Advaita on Zen and Tao: Insights on Huang Po & Lao Tzu

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We are at a unique moment in the evolution of spirituality. For centuries, sages of various traditions around the world have been expressing the Truth of non-duality; and their disciples have been faithfully preserving the teachings and passing them on. But it is only now, in this era of advances in mass communication, that it has become possible for a living sage of one tradition, to produce commentaries inspired by the mystical traditions of another.

Imagine if Chuang Tzu had written a commentary on the Bhagavad Gita, or if the sage Jnaneshwar had produced reflections on the Heart Sutra! Within these pages a similar dream has been realised commentaries on the teachings of the revered Zen Master Huang Po, and a modern Book of the Way inspired by Lao Tzu's Tao Te Ching, both written by Advaita Master Ramesh S. Balsekar.

The repetition of tradition cannot be termed as wrong, but when the teaching is embodied the teacher is at liberty to put it in his own words instead because he is It. Ramesh's words bridge the apparent gap of centuries and geographical boundaries, revealing the hidden Truth behind the illusion of time and space: Advaita, Zen, and Tao.

Ramesh Balsekar used to discuss the Indian philosophy of Advaita, daily at his residence in Mumbai, with visitors from around the world. His basic concept was that "all there is, is Consciousness;" all actions are happenings, the functioning of the Primal Energy, and not the doing by anyone. The author of over thirty books, Ramesh brought into unique focus what we all have to deal with in our daily living. His teaching has impacted the lives of many people.

The Chün Chou Record is a short diary written by P'ei Hsiu detailing the talks he heard of the great Zen Master Hsi Yün, sometime around 850CE in the city of Chün Chou, China. Hsi Yün lived as a hermit for many years on Mount Huang Po, and became known posthumously by that name alone. He is regarded as one of the great masters of the southern branch of the Zen sect of Buddhism, which taught the doctrine of non-duality, or 'sudden enlightenment'.

Just as English is recognisably the same language whether spoken in America, England, or India, the various teachings of non-duality, whether from Lao Tzu, Bankei, or Ashtavakra, all point to the same non-conceptual Truth. Consider the following, "The existence of things as separate entities or not as separate entities are both dualistic concepts... a man drinking water knows well enough if it is cold or warm." This quotation of Huang Po (Wan Chi Record, 50) could easily have been written by Ramesh S. Balsekar, the modern Indian Advaita Master. In the following pages, Ramesh brings home this point in his commentaries on the Chün Chou Record. He begins each section by paraphrasing the original wording of Huang Po's talks, and then goes on to elucidate its meaning in the conceptual framework of Advaita Vedanta.

In the teachings of the Zen Masters can surely be seen the brilliant exposition of some valid inner realisation of the basic Truth, not unlike the exposition of the same basic Truth in Advaita, by masters like Adi Shankaracharya and the sage Jnaneshwar. Indeed, there is the theory that Bodhidharma arrived in China bringing with him a doctrine of great antiquity from India.

Huang Po is regarded by many as the founder of the great Lin Chi (Rinzai) Sect which still continues in China and flourishes widely in Japan. Huang Po is generally known in Japan as Obaku.

Zen followers are not content to pursue Enlightenment through eons of varied rebirths, inevitably burdened with pain and ignorance, approaching with infinite slowness the supreme experience which Christian mystics have described as 'union with the Godhead'. They believe in the possibility of the happening of full Enlightenment through going beyond conceptual thinking and grasping the Intuitive Understanding.

This book has been broadly based on The Zen Teaching of Huang Po, translated by John Blofeld in 1958.