Fragments of the book Zen and the fine arts:
While the question of what Zen is requires careful steps in the manner of elucidation and comprehension, in brief, I think it can be said that Zen is the Self-Awareness of the Formless Self.
Although commonly the term “formless” means lack of form, in Zen it comes to have a different meaning, though the common meaning also is included. Though the voice is said to possess no fixed, readily observable form, Zen Formlessness is not limited to this meaning. Again, the human mind is commonly considered to have no form, and, partially, this is true. But we can speak of formlessness in a different sense from the way in which both mind and voice are said to lack form. Accordingly, the Zen term means, briefly, that there is no form of any kind, either physical or mental. For while it may be true that neither voice nor mind possess spatial form, they cannot be said to lack all form; any mind, any mental phenomenon, has form. The ideas of truth, beauty, and goodness, for example, which cannot be said to have form in the spatial sense, nevertheless do have form as ideas. Ideas can be differentiated and defined. The ideas of good, evil, of beauty, ugliness, of truth and falsity are all ideas that are differentiatable. If they were not so, they would remain cognitively unknown. Accordingly, insofar as they have to be—and are—-defined, they must be regarded as having form. In this case the form is ideational or mental. Concerning the mind, therefore, the questio is if there is any mental activity that is beyond differentiation—that is, is there any mind that is without distinction or beyond definition.
Ordinarily, such a possibility is not considered. Nevertheless, there is a mind that can be considered to have no form: what is ordinarily called selfconsciousness. Being conscious of itself, it is what is called “self.” Self-consciousness—or self—ordinarily can never be defined or limited to anything specific. Of course, there are instances in which self-consciousness is treated as an object of study; for example, in psychology, scientific research into consciousness, or in philosophy, where it is treated as the psychology, the science, or the philosophy of self-consciousness respectively. Here too then, self-consciousness is defined to the extent that it is treated objectively; if it was not defined, it could not be an object of study. So far, therefore, if it is considered differentiatable, it must have form.
It does not follow from this, however, that self-consciousness is something objective or that it can be defined. Self-consciousness in itself, despite all attempts, can never be differentiated or made objective because it is always the subject. When self-consciousness is treated objectively, for example, as mentioned above in the science of consciousness or psychology, that which becomes the object of study can no longer be self-consciousness; rather, that which entertains the object of study as object is self-consciousness. Self-consciousness is that which never becomes an object, but which at all times and on all occasions remains the subject. Otherwise it would not be self-consciousness. And, all human beings possess such self-consciousness; although it generally may not be clearly understood, our self-consciousness, upon close examination, is of the nature described. When one tries to objectify one’s self, the “objectified self” is no longer one’s true self, but a shadow, a something left behind. Self-consciousness, thus, can never be pushed “over there,” however hard one may try to force it. As soon as one does try, it returns “here,” or, better, is always “here.”
Therefore, while the ordinary mind that is limited and defined has form, the mind as self-consciousness has no such form. It is in every respect beyond form, beyond definition. The true mind, consequently, is not the various differentiatable mental phenomena, but is the self, which defies and eludes definition and objectification. It is this mind that may be called pure mind.
When it is said that man is mental, it means that he is this self. To recapitulate, the mind that we ordinarily say has no form, not even mental or ideational form, is self-consciousness.
However, even this self-consciousness that is pure mind still cannot really be said to be totally formless; a limitation still exists. Though self-conscious-ness per se apparently is unlimited, confrontation occurs between one self-consciousness and another: one formless self-consciousness stands opposite another formless self-consciousness. Such self-consciousness contains a distinction and opposition between itself and others. I am not now referring to any “objectified” self-consciousness, but of self-consciousness itself. Thus, although form is seemingly lacking in ordinary self-consciousness itself, there is still the distinction between this formless self-consciousness and another; there is always the difference of me and you, or of me and him. It can be said, therefore, that self-consciousness is extremely pluralistic—in fact, nothing is more pluralistic than self-consciousness. The basic reason is that no self-consciousness is ever the same as any other self-consciousness, so that at no other time in history, at no other place, is there any other “I” except me: there is no other person the same as “I.” To say that in all respects “I am I” fully describes the individual character—or independent nature—of self-consciousness. Everyone is to himself a first person. When it is said that however many people there may be in the world, no one among them is the same as “I,” it is on the basis of self-consciousness. But here self-consciousness is always a particular self-consciousness as distinguished from all others. In this sense I feel that this distinction constitutes the root source of all distinctions—a point I find extremely interesting. Self-consciousness, which in itself is without form, without definition, is, despite its formlessness, distinguished from all the other self-consciousnesses by being a self. Thus, even as regards self-consciousness, differentiation occurs. And where there is differentiation, there is form and objectification. Such objectification in the case of self-consciousness, however, is quite different from that of ideas, which are always objective, as discussed above.
But Zen Formlessness does not even refer to the formlessness of self-con-sciousness. For while this self-consciousness must also be said to have form, the Self-Awareness of Zen is totally formless. Here, there is no form in matter, body, mind or self-consciousness. Since the earliest days of Zen, this is what has been described as Formlessness.
Sometimes the Formlessness of Zen is expressed as “body and mind fallen away.” “Fallen away” means being free from both body and mind or not being of body or mind, since there is neither body nor mind. In Zen there is the expression, “Zen practice [zazen] is body and mind fallen away. Zen practice” here does not mean the form of sitting in meditation (the usual meaning attributed to zazen), but true, Formless Zen. “Body and mind fallen away thus means the Self That is Not Anything. We human beings are ordinarily considered to be of a mental as well as physical nature, of having both a body and mind. The ordinary self or self- consciousness is the fundamental subject of such forms as the body and the mind, and in that sense only is it formless. It is the discarding of this self that, again, is meant by “body and mind fallen away.” Considered in this way, Formlessness means the discarding of this ordinary self, of the self that still has form and still can be differentiated.
Speaking, as I have been, of discarding the ordinary self and of awakening to the formless Fundamental Self—or Subject—might appear to be no more than an intellectual negation of the self, and the bandying about of concepts such as a Formless Self. Being without form of any kind, however, is certainly conceivable as an idea. But something being conceivable is one thing; its reality, its existence, is quite another. This matter of existence, however, also constitutes a big problem; it may be said that where there is no form there is no existence. Thus we are obliged to think of a manner of existence in which nonexistence (Formlessness) exists. “Being without form of any kind” spoken of in Zen is not just the thought, concept or idea of no form, but refers to the actual Self being without form.
“Body and mind fallen away” never means anything other than the Formless Self, which has cast off body and mind—that is, other than my Self with my “body and mind fallen away.” This I differs from the ordinary “I” that stands in opposition to other selves; this is the / that has eliminated the ordinary “I.” This I no longer simply distinguishes itself from other selves. Therefore, Formlessness in Zen is not the concept of being formless, but rather the reality of the Self that is formless. It is this True or Formless Self that we call Zen.
Zen, therefore, is nothing “particular.” It is, in the ultimate sense, nonparticular, totally undifferentiated; what, again, in the true sense, never becomes an object never can be objectified. Zen is the Self that is ultimately and wholly beyond objectification; in brief, Zen is the Self-Awareness of Formlessness. It is this Self-Awareness—or Self—that Zen calls Buddha.
In Zen, Buddha is not anything we can see, believe in, or intuit, externally or objectively, and has no spatial, temporal, physical or mental form. While the ordinary Buddha of Buddhism is often regarded as something external, the Buddha of Zen is far from that. In Zen, Buddha is Formless Self-Awareness