughter. Hermetica (Cambridge University: Press Cambridge) p.7
[30] Eliot, T.S., On Poetry and the Poets (London 1957, Faber and Faber) page 98.
[31] Ghiselin, Brewster, (1952) The Creative Process, (Mentor Books: Berkeley) p.25.
[32] See for example Popper, Carl R., and Eccles John C., (1998) The self and its brain : An argument for interactionism (Routledge: New York and London.)
[33] Nadeau, Robert, and Kafatos, Menas (1990) The Non-Local Domain (Oxford University p.95.
[34] This is only a partial definition. The full definition should read, “there is an ambiguity, one face of which says there is an ambiguity, the other face says there is no ambiguity. The face that says there is no ambiguity is itself ambiguous.” Shortage of space prohibits me from going further into this. Please See Low. Albert, (2002) Creating Consciousness, A study in creativity, consciousness, evolution and violence (White Cloud Press: Ashland, also published as an ebook.)
[35] ibid.
[36] Bohm, David 1980 Wholeness and Implicate Order (Routledge and Kegan Paul: London.) P.11.
[37] Kapleau Philip (1966) The Three Pillars of Zen (Harper and Row: New York p.74.
[38] A Tibetan Buddhist text says something remarkably similar in that it says that reality beyond form is “that fundamental pervasive, unified, holistical process whose highly energized dynamics set up the variety of sub processes and their associated structures.” The name that is given to this mystery is the Ground (gzhi), and “is the ground and reason for everything…[it is] thoroughly dynamic…. [and] responsible for the variety of structures, things, and experiences that are said to make up Reality.” Guenther goes on to say that he will use the word Being instead of ground, but “It is crucial to avoid associating the term Being … with any determinate, isolatable, static essence or thing.”
[39] Runes, Dagobert (1962) Dictionary of Philosophy (Littlefield Adams: Totowa.)
[40] Popper, Karl R., Eccles, John C. (1977) The Self and its Brain: An Argument for Interactionism (Routledge: London) and New York) p.10.
[41] Sasaki, Ruth Fuller (Trans). (1975) The Records of Lin-chi Hui-chao of Chen Prefecture p.9.
[42] See Wegner Daniel (2002) The illusion of Conscious Will Bradford Books” Cambridge.)
[43] Low (2002)
[44] Woodward, F.L. (trans) (1973) Some Sayings of the Buddha (Oxford University Press: London) p.189.
[45] Quoted by Gould, Stephen Jay, (1999) Rocks of Ages (Ballantyne Books: New York) P.4.