Kasulis differentiates thinking and without-thinking in his book Zen Action: Zen Person by focusing on language and logic as either a controlling or controlled function of our consciousness.
Thinking and Reality
Thinking is characterized by many of the same attributes of language and logic in that it is in the predication of any object through successive and connecting thoughts. It is used to generalized, categorize, and draw distinctions. However, Kasulis warns that words and categories are not equal to their referents, but mere symbols and metaphors. He writes:
"Words (and the concepts based on them) are ultimately empty and to be mistrusted as a medium for fully understanding the nature of experience (or of reality)[...] The Zen student is advised to return to the non-discriminating source of his or her experience." (Kasulis 12)
The threat that words pose is one of illusion: by becoming accustomed to and relying on previous perceptions and ideas about reality, one may fail to see the present for what it is. The seriousness of this illusion causes the individual to cease looking at the world with a sense of wonder due to logical and categorical veils that cause him or her to not really examine and experience the reality around him or her. Kasulis writes, "Zen Buddhism criticizes our ordinary, unenlightened existence by refusing to accept a retrospective reconstruction of reality." (Kasulis 60)
Thinking and its Useful Functions
Although there is error in conflating words and categories directly with their referents, they have an obvious utility for the everyday. The gap, as Kasulis writes, is not so great that words must be avoided altogether, but rather that one should be aware of how language and its underlying logic can shape and control thinking. A poignant example can be found in the subject/object distinction within language. For an enlightened being, this distinction does not exist. All sentient beings, in fact the entire universe, are inherently interconnected with each other and itself.
Without-thinking and Reality
Without-thinking is a form of consciousness that connects directly with reality without letting pragmatic functions such as language and logic control perception and experience. Instead, it is a pre-reflective state of entering into experience. This means that categories, concepts and the distinction between subject and object, to name a few, all collapse. Kasulis says that "the uniquely Zen context takes away specific regulations of responsibility, dissolves presupposed categories of personhood, and removes intellectualizations concerning who or what one is." (Kasulis 51) Therefore, when one is in the pre-reflective state, one is responding directly to the situation, as opposed to reflections one has already made about the situation. One is unassuming. Without-thinking is characterized by spontaneity, unity, and presentness.
Understanding Thinking and Without-thinking
Thinking and without-thinking are both states of human consciousness. The difference between these two states is dependent on the individual's relationship with pragmatic functions such as logic and language. In the state of thinking, one is unaware that he or she is controlled by these functions. When one is in the state of without-thinking, one is aware of these functions and uses them to direct their daily life but remains unassuming and pre-reflective in his or her perception and experience of reality.
Reference
Kasulis, T.P., Zen Action: Zen Person. Honolulu, HI: University of Hawaii Press, 1989.
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