The Zennist

Taking nirvana seriously

Relative to our temporal world and our own temporal life, the question of “What is nirvana?” has no concise, significant meaning for us.  Truth be told, it is not oblivion, or annihilation.  It is not a special kind of ego death after which we are released from suffering.  Western scholars who have tried to make sense of nirvana are aware of the problem of defining nirvana.  To be sure, there is a diversity of interpretations.  These interpretations can be, more or less, influenced by certain philosophical predilections.  Despite  these seeming differences there is some agreement in general. 

What we learn from the discourses of the Buddha is that nirvana is beyond existence and nonexistence.  It is understood to be in stark contrast with our world of temporal appearances.  It is certainly in stark contrast with dependent origination.  Hence, nirvana is completely transcendent.  

Nirvana, which involves a transcendent realization for the adept, presents a problem for popular Buddhism and its followers.  While the scholarly world has not ignored nirvana, where Buddhism is marketed to the general public, nirvana has been, for the most part, given mostly lip service.  On the same score, transcendent signifiers such as the One Mind, pure Mind, Buddha-nature are also not taken up a seriously as they might be.  The public, who is interested in Buddhism, is often simply unaware that nirvana is the alpha and omega of Buddhism.   

It is easy to forget that the Buddha taught that nirvana is the goal of the holy life since the appeal that Buddhism has these days is mainly that of a tool which helps us to cope with the tension of daily life.  What this reveals is that many modern followers of Buddhism are still very much caught up in samsara; who are unwilling to let it go sufficiently to make nirvana their goal; not just giving it lip service.

The higher search

Modern society wants us all to be winners, to accomplish the impossible if we can.  Above all else we have to make a success of our temporal body’s brief time on this planet.  But in the spiritual world things are somewhat different because what we have to accomplish, in the way of awakening to the true nature of existence, transcends the temporal body, its senses and its perceptions (samjñâ).  Yes, this immaculate nature is attainable.  Yes, it’s real.  In fact, it is the very substance of the universe.  If it were not, Zen master Huang-po would not have said the following:

"All the Buddhas and all sentient beings are nothing but the One Mind, beside which nothing exists.  This Mind, which is without beginning, is unborn and indestructible.  It is not green nor yellow, and has neither form nor appearance.  It does not belong to the categories of things which exist or do not exist, nor can it be thought of in terms of new or old.  It is neither long nor short, big nor small, for it transcends all limits, measure, names, traces and comparisons.  It is that which you see before you—begin to reason about it and you at once fall into error.  It is like the boundless void which cannot be fathomed or measured.  The One Mind alone is the Buddha, and there is no distinction between the Buddha and sentient things, but that sentient beings are attached to forms and so seek externally for Buddhahood.  By their very seeking they lose it, for that is using the Buddha to seek for the Buddha and using mind to grasp Mind.  Even though they do their utmost for a full aeon, they will not be able to attain it.  They do not know that, if they put a stop to conceptual thought and forget their anxiety, the Buddha will appear before them, for this Mind is the Buddha and the Buddha is all living beings. It is not the less for being manifested in ordinary beings, nor is it greater for being manifest in the Buddhas." 

To realize the One Mind (ekacitta), or our true nature, we have to give up our worldly presuppositions including our preconceived way of conducting a search for it, while still maintaining an intensive search.  We cannot approach the One Mind by conceptualizing it (samjñâ).  It is not in the world of philosophical thought.  Such thoughts (even the word “One Mind”) at best are mere signifiers—not the One Mind itself.  They are inadequate to the task at hand which is to stand in the presence of the actual One Mind which is the Buddha.  In a way, we are there right now.  But the Five Aggregates including other things prevent us from fully knowing this.  It’s like having a dark cloud over us all the time which keeps us from seeing the sun.

Try as we might, for example, by pretending to be Bodhisattvas (taking the Bodhisattva precepts) or becoming a monk or a nun, we are still far away from the One Mind.  At some point our old ways of searching have to be exhausted and put to an end.  We have to come to the realization that nothing we’ve tried has worked in the past or will ever work.  Sitting in zazen until our arse bleeds or doing a million prostrations will not succeed.  The force of our will that tries to make the One Mind a reality for us is doomed to fail, also.  As paradoxical as it sounds, an exhaustive search that drains away all of our presuppositions, which eventually leads to utter failure, is what we really need.  In other words, truly, there is no success like total failure.  Only then will the Buddha appear.

