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Originally Posted by ludlow  But are they just inherently contradictory? Or can they be reconciled? If getting caught up with thinking is somehow a distraction from Being, does that mean you have to reject the idea that thought is the basis of reality? Can you believe in some kind of Zen-like "enlightenment" and also believe in The Secret? |
You are right, they are contradictory. Like Advaita, Zen has the concept of Form vs. Emptiness, Maya vs. Brahman, Absolute vs. Relative. When we speak of trancending the illusion of separateness, an expansive plane of consciousness, etc., we are speaking about this Absolute reality. But its important to remember that this reality is not some altered state of consciousness -- it is the ground on which all consciousness arises, even very unusual and strange types of consciousness. Zen practice means dropping your sense of a separate self, and realizing Emptiness. LoA says that ordinary reality is created by the mind, but this is only true of Big Mind, Absolute Mind.
The misunderstanding in LoA is that ordinary reality is created by ordinary mind. Realizing that the world is an illusion means that we give up our need to have power over it. Its an illusion -- why chase after it? In chasing after it, we make it real.
The true answer to the question 'What is ultimate reality?' is that there is no answer. The one who asks the question simply goes away. No questioner, no question.
Now, there are many ways to train our ordinary minds to try to conquer ordinary reality and make it do what we want, but this has nothing to do with realizing Emptiness. In fact, it can get in the way. The more mastery we feel over the ordinary world, the more "solid" and ultimate we make it. LoA, like all personal development is about enhancing, supporting and solidifying the separate self -- the questioner, the seeking mind -- and giving it what it wants. And this can be very useful -- you need to have an ego before you can begin to break it down, and realize the illusion.