Let Go! Theory and Practice of Detachment According to Zen

260 Pages·6.6 MB·English

by  Hubert Benoît

L E T G O !
Theory and Practice of Detachment
according to Zen
By HUBERT BENOIT
TRANSLATED BY ALBERT W. LOW
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
I should like to acknowledge the help given
to me in the translation of this book by
Mr T. S. Curteis who gave valuable advice
on the style, my wife Jean who did the
typing, and to Len and Yvonne who also
helped.
AUTHOR'S PREFACE
This book represents a culmination of thoughts which
made up The Supreme Doctrine.1 In spite of their
theoretical form, these studies have a practical aim;
the aim of all theory, when it concerns human realiza­
tion, is essentially practical.
The Supreme Doctrine, however, did not reach a
solution to the question of an effective technique for
‘letting-go’. I did not know then if such a technique
were possible or if intuitive understanding would be
sufficient.
Since then I have come to the conclusion that a
special ‘exercise’ must intervene in order to actualize
our understanding. The third part of this present work
is entirely devoted to this exercise, to the analysis of
language—an analysis on which this exercise is based
—and to the necessary conditions for it to be effective.
The first two parts constitute a long preamble, but
it is very necessary that they should be read in order to
understand the end of the book. The ideas of the Zen
about realization are so disturbing to our usual
opinions that I felt I had to gather together as many
viewpoints as possible to support these ideas.
1 The Supreme Doctrine, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1955
CONTENTS
PART ONE
1. Preparation for Sudden Illumination page 15
2. Outer and Inner Perception—Sensing and
Feeling 32
3- ‘Experiencing* 40
4*The Will to Experience : Its Contradictory
Nature 49
5- The Birth of Thought 57
6. Conscious and Impartial Thought 75
PART TWO
7*The Three Cosmic Planes 93
8. The Conflict of Human Life 107
9- The Idea of Perfection 130
10. The Inner Lacerations of Man 142
n. The Illusory ‘Enigma* of Death 154
12. The Aim of Intellectual Research 164
PART THREE
13- The Hierarchy of Psychomotive Power 173
14. The Complete Constitution of Man 186
15- The Structure of the World of Speech 196
16. Two Mental Automatisms 206
17- ‘The Word* 214
18. The Association of Ideas 221
19. The Expression of Thought 229
20. The Hypnotic Nature of Our Ordinary
Attention 234
21. Non-Convergent Language 241
22. Nbn-Convergent Language (continued) 248
23. Spiritual Methods 255
24. The Approach of Satori 261
25. The Conditions Required for Inner
Counter-Work to be Effective 267
CHAPTER i
PREPARATION FOR
SUDDEN ILLUMINATION
In our normal state of development, we are forced to live our lives
in a way which leads to an unhappy impasse. This is because of
the way we regard our relation to the outside world. For lack of
sufficient understanding, the view we have of our situation
creates an insoluble 'problem' for us. It is not a particular way
of living that constitutes the impasse, but the ignorance in
which all possible ways of living are carried on. Therefore it is
Utopian to seek a manner of living which might be a solution.
In the situation in which we see ourselves we can neither
advance nor retreat.
However, a Chinese proverb says, 'Where there is an impasse
there is a way out'; because the impasse itself is the way out;
because the complete realization of the impasse destroys its false
appearance. As long as the 'problem' is posed, it is insoluble.
There is a solution, but this is not the solution to the 'problem';
it is the perception that in reality there never was a problem.
I am, therefore, interested in giving up the search for new
ways of 'liberation' and in deepening my understanding. I want
to try to see the impasse in order to see that it does not exist.
Using all the ideas which have been awakened in my mind by
metaphysical teachings, I want to come back to the famous
'problem' of my situation in face of the outside world, no longer
this time in order to resolve it, but to reconsider it entirely.
As soon as I conjure up my situation in face of the outside
world, ideas of perception and attention offer themselves for my
examination. Since my present view of this situation is defective,
my perception of the world, and my attention to the world, are
also defective. How can I conceive the perfect perception, the
attention without error, which would permit me 'in an instant
to erase completely the cave of phantoms’? But, first of all, of
what do perception and attention in general consist?
15
Preparation for Sudden Illumination 17
Reality resides which also resides at the centre of the object. The
image that would then be formed in me would be totally
adequate to the object and my perception of the object would be
at the same time the perception of our identity. In other words,
the perception would be a trinitarian perception of the totality
of the object, of the totality of myself, and of the underlying
essence which makes us identical beneath our differences.
