16 Characters That Will Change Your Life ⛩️
Exploring the 4 pillars of Zen & the Ch'an wrecking crew.
📍 Coordinates: The Nest 🪺, Argentina.
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📖 Reading Time: ~5 minutes.
I’ve read hundreds of books at this point…
Untold millions of words.
Exploring mountains of information, absorbing boatloads of knowledge, and picking up a few crumbs of wisdom on these literary adventures.
But nothing in the written world has humbled me as much as these 16 characters.
These 16 kanji—and the infinite depths they reveal—have been so important in my life, so earth-shattering, paradigm-shifting, and mind-bending, I feel compelled to share them.
These 16 characters—a 4-line poem—are the 4 foundational pillars of Zen.
As we travel together on our own linguistic escapades in these writings, we’ll return to several central pillars in my life. Zen is one of them.
These days I’m immersed in secular spirituality, redesigning religion, cultural architecture, and individual awakening.
A few asymmetrically powerful outlets have risen the ranks: entheogens & psychedelic therapy, rites of passage, Bitcoin, and Zen are among the highest.
Zen is nearly unmatched in:
A deep history of reliably producing highly awakened individuals.
A comprehensive map of empirical, organic, secular spirituality.
An antidote to the problems that plague organized religions.
A menagerie of direct experiences to cultivate the Zen mind.
And it does this—all of this—in 16 characters.
Masterful.
Even here Zen demonstrates its unbelievable prowess at demolishing flourished verbosity, cutting directly to the essence of things.
The 4 Pillars of Zen
In Zen & Ch’an (the Chinese-Taoist roots that grew into Zen), poetry is seen as one of the highest forms of art practiced by the artist-intellectuals. Many foundational principles were conveyed through poetry.
These four lines, a poem by the First Patriarch of Ch’an, Bodhidharma, are the four foundational pillars at the heart of Zen.
From the maddeningly-brilliant interpretive openness of each kanji character, a number of translations and readings are possible. I have included a few to help provide a better sense of the essence being conveyed.
“A separate transmission outside all teaching and not founded in fine words of scripture, it's simple: pointing directly at mind. There, seeing original-nature, you become Buddha.” – China Root by David Hinton
“A special transmission outside the [scriptural] teachings, Does not set up (or depend upon) words and letters, Points directly at the human mind, Buddhahood attained by seeing one's own nature.” – Unknown
“A special transmission outside the orthodox teaching of the scriptures. No dependence on sacred writings. Direct pointing to the heartmind. Seeing into one's original nature, and realization of Buddhahood.” – Reddit
“Direct, non-verbal transmission from teacher to student. No scripture, no dogma, no doctrine. It must address the heart of each individual. It must approach reality directly as it is.” – A quote from my article on Cha Dao, inspired by Wu De.
Exploring the Four Pillars
Direct Transmission Outside All Teachings.
This has implications far beyond Zen.
Let this first line permeate your Being and sink into your Soul. Your life—your existence—is not an idea. It is not a concept. It has nothing to do with language whatsoever.
Your life is a direct, living, breathing, bleeding experience. Zen is a Way of Being. It is not a religion, it is not a philosophy. Zen is a State. It is an active, dynamic mode. This cannot be taught, at best it can be transmitted. But true understanding only comes from direct experience.
No Scripture. No Doctrine. No Dogma.
This is my preferred interpretation of the second line.
How can you possibly find, let alone learn or embody, a Way of Being by reading ink blots on paper? Words take you further away from Zen.
Zen—and particularly Ch’an—serves as a demolition crew for concepts and language. A fierce and merciless wrecking ball against the machinations of mind. They go as far as to decimate and dismantle Zen itself with brilliant lines like,
“The only Zen you’ll find on the mountaintop is the Zen you take with you.”
This is why Zen cannot be a religion. It dismantles religion. Not even in favour of itself. At a certain point, you must release Zen too.
Direct Pointing to the Heartmind.
Early Ch’an and Taoist masters drew no distinction between heart and mind. They are the same because there is no separation.
Direct pointing is perhaps the more important term here. Any teachings must point directly to original nature: consciousness and cosmos weaved together in fundamental union.
This is done through meditation and koan practice. Both require a new state to be embodied (a direct experience achieved) before progressing.
See Original Nature, Become Buddha.
Buddha awakened to the reality—to the direct experience—of consciousness and cosmos weaved together in one glorious Absolute existence-tissue, ever dynamic, generative, and transformative.
Original nature is recognizing yourself not as the small center of identity behind your eyes that you claim to be, but recognizing and embodying the fact that you are the entirety of existence itself.
This is Buddhahood.
I understand that this is a lot of words for something explicitly anti-linguistic. But you must recognize that these characters are directly pointing at something.
Explore this. Surrender to Zen and let it permeate your life. While you may lose your self, you will surely arrive back home within your Self. Your original nature – the wild, generative, dynamic cosmos simply and exhaustively itself.
The best way to explore Zen, as you might imagine, is to participate in one of the experiences that grew from it:
Tea ceremony
Martial arts
Meditation
Flower arrangement
Archery
Poetry
Calligraphy
Bonsai
I will be writing more about Zen, Ch’an, & Taoism, but for the hungry ones — I invite you to read “China Root: Taoism, Ch’an, & Original Zen” by David Hinton.
It accelerated my practice and ‘understanding’ of Zen exponentially and I cannot recommend it highly enough.
Sending love right to your heartmind, EB. 💛