The Zennist

Watkin's spiritual list to the rescue

Spiritual wisdom is supposed to be direct knowledge of spirit or absolute Mind, itself.  This is something only a sage knows or has realized.  Everybody else is drifting along more or less deluded who have other important things to do besides sitting in a cave focused on seeing the clear light Mind.  They have a job, their family and children to worry about.  All this is important, but only from a relative point of view.

So somebody has to minister to these lost people.  But who can do it?  Watkin's Spiritual 100 List is a list of the who's who in the day-to-day world of spiritually oriented consumers who are starting to sense that life is not a bouquet of freshly cut roses.

I am sure more names could have been added to extend the list considerably.  One hundred names are not exhaustive.  Still, this list of names gives us a fairly good idea what spiritual consumers are looking for.  

However, much of the spiritual medicine offered by many members of the list is not fundamentally spiritual.  Much of the medicine, I would argue, falls under the category of hedonism.  Such can be thought of as joyful avoidance which is bent upon avoiding the heaviness and gloom of life so as to take renewed delight in the senses.  This includes learning to be in the here and the now, or the same, the present moment.  It also means to be free of Freud's ego which is always trying to dethrone the pleasure-principle.  Joyful avoidance includes learning to be free of restrictions and boundaries which thus allows us to search for new meanings, interpretations, and purposes which avoid authentic spirituality.

For those of us who still have a spiritual conscience left, Watkin's Spiritual 100 List is entertaining; which can be easily satirized.

 

Buddhism the easy way

It is much easier to know what the Buddha did not teach than what he taught.  For example, any materialistic interpretation of Buddhism can be rejected.  It simply lacks credibility since it can’t deal with nirvana which is transcendent and deathless according to the Buddhist canon.  Only beginners get hooked on a materialistic interpretation of Buddhism because they have not read what the Buddha actually taught.  

On this same score, it is fairly easy  to show that the Buddha did not deny the self which in Pali is natthattâ (this can been seen in the Ananda Sutta at S. iv. 400).  To deny the self is nihilism. Nihilism is antithetical to Buddhism.  There is no dispute.  It is also fairly easy to show that the Buddha did not teach the self to be any of the Five Aggregates or a phenomenon. 

It is also easy to show that the Buddha did not spend much time showering his wisdom on the non-stream entered who are called puthujjana.  The Buddha was certainly not into self-help psychology either; not the way Buddhists are today.  Nor was he running a clinic for the mentally afflicted or handing out blankets to the homeless.  The Buddha was no Mother Teresa.

It is easy to show that the Buddha did not believe in a creator god (demiurge) like the god of Abraham and Moses.  For the Buddha all created things are impermanent, suffering, and not our self.

When we look at modern Zen, much of it has nothing to do with the Buddha’s teachings.  The Buddha did not demand of his disciples that they do zazen or just sit (J., shikantaza)!  Nor did he teach that we are already fully awakened Buddhas and all that we see is also Buddha-nature.  Also, using the older canon and the Mahayana, Avatamsaka Sutra, it is easy to show that the Buddha never taught a lineage beginning with Mahakashyapa.

Often people imagine that the Buddha taught such and such.  But more than likely the evidence is not there.  When the evidence is not there, many times revisionism rears its ugly head.  I am never surprised to see how much of it goes on in modern Buddhism.

 

The problem with religious Buddhism

The most obvious difference between religion and spirituality is the former exists within a structured organization while the latter does not.  Another important difference to consider is that religion is generally materialistic whereas spirituality seeks a transcendent reality beyond the reaches of the material.  This is nowhere more evident than in Christianity where there is still an ugly divide between orthodoxy and gnosticism.

From what as been said so far Buddhism, we can say, was born out of spirituality—not religion.  And to the extent that it relies on a religious structure the spiritual content of Buddhism remains more or less hidden for those who follow it religiously. 

If I decide to visit my local Dharma center or Zen center, I am entering a religious organization that has structure.  There is hierarchy, too.  I will have to learn my place and follow my teachers.  So far this may appear okay but in my own experience of having been a member of several Dharma centers, the  spiritual message of Buddhism is very seldom taught if at all.  It is something you have to do on your own.

Sometimes organization and structure are necessary but in religion its seems almost counterproductive since it only serves to hide the spiritual content of religion.  On this same score, I have to say it is much easier to add organization and structure to Buddhism than spirituality.  It is easier to crank out conformists than spiritual seekers, in other words.

If anything, too much organization and structure inevitably end up laying the foundation for a kind of institutional insanity.  It is often the case that those who are most blind will be found leading the unsure blind.

If Buddhism is to serve as a guiding light out of the dark valley of spiritual blindness so that we might find our real Buddha-nature, then it is going to have to stop thinking like a modern structured religion.  I would rather see twenty-five people chip in fifty bucks or so a month and rent part of an old building, then use the place for discussions, conversations, and meditation; inviting anyone they wish to talk about a particular subject of Buddhism, and leave it at that.  Admittedly, this is not spiritual but neither is it religious.

 

Above all gods

I am going out on a limb by saying this, but the religions of Abraham don’t have anything close to resembling Buddhist ‘nirvana’ in the sense of a necessary attainment or awakening.  In this regard, the offspring of Abraham don’t attain anything.  A follower only has to believe and to follow—to be one of the mindless flock.  Eventually, God and his prophets will make everything turn out right—but this never happens.     

This is not religion.  The whole thing stinks.  The religions of Abraham smother spirit in a concerted effort to destroy it.  They put in its place a ridiculous mythology—a tall tale—made for the weakest of minds who are overly attached to the flesh; who wallow in materialism.

What a child of Abraham doesn’t want to hear is that every creature is animated by what is eternal and immortal.  More to the point, each of us is the immediacy of this animative spirit.  But we are unable to see or sense it because we are deeply bound by the animated—bewitched by it.  In our foolishness we give it a name.  We call it “Zeus” or “God” which further kills spirit.  We become even more blind.

When the Buddha began to teach sentient beings, the essence of his message was simple:  Mind, as pure spirit, must turn away from the flesh in order for it to realize itself.  This is nirvana.  Said again, nirvana is Mind or spirit beholding itself having completely penetrated through its illusory creations (samskrita).  Spirit finally awakens (buddha) to its sovereignty.  It is above all name and form; above all gods.

 

A historic Buddha doesn't matter

It does not matter that Gautama the Buddha actually existed. The fact is that his teachings,  composed by other minds or authentic, have been advanced by many people—and are still being advanced.  This is the reality of Buddhism that we must deal with.  It matters not if we cannot prove the Buddha’s actual existence unlike the problem Christians are faced with if the story of Jesus’ miraculous birth from a virgin, crucification and resurrection cannot be proved to have actually taken place.

What we have of Buddhism, in its huge canon, is a path that teaches us that the substance of reality can be intuited by us thereby freeing us from our bondage to the world of phenomena (including rebirth) which endlessly rises and ceases, again and again, bringing nothing but suffering.

If anyone intuits such a substance, after studying the canon of Buddhism, Buddhism, as a teaching, is validated in much the same way that the Socratic method is of great value even though we cannot prove that Socrates was an actual person who lived in Athens. 

 

Moving beyond human experience

I have always been more or less of the opinion that  modern Buddhists are more interested in trying to find effective ways of coping with the samsaric world, including trying to bring Buddhism closer to modern science (whatever “science” today means), than trying to understand the real message of the Buddha that can be found only in the canon.  

Their strategy seems to be, take parts of Buddhism that resonate with modern values while leaving the rest out of the picture, if not sometimes raising doubts with regard to rebirth, for example.

Where this all ends up, or maybe I should say, what this accomplishes is to glorify our present day world as if this is the best of all possible worlds when, in fact, this is not true.  The lives people are leading right now are screwed up in a number ways (how about health, for example?).  

Let’s face it, modern society is decadent and has been so for some time.  In addition, those who run the machinery, i.e., those who hold the reigns of power are, for the most part, corrupt.  The average person seems to forget that the 20th century was the century of genocide and annihilation (if you add the Cold War to this).

Modern religious values are equally decadent.  The modern soul believes that it is privileged to offer its verdict on all religions, moreover, that the goal of religion is to find God, or the absolute (which ever you prefer), in human experience.  We Buddhists already see this in the expression “everyday Zen” or “ordinary Zen” both of which are really saying: Our human, everyday experience is the Buddhic life.

Why the modern soul chooses to locate religious experience in human experience is puzzling to say the least.  It is even more puzzling when a Buddhist like Thich Nhat Hanh says: "Religious experience is inevitably human experience.  It has to do with the human consciousness, both individual and collective” (Living Buddha, Living Christ).  This is almost like saying the words of ordinary beings are the same as those of the Buddha!  But this is wrong from the standpoint of the Nikayas and the Mahayana canon.  First of all, it should be obvious that the Buddha’s awakening is very important because it transcends all human experience.  Instead of being bound down to his human experiences a Buddha awakens to his true nature which is transcendent.  

While the Buddha was smart the modern human being is not so smart.  Using Pierre Teilhard de Chardin’s words, “We are spiritual beings having a human experience” which, let me add, is bringing us nothing but suffering—and still we cling to the human experience, refusing to transcend it.  So does this mean the human race is masochistic?  Think about it.

 

My thoughts about early Christians and Buddhists

Okay, I have been reading Elaine Pagels book, The Gnostic Paul.  The more I read Pagel’s book, the more I see a Buddhist Paul—a Buddhist Jew if you like!  Here are some of my thoughts. 

Paul and the early Christians went through much the same thing as did Buddhists earlier—even differentiating the profane from the spiritually elect.  Christianity’s New Testament was not under the Torah or Law anymore.  It was similar to Buddhism which had earlier rejected the efficacy of the external rites of the Vedas.  Both Christianity and early Buddhism were spiritual or pneumatic.  

Like the early Buddhists, Christians did not rely on works.  As with Mahayana Buddhism, they relied on faith which was gnosis or jñâna based. 

For Buddhists and Christians who  truly understand the esoteric meaning of the Kingdom or the Dharmadhâtu, it is a superessential, living substance—not of flesh. (“flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God...” 1 Cor 15:50–52.)  Our cosmos or lokadhâtu, is only the phenomenalization of the one living substance (ekacitta) which is beyond every temporal conception.  Moreover, this cosmos is, so to speak, run by a demiurgic creator God or in Buddhism, Mara the Evil One, who is defeated by the Buddha when he was a Bodhisattva under the Bodhi-tree. 

Over time, Christianity turned into a kind of anti-Christianity which became an admixture of Law and passion, the latter being thought to be spiritual—but in fact is a complete distortion of Paul’s Christianity.  

Buddhism could possibly suffer the same fate, except that its canon is for everyone to read and to study with no restriction—and no Papacy.  What, of course, will happen to Buddhism—and this blog is an example—true Buddhists will simply use the canon to support their spiritual grasp of Buddhism which is the correct one.  Presently, Buddhist centers have a bad case of canon-phobia much preferring sit on their arses and do nothing.

 

Buddhism will suffer the same fate as Christianity

Christianity in the West has been around far longer than Buddhism in the West.  It has undergone profound changes—and not good ones.  If fact, it can be argued that present day Christianity is not the same as early Christianity.  Eventually, Buddhism in the West will suffer the same fate.  It will not be the Buddhism of the Buddha but something quite different.  

Historically speaking, there are two important exegesis in Christianity.  The first is spiritual or commonly called “gnostic” which is related to the pneumatic man.  The second is antignostic with a strong this-worldliness emphasis (I hasten to add literalism and historicism as subcategories).  It is related to the psychic or animal man.  This is the Christianity that has survived being successful at eliminating the gnostic, often in a violent way.

Buddhism is also not without its own two important exegesis much like in Christianity.  There is the aryan or noble exegesis of the Buddha’s teachings and the common or prithagjana (P. puthujjana) exegesis.  In  his book, Divine Revelation in Pali Buddhism, Peter Masefield has done an excellent job of laying out the decisive differences between the aryan exegesis and the common (P. puthujjana).  Incidentally, of all the books in my small library, Masefield’s is the most underlined.

Not wishing to waste the reader’s time, to put it bluntly, common Buddhism never gets off of the wheel of samsara—never.  Those who follow it are only capable of enjoying a “dung-like happiness” (M. i. 454) according to the Buddha, in addition to still being subject to the rule of Mara the Evil One.

Buddhists who attend Dharma or Zen centers, even including monks and nuns, fall into the general category of being followers of common Buddhism.  This Buddhism is far from being supermundane or lokuttara.  Such people wallow in ignorance and misdeeds continually giving rise the Five Aggregates (khandhas/skandhas) which means they see their Buddha-nature or true self in what is entirely empty of Buddha-nature.

Buddhism stands on more solid ground than Christianity when looking at spiritual exegesis or in Christianity, pneumatic exegesis.  Mahayana Buddhism, if we look into it for supermundane teachings is all supermundane or pneumatic.  The teachings contained in the more important Sutras of the Mahayana canon are given to Bodhisattvas or, the same, Buddhas-to-be.  All have attained the Mind that is awakened or Bodhicitta which is essentially Buddhahood only not fully and completely developed.  As much as it might offend the ordinary Buddhist, Mahayana teachings are not for common Buddhists.  These Buddhists  have no idea of what is going on.  

Unfortunately, the Buddhism of the West is probably going to end up like Christianity of the West which is dominated by the psychic or animal exegesis.  It is almost certain that those who become the teachers of Western Buddhism will ignore most of the Pali and Mahayana canon for obvious reasons.  They will twist the Buddha’s words to reflect a teaching which resonates with the common or animal man.  And finally, they will justify a kind of censorship—all in the name of good, naturally.  This all works to protect the status quo so that no real change occurs, that is, no real change from the common or animal man to the spiritual or pneumatic man. 

 

The calling

I just got done watching the four-hour PBS documentry, The Calling.  The documentry follows Muslims, Catholics, Evangelical Christians and Jews.  (Where are the Asian religions?  Oops!).  

I guess one can describe all of them as having been called by God to do his work.  The calling for each, however, appears to be subjective this calling going no further than the religious culture each elects to follow which is hardly ‘spiritual’.

Let’s face it, the followers of the major religions of today generally use religion for other than its intended purpose, its intended purposed being to realize one’s true nature which is absolute spirit.   A historical case in point.  The Christian Paul said that the New Covenant is one of spirit (pneuma); not one based upon letters.  Paul even says that the Lord is spirit ((O de kyrios to pneuma estin).  It is safe to say from Paul’s letters that those who take Christianity at a literal level belong to the Old Covenant which keeps the spiritual covenant veiled.    

But the obvious references to spirit or “pneuma” in Paul’s letters, as we know, did not stop the followers of Christianity from making a counterfeit Christianity which is arguably, anti-spiritual; which has been used primarily as a means of social control—mainly to keep the rich, rich and the poor, poor.  As a result of many years of being despiritualized, the Christian ministry, itself, has been transformed into a “ministry of condemnation” (II. Corinthians 3:9).  Does all this sound familiar dear Buddhists?  It should.

The same mind that made a counterfeit Christianity is busy destroying Buddhism; turing it into something which is spiritually dead.  It always seems to be the case that what emerges after the flowering of true religion, over time, paradoxically turns into a system which destroys true religion, making the soil for its growth and development, barren.  Thus religion eventually becomes its own hangman.  What is originally spirit, over time, becomes veiled.  The clergy not only become the guardians of the veil, they also become overseers and guardians of herd values, values which insure the veil will never be lifted!

Buddhism is the last stronghold of true religion which is still growing in the soil of mysticism which includes shamanism.  But its destruction is likely given the fact that it is being rapidly “westernized” which is to say, it is being turned into a religion that celebrates herd values; that, in addition, makes the profane man (prithagjana) the great hero despite the fact that this man’s history in recent memory has been one of genocide and the destruction of earth’s biosphere.

 

Buddhist heretics?

While the Buddha was alive he had heretics.  One was Yamaka who strongly believed that one whose taints are destroyed is annihilated and perishes with the breakup of the body and does not exist beyond death (param marana). Then there was the heresy of Sati.  Sati believed that consciousness is autonomous and thus transmigrates unchanged (anañña).  

I am sure there were other less known heresies mainly put forth by those who didn’t fully understand the Buddha’s teaching.  

Today, we don’t like to use the word heresy.  It brings up extremely negative mental images.  Some of us might recall the horrible deeds of the Catholic Church that when they executed a heretic, such as a witch, for example, they might first strangle her then tie her body to a stake and set it afire.

Buddhist heresy is quite different.  The Buddhist heretic was one who harbors and spreads an evil wrong view (ditthi pâpika/pâpakam ditthigatam) which had the power to mislead one on the noble path. Because of being misled, the adept cannot attain nirvana.  It would be, in fact, impossible.  From the Buddha's perspective there is no wiggle room.  The noble path is straight and narrow.  Being nice and cheerful or working for world peace do not get one to yonder shore of nirvana.  But these are not heresies.  They only become such when someone believes that taking in stray cats, for example, is nirvana or more apt, “If you live with a difficult person, that’s nirvana” (this was said by the late Zen master Joko Beck). 

Today we still have Buddhist heretics although we aren’t supposed to call them that.  What they put forth as Buddhism ain’t real Buddhism.  If one were to follow the path these heretics have laid out they wouldn’t reach nirvana. To provide one popular example of a modern heresy, besides Joko Beck’s nirvana, it has to be the view that “just sitting” (J., shikantaza) is synonymous with Buddhahood.