The attitude of the spirit flows naturally from a profound concentration on the posture and breathing. In zazen, the cerebral cortex stands still and the conscious flow of thoughts stops, while the blood moves to the deepest layers of the brain. Better irrigated, the brain awakens from a semidream and its activity gives the impression of welfare, calm and serenity, as in a deep dream, but in complete wakefulness. The nervous system relaxes, the primitive brain starts to work. You become receptive, attentive, in the highest stage, through all the cells of your body. You learn to think with your body, unconsciously, without using any energy. It has nothing to do with making your thoughts stop, which would be even worse, but it is about letting them pass like clouds in the sky, like reflections in a mirror, neither opposing them nor attaching to them. This way, shadows pass and vanish. And little by little, once the subconscious images arise and disappear, one arrives at the deep unconscious, with no thoughts, beyond any thought, to HISHIRYO, true purity.
HISHIRYO is the state of consciousness of zen meditation. SHIRYO is thinking, FU SHIRYO non-thinking. HISHIRYO is absolute thinking, beyond thinking and non-thinking. Beyond dualities, contradictions, opposites, beyond all problems of personal consciousness. It is our Original Nature, Buddha Nature, the Cosmic Unconscious.
When the mind empties and the intellect is calm, peaceful, at rest, nothing obstructs the deep intuitive and unlimited life force that springs up from the depths of our being, that which precedes all thought. That is the eternal flow of the activity of the Cosmos.
The spirit constains all the cosmos. The mind is faster than light.
Practising zazen, sitting, without goal, you can experience and understand MUSHOTOKU and HISHIRYO, secrets and essence of Zen. But this understanding must be beyond that of common sense or intellectual logic. It is direct perception, here and now.
Mushotoku is the attitude of non-profit, of not wanting to gain anything for yourself. It is essential to true Zen practice. Giving without expecting to receive, abandoning everything without fear of losing, observing oneself. As in every piece of art, the artist must give himself over completely, with no expectation of winning glory, beauty, richness, to express himself in a beautiful, pure, authentic piece of art, the same way the disciple will develop wisdom if they want to know themselves, to go beyond themselves, giving themselves without expecting to receive.
If you abandon all, you will obtain all.
HISHIRYO is cosmic consciousness and not personal consciousness. We can directly experience this during zazen. We usually think of our family, friends, anxieties, jobs, holidays, all the phenomena that arise from our memories and daily life. But during zazen, we concentrate on posture and breathing, our thinking calms and cools, we harmonize with the cosmic current and abandon our ego selves, permitting the subconscious to rise to the surface. Our thoughts expand and deepen, attaining universal consciousness. Through zazen we can go to the bottom of this ultimate consciousness. This is the essential art of zazen.
“Thinking non-thinking,” wrote Master Dogen, “How do we think without thinking? Think from the depths of non-thinking.” This is cosmic consciousness. HISHIRYO consciousness.
Our conscious senses cannot define it, words cannot explain it. It comes only through our living zazen experience. HISHIRYO is the harmonizing of objective and subjective views, ultimate consciousness beyond time and space, the highest consciousness, universal, beyond all phenomena, beyond all existences, beyond thinking and non-thinking. To experience hishiryo consciousness, that is Zen.