Mushin, the Highest State of Consciousness in Zen Buddhism. (China, Japan).

Abstract

Mushin or void self is explored through the lives and teachings of six masters: Bodai Daruma, Eno Daikan, Rinzai Gigen, Hakuin Ekaku, Omori Sogen, and Tanouye Tenshin. Daruma transmitted Zen from India to China. He established sitting meditation as the basic practice and described mushin as realizing the Unconscious. The Unconscious refers to an awareness of all as One Mind. Chinese Zen matured with Eno who taught that enlightenment was an instantaneous seeing into Self-nature and that meditation and intuitive wisdom were inseparable. The life and psychotherapy of Milton Erickson are offered as a commentary on the bodhisattva with his attributes of intuitive wisdom, great compassion, and skillful means. One of two major existing lines of Zen traces its lineage back to Rinzai. He described the person who abides in mushin as the True Man without Title who makes himself the master of any situation. Fencing with its dem and for fearless, unrestrained action provides a fitting commentary to his teachings. Miyamoto Musashi, perhaps the greatest swordsman in Japanese history, wrote that the void was the deepest principle of fencing. Hakuin was the Japanese Rinzai master who revived Zen when it was degenerating into a cultural pastime. He taught cultivating ki, the basic life energy, at the t and en, the vital center two inches below the navel. He described mushin as experiencing the free, indivisible flow of ki constituting the universe. An abbot of Tenryu-ji, Omori founded Chozen-ji, a temple in Hawaii. He formally integrated martial and cultural arts with Zen training. His instructions in zazen are given. Tanouye currently heads Chozen-ji. He emphasizes entering Zen through the body. A lecture of his on mushin as the immovable mind which does not move because it does not stop, does not stop because it is void of attachments, and a description of training at Chozen-ji are presented. Speculations about a psychotherapy based on Zen training and the nature of research in transpersonal psychology conclude the study.