TRANSCENDING RIGHT AND WRONG

Is there such a thing as right and wrong?

In these times of increased polarization, how can we reach mutual agreement about what is right and what is wrong: Make a list of pros and cons? Conduct a survey? Do more research? Or will we just be immobilized by the enormity of it all?

Trying to work our way through all the possible permutations of “if-this-then-that” to find the “right” answer is like trying use our brain to predict all possible moves when playing against a chess grand master. Because we can never anticipate all possibilities. we become more mired in the morass of yes-and-no, right-and-wrong.

The January/February 2026 issue of Smithsonian magazine contains an article about the Artemis 2 mission’s trip to the moon and back with its crew of four. Journalist Linda Shiner points out that it is impossible to anticipate every way that one – or any combination – of the spacecraft’s 355,056 parts can fail. Thus, in addition to built-in hardware redundancies, the mission’s months long training program asks crew and engineers to find solutions to the repeated question, “What if?” Ultimately, they accept they cannot ever predict all possibilities.

This becomes even more of a problem when we are convinced that we are right and that everyone else is wrong. (“It’s so obvious. How can they be so blind?”) In this situation, it is more important than ever to be aware of all options and changing circumstances.  

Is there another way to make decisions, a way that bypasses all intellectual exercise and emotion? The simple answer is yes. Getting to yes, however, is not simple.

Think of it this way: You can look at all options and negate them one by one and finally conclude that you cannot account for all possibilities –like the Artemis 2 engineers’ predicament. Or you can negate yourself, and then all those options no longer exist because there is no one agonizing about them.

In Zen training, we must work to find our True Nature, which is that we and the universe are one. By removing Self from the equation and proceeding from a position of No-Self, our actions then originate from beyond all senses, including intellect. Now there is no thought or deliberation because there is no one thinking or deliberating. Do not wonder, “What should I do?” because doing that puts us back in the realm of the “I” deciding.

This is Zen scholar D.T. Suzuki’s description of actions stemming from self-awareness:

“Where individualism is emphasized, the mutually restricting feeling of tension prevails. There is no freedom here, no spontaneity, but a deep, heavy atmosphere or inhibition, suppression, and oppression overpowers one and the result is psychological disturbance in all its varieties.”

He further notes:

“Even when religion and ethics are talking of the same thing they are moving in the world of spirit and the intellect respectively. Both may refrain from evil, but in the moral man there is a feeling of constraint, whereas the spiritual man moves naturally, showing no trace of conflict or the need of choice.”

In Zen, we train to develop the self so that no matter what happens when, we already respond appropriately in that particular time and space. No hesitation. No doubt. No wondering, “What if?”

From the position of No-Self, what is appropriate happens on a case-by-case basis. There are no rules, regulations, expectations, or precedents restricting you. This does not mean, however, that you can just do whatever you want, whenever you want. Instead, because you transcend your sense of self and are Emptiness itself, actions do not stem from greed, anger, ignorance, or doubt.

In simpler language, 17th century Zen Master Bunan says:  

“While alive

Be a dead man,

Thoroughly dead;

And act as you will,

And all is good.”

Bunan is not referring to physical death. Rather, he is talking about the Great Death, which comes from the realization that it is our own minds that create all dualism; from a Zen perspective, there is none: no right or wrong, no good or evil, no birth or death.

In the life of No-Self, the “right” action just happens, as-is. Even if actions look the same from the outside, internally one action stems from restraint and the other from total freedom that transcends all right and wrong.