No Preferences

“The Perfect Way knows no difficulties, except that it refuses to make preferences”. (Shinjinmei, 6th Century China)
 
Gendo's commentary.

“No preferences” is not doctrine.  Strive to have no preferences?  The project is already impossible!  How can you achieve no preference without preferring it?
 
“No preferences” is just what’s happening.  There are moments, like the startling sight of a bright sunrise, like the cry of a new born baby, moments of full awareness that are, for a moment, unselfconscious,  beyond thought or opinion.  But look carefully, and those moments are happening all the time. The first instance of any awareness is an experience devoid of thought or opinion.  
 
Quickly,  those selfless moments become objects of thought - “Oh, what a beautiful baby!” – or something else we name and judge as likable or not.  We habitually separate 'self' and gaze on the objects of our preference in an act of consciousness.
 
Zen teaches that human beings have learned consciousness to protect their situation..   Of course, we prefer to cross the street safely rather than not.  We are constantly experiencing and acting on a preference.  

But our preferences are not the whole picture.  Like it or not, the universe does not hinge on our preferences.  Self-absorption and all its miseries and delights are not the end of the story.  “The person who distrusts himself…interposes between himself and reality nothing less than a labyrinth of attitudes.” (James Baldwin, 1946)
 
Zen teaches that the underlying ‘truth’ of our situation is not an object..  It's nature is selfless ('true') and all embracing ('love').   It is empty of preferences, empty of opinion and thought.   But ancient Zen teacher Huineng warns: "don't cling to emptiness when you hear me speak of emptiness."   A truth fixated is no longer true!  Religions warn against golden calves and images of God, and still, people fixate the warning itself and war against sinners. “Those who find fault with others are themselves at fault.” 
  
Zen points to a stillness in the midst of paradox, in the midst of a conscious mind that discriminates good and bad, healthy and sick, right and wrong, life and death.  Suffering itself instructs: “Wake up!  No preferences! Cling to neither joy or despair. Know the 'middle way,'  Know wise (selfless) action.  Know it for yourself, without which all such words are worthless.