Life’s Perspective:
AWAKENING ON REALITY, OR THE ULTIMATE ART OF CONFRONTATION — ZEN, OR EXPLORING THE ESSENTIAL NATURE OF THE HUMAN MIND AND ALL BEINGS
by Thiện Võ
1. Continuous Essential Nature:
Do you know that your “essential human being,” as well as the reality of existence itself, is fundamentally a continuous, ever-present process?
Even when you sleep and are not conscious, the unconscious continues to regulate the body — breathing and the heartbeat never stop.
The same is true for your species: though individual bodies and generations are born and die, the genes — the essential nature of the species — are transmitted and continue to exist.
This is not limited to the body, family, company, nation, society, or nature.
This uninterrupted continuity therefore goes beyond what the human mind or the ego can grasp — beyond all clinging to knowledge or holding onto the forms of things.
Continuity is precisely the characteristic, the Essential Nature of the existence of all things — like “dying while still alive,” “departing while returning,” “ending from the very beginning”…
Take the Way of the Sword as an example. It is not only about being awake and defending or attacking an opponent on the “dueling ground.” Even before there is an opponent, or even while simply walking, the hand never leaves the sword; awareness remains continuous and unchanging. When the opponent finally appears, everything is still in that continuous “already there,” “being as it is,” and nothing feels sudden or abrupt.
Continuity is the expression of the Essential Nature of Knowing: knowing when there is a scene, and knowing when there is no scene.
2. The Meditation of “Immovable Stillness”:
Essential Nature is also immovable stillness.
Do you think you are standing still, or are you always moving?
If you are truly standing still, it means you are at the center — at Essential Nature. The place of departure is the place of return. Living is within dying. Gaining is within losing. Beginning is within ending. Movement is within stillness…
In internal martial arts, the stance (Tấn Pháp) means the feet remain balanced and immovable so that all movement can occur. Even when struck by a strong external force from an opponent, one merely slides within that balanced stillness.
Movements or techniques may or may not be present, but the balanced stance that meets every impact or resistance is always there. Techniques, concepts, or thoughts rest upon this immovable, still stance — which encompasses all interactions and movements, or “reality before it unfolds.”
In other words, the state of standing still and immovable is the total balance of all resisting forces from every direction. In physics, this is the law that action and reaction are always equal (their sum is zero) — the totality, the immovable Source.
Thus the art of martial confrontation is elevated into the Martial Way of immovable stillness, or “an unchanging mind amidst the ten thousand changes of life.”
3. The Principle of “Awakening on Reality” and the Ultimate Art of Confrontation:
There is a story of a samurai who, from the day he entered training until he became a master of the sword, was taught only two words: Awakening (Mindfulness).
At the beginning, his teacher did not teach sword techniques but made him sweep the courtyard. Eager to learn the sword, he swept but was not truly present. His mind wandered into the future, hoping for achievement, or drifted into the past of likes, dislikes, and emotional reactions.
This is just like us: while eating or working, we are still worrying or thinking about all kinds of other things, not truly present in the living moment.
To be present in the current moment means there is no future or past covering it — only then can one directly and truly see reality as it is for living existence.
It is forgetting the past and everything that has already passed, emptying the future of hopes that have not yet arrived, and simply being “right here,” “right now.”
It is like the first time, fresh and new.
It is “beginning within ending.”
It is the absence of a “doer.”
It is continuity within stillness, or stillness within quiet awareness.
It is the “invisible background frame” that is “already there,” “being as it is,” while the painting itself is “impermanent and ever-changing”…
It is like a Zen koan — a question without an answer — valuable precisely because it keeps one awake, present, and attentive in a reality that is itself “not yet known” or “unknowing.”
After the samurai had trained for some time, his teacher allowed him to “descend the mountain.” In a certain village, in order to protect the people, he had to face five bandits.
The leader of the bandits saw the samurai’s calm and composed demeanor as he stood before the five of them with empty hands, and dared not attack. One of his men, seeing this, rushed forward to test him. But just as the bandit’s sword was about to reach the samurai, it suddenly froze!
Even though the subordinate had not yet fully submitted in his heart to the leader’s decision to back down, the samurai’s awakened, present, and attentive bearing acted like a “wave field” that penetrated through all forms and thoughts — a transmission that was “right here,” “right now,” “as if already there” in the bandit’s own mind.
All thinking about past or future can only exist in the present moment. Thus, through presence and being there, the past and future, the intentions of desire, and the habits of memory are all released or dissolved, while one discovers their source — “departing and returning,” “ending before beginning” — right in the present.
4. The Moment and Essential Nature, or Zen and “Ordinary Mind is the Way”:
The moment is the fundamental, indivisible unit of time. Moments are organized and connected to form time. This means that the present moment is immovable — within the impermanent, changing, temporary flow of time.
In other words, the moment itself is the original unit, the Essential Nature of time!
Just as “water” is Essential Nature — always present in phenomena such as waves, mist, clouds, rain, snow, rivers, lakes, ponds, and oceans…
These myriad phenomena all possess the Essential Nature of “water,” yet Essential Nature itself is not identical with any of those phenomena. Essential Nature is the original, immovable continuity of presence, while its manifestations may disappear or transform from one form to another.
Therefore, the samurai’s Way of the Sword is the mastery or discovery of the life-and-death moment, because the moment is precisely the Essential Nature of time.
In daily life it is the same. Opportunity lies in each individual moment, not in the participation of the processes of memory, craving, or the hope for achievement. In business, the owner is “not two,” “not different” from the employees — just as Essential Nature, the original substance, enters into the employees or into people’s hearts continuously and immovably…
To be present and awake on reality is for everything to be like the very “beginning,” or “beginning within ending.”
It is like a child’s mind that “does not know” and “has no preconceived notions,” so it is present with eager innocence and fresh curiosity.
It is like acting without a doer, because presence in the moment has not yet allowed the ego-thought to arise.
It is practicing as if there is no more practicing, because one is “being as it is” on reality, with all difficulties and problems “right here,” “right now.”
Or, to put it simply and precisely: the present moment of presence is an original “closed” or “Tai Chi circle,” with no more distraction or projection from past memories or future hopes.
Like leaving home in the mind, the Buddha-nature manifests into the world according to the great stream of causes and conditions. And because presence is continuous within stillness, “thought is also reality,” “Intention, Energy, and Force share the same Essential Nature,” and “energy is Mind-Intention.”
Since the moment is also Essential Nature, Zen, or “ordinary mind is the Way,” it is “not two,” “not different” from phenomena, from existing things, from present existence…