Fudochi: The Pragmatic Goal of Zen

My approach to "Zen" is pragmatic. I use a sitting meditation called Mokuso to actualize Fudochi. I also use a sword meditation, and a bamboo flute meditation. Also walking meditation and lying down in bed meditation.

Each of these is a little different, yet they all function to actualize the clear original nature.

What do I mean by "meditation"? Precisely that -- actualizing the original nature. One does this by stilling the "thinking mind" and dropping emotional conflicts.

Zen is a training to embody the true Self, which is limitless, spaceless and timeless, yet appears everywhere as the here and now.

Zen is meditation, not a series of ideas! The Japanese word "Zen" just translates the Sanskrit word for Dhyana. It takes effort and will at the beginning. Later it just becomes natural, easy and delightful.

Dhyana -- Zen -- is a practice. But it is also the actual state of freedom, penetrating clarity, direct perception, energy and emptying out of "small self"  that is attained by doing nonconceptual meditation.

Yet even this is not the goal of Zen. The goal of doing Zen is not to be self-consciously "Zen."

By "cutting off the way of thinking" all at once one enters into a state of ease and delight that cannot be grasped in words -- "not one, not two," the "inconceivable state of the Tathagatas."

At this point words break down and descriptive terms no longer apply. Everything is clear, ordinary and real. Water just tastes like water. Amazing!

The term "Fudo-chi," from esoteric Buddhism, alludes this state. Fudo is the immovable Buddhist warrior deity who cuts through all delusions and ties up all enemies. Chi is the innate wisdom. So Fudochi is the immovable samadhi, the innate unborn wisdom of the Great Way. Don't you want to taste this? As Mumon said:

It will be as if you snatch away the great sword of the valiant general Kan'u and hold it in your hand. When you meet the Buddha, you kill him; when you meet the Patriarchs, you kill them. On the brink of life and death, you command perfect freedom; among the sixfold worlds and four modes of existence, you enjoy a merry and playful samadhi.