My ordinary perception is not of this kind. It lacks the under­
lying essence, the hypostasis, which alone would be able to realize
the identity beneath the differences. For lack of this essence, the
identity-in-the-difference is divided into identity and difference.
The discrimination between the object and myself corresponds to
all that is lacking in my partially-adequate image; the object, to
the degree that its totality eludes me, is a stranger to me. The iden­
tity which is not perceived is replaced by a fusion of two poles,
subject and object; in other words, by an identification. In
ordinary perception I am identified with an object whose reality
evades me, and moreover my own reality evades me also.
I said just now that I was able to offer my centre to the
phenomenon of resonance, but that I do not do so. One can
equally well say that the outer world offers to release in me a
total resonance, but that I refuse it; and this refusal corresponds
to my fundamental claim to-be-absolutely-in-so-far-as-distinct.
According to my present illusory view, an antagonism exists
between the outer world and myself because through certain of
its aspects, the outer world threatens the destruction of my
individual being. According to this view, the outer world is a
powerful not-self, an irreducible antagonist. Opposed to it, I
claim it is not and that I am. I claim, in being distinct, to be
the Absolute, permanent, unmovable, unconditioned. Without
doubt I am inevitably conditioned to a certain extent by the
outer world, but my claim is safe as long as I withhold my centre
from this conditioning. I certainly wish to enter into partial or
peripheral resonance with the stimuli of the outer world, but
not into total or central resonance. Besides, if I admit to being
partially conditioned by the outer world, it is because I do not
see the perception as a conditioning of me by the world, but as a
possibility for me to condition the world. I do not consider my
perceptive knowledge of the object as an identity between the
B
i8 Let Go !
object and me. This would destroy my claim to be absolutely-in-
so-far-as-distinct. I regard it as a superiority of myself over the
object. When I buy a tie, I do not see that the tie chooses me
just as much as I choose the tie. I only see that I choose it and
thereby keep the view of myself as unconditioned. In all percep­
tion, the world knows me at the same time as I know the world,
but I only want to see this perception as knowledge of the world
by me. I only want to see it as a possibility for me to condition
the world, as a proof of my power. The loss of a possible percep­
tion, the loss of sight for example, is felt as a negation. This
demonstrates well that the enjoyment of sight was felt as an
affirmation, as a means of conditioning the outside world.
There is another way in which I come to interpret my partial
conditioning, in perception, as an affirmation of my distinct
being. In awakening a part of me, the outer world makes me
aware of myself, it gives me a certain consciousness of myself. I
grasp the image that the world creates in me and, because the
image is an aspect of myself, I grasp myself at the same time. In
the impression that I have of what is happening in me, I
eliminate the part played by the outer world. I do not see that
we, the world and I, create in perfect equality; I only see myself
as the creator. I only see myself as conditioning my own realiza­
tion and using the outer world simply as an instrument for this
conditioning.
Let us come back now to attention. Perfect attention could be
defined as the act by which, in response to the offer of the outer
world, I await the total and simultaneous awareness of the
outer world and myself. This perfect attention would be at the
same time both active and passive because it would be the
acceptance of a gift offered; I would actively open myself to an
action coming from outside; I would choose to open myself
without choosing that to which I am open myself.
My attention, which plays a part in my present attitude of
opposition to the Not-self, is necessarily imperfect. Although my
periphery is open, my centre remains closed. I refuse to allow
this complete interpenetration between the outer world and
myself which would be perfect perceptive attention. I do not
know of the central identity of the two poles, subject and object,
and therefore this interpenetration seems to be a reciprocal
Preparation for Sudden Illumination 19
negation: to eat or to be eaten. Thus I wish to eat the outer world
without being eaten and I only open myself to the world because
I consider my penetration into the outer world to be concomitant
with this opening. I only allow the world to come into me in
order to grasp it, just as the web captures its prey. I only identify
myself with an aspect of the world in order to incorporate it in
me. My present attention is not only a state of attending but
also of tension; it should be compared, not with an open, still
hand, ready to receive, but with a hand that thrusts out and
grasps the awaited prey.
With this attitude my attention is necessarily partial. My
centre alone is universal, and therefore in harmony with all
aspects of the Universe; my periphery is personal, made up in a
particular manner, and has a selective attitude to the outer
world. Since I refuse my centre to the phenomenon of resonance,
the play of my attention is controlled by personal likes and dis­
likes. Perfect attention would be attention to all aspects of the
outer world whose emanations come to me at the same moment;
on the other hand, imperfect attention only puts me in conscious
relation with a single aspect of the outer world, which, though
more or less complex, is still unique. This is what is commonly
meant by saying that one can only pay attention to one thing
at a time.
Let us now look more closely at the nature of the refusal of
my centre and its closure to the outer world. The emanation
which comes to me from the object, through my sense organs,
releases in me the phenomenon of resonance and can be described
as a current of cosmic energy which unites two poles—the object
and myself. It is because of our centres that the object and I are
these two poles. The cosmic current of the perception therefore
necessarily touches my centre. The refusal does not consist in
the fact that my centre stays outside of the circuit, but in the
fact that the current is not exhausted there and that it is, on the
contrary, diverted towards my periphery. The current so diverted
exhausts itself in an image, a partial and peripheral aspect of my
being, which thus abnormally plays the part of the pole or
centre. My true centre fails to fulfil its function and this function
is taken over by an eccentric part of myself. This is how my
identification with an image occurs.
20 Let Go !
This method of representing what happens in me according to
my ordinary attention takes care of the two aspects—the aspect
of attending and the aspect of tension—that we have pointed
out. The part of the circuit which unites the object and my true
centre corresponds to the attending, the opening or the decon­
traction part; the end of the circuit, which goes from my true
centre to a peripheral and false centre, corresponds to the ten­
sion, the closure or the contraction part. If there were only the
first part, perception would be illumination; because the second
part is added, perception becomes darkness, false interpretation,
‘Maya’.
To the second part of the circuit, refracted from my true centre
on to an illusory centre, is connected my feeling. All conscious
perception affects me in my totality because the cosmic current
which sustains this phenomenon passes by my centre instead of
spending itself there. If my centre were to accept what comes to
it, it would not be affected by it, because this energy is its own,
since the centre of the object and my own centre are identical.
When I am affected by the cosmic energy passing through me,
it is not even the energy which affects me, but the disruptive
dualism of my acceptance and my refusal. The disruptive dualism
does not exist, as I am in the habit of believing, between the
outside object and myself; it exists entirely in myself—between
my true centre, which fails to assume its function, and my false
peripheral centre, which incorrectly assumes this function.
When I am strongly affected because of such and such an
incident in my life, I feel that I am internally displaced, beside
myself, and it is only after some time has elapsed that I re­
establish myself in myself. This correct inner intuition corres­
ponds to the tension we have spoken of between the true centre
and the false centre. That which has "displaced" me is therefore
not the thing perceived, but my simultaneous opening and
dosing of myself to the emanation of the outer world.
This picture of the perceptive circuit as two segments, the one
centripetal and the other centrifugal, enables us to understand
better what Zen teaches. Zen tells us that we are here and now
in a state of Satori, but that our restlessness prevents us from
recognizing this fact. The centripetal segment of perception
represents perfect perception, illumination, the perception of
Preparation for Sudden Illumination 21
Satori, and we can see that this perception really does exist in us
here and now. We lack nothing of what should normally happen
within us, but we are unhappy because something extra hap­
pens, a useless complication, represented by the centrifugal seg­
ment.
Our unhappiness is not that we close instead of opening,
refuse instead of accepting, but arises from the superaddition of
the closure on to the opening, the refusal on to the acceptance.
We do not, then, have to do something which at present we are
omitting; we have to neutralize something we are doing too
much.
We can go further in the study of attention. Having distin­
guished between perfect attention and imperfect attention, we
can discover in ordinary imperfect attention a new distinction.
Imperfect attention is the act by which I attend to and grasp
the appearance of a partial consciousness of the world and of
myself. The image that I perceive of an object is comparable, as
we have said, to a plane-section of the volume of the object. My
mental image, based on this image of the object, is comparable
to a plane-section of the volume of my being. The partial agree­
ment existing between the object and myself, in perception, con­
sists in the identity of these two sections. These two sections, of
the object and of myself, coincide; and this is why we have been
able to say that perception brings about an interpenetration of
the outer world and myself.
This coincidence between the outer image and the inner image
can be produced in two opposite ways—either the outer image
conditions the appearance of the inner image or else the inner
image conditions the appearance of the outer image. We have
already described the first way; let us now study the second.
We must, first of all, state clearly that we are only going to
concern ourselves here with attention-perception resulting in a
new image, establishing a new partial bridge between the outer
world and ourselves. We leave on one side the old images
accumulated in our memory, those mnemonic traces which
appeared earlier. When I dream, my imaginative film is com­
posed of images which can no longer be called outer or inner;
they are at the same time both and at the same time neither one
nor the other. Thus I may see the contents of my memory as the