A more intense dream

I say sentient beings are like dreams and magical delusions.

                         — Subhuti, Prajnaparamita Sutra

 

Having fully awakened from a dream, if our dream greatly caught our attention, we would sound foolish to tell our friends of our wish to go back to the dream and live there.  Our friends would tell us that our dream, including the landscape and the people in it, do not ultimately exist.  Nothing in the dream can be obtained, in other words.  Its reality consists in shunyatâ (emptiness/barrenness).  

According to the Bhavasankrânti Sutra the ordinary worldling (prithagjana) is in the same boat as our foolish dreamer who desires to return to his dream, believing it to be real.  But nothing of the ordinary worldling’s world is real—it’s a more intense dream we could say.  Still, it is as unreal as a dream.  Its reality is also shunyatâ when viewed from the attainment of pure Mind which alone is real.  

We cannot underestimate the importance of ‘awakening’ from  the worldling’s dream world.  It is the end of being mesmerized by phenomena which are never other than illusory and empty (shunya).  By awakening, we see for the first time the non-illusory noumena from which our dreams are spun.  It is an introspective cognizance (pratyâtmavedya) of the highest order.

 

Eckhart Tolle's now

 

Eckhart Tolle's initial awakening to what can only be described as the absolute began with a rejection of the self he once believed to be his authentic self.  This rejection he describes as a "deep longing for annihilation" which was becoming stronger than "the instinctive desire to continue to live."  This brought Tolle to the realization of two selves, namely, "the 'I' and the 'self' that 'I' cannot live with."  From this, he saw that only one of these selves could actually be authentic.  In choosing the 'I' (consciousness in its pure state) he transcended the false self or the 'ego'.  

Tolle's realization is not unlike the Buddhist adept transcending his former identification with the Five Aggregates he once believed to be his self who now finds them to be not his self. 

“But monks, an instructed disciple of the pure ones...regards material shape as: ‘This is not mine, this am I not, this is not my self;’ he regards feeling as:  ‘This is not mine, this I am not, this is not my  self;’ he regards perception as: ‘This is not mine, this I am not, this is not my self;’ he regards the habitual tendencies as: ‘This is not mine, this I am not, this is not my  self;’ he regards consciousness as: ‘This is not mine, this I am not, this is not my  self.’  And also he regards whatever is seen, heard, sensed, cognised, reached, looked for, pondered by the mind as:’ This is not mine, this I am not, this is not my  self’” (M. i. 136).

In this particular passage the disciple is rejecting the false self or the ego which is the anâtman (lit. not-the-self).  At this point, whatever we may think about Eckhart Tolle’s awakening or however we may characterize it, it seems to be consistent with some parts of Buddhism, especially the rejection of the Five Aggregates of material shape, feeling, perception, habitual tendencies (or karma) and consciousness, which are not the ‘I’ or our true deepest self.

In trying to teach his awakening, Eckhart Tolle’s teaching is not without some degree of confusion; which also tends to be eclectic rather than a consistent extrapolation of his initial awakening experience.  What this tells me is that Tolle does not yet understand that the ‘I’, which is also pure Mind, is the very substance or essence of phenomena including our thoughts, which includes our emotions, internal dialogue, imagination, etc.  This opens up the question:  Does he understand that phenomena, including mental phenomena are just configurations of pure Mind or the deepest ‘I’?

Tolle tells us to “learn to disidentify with your mind” but what is really important is to see that phenomena, including mind (lower case ‘m’) have no existence apart from pure Mind.  Phenomena are the waves of pure Mind.  Only Mind is real.  

As I read Tolle, putting his words into my own words, the most important problem to overcome  is our attachment to phenomena (mental phenomena, too) which are never other than illusions or fictions, although useful and heuristic if, for the most part, they serve to orient us to what supersedes them which is pure Mind or Tolle’s true self.

Perhaps Tolle at some level realizes that those who follow him are going to have to go through the same crisis he did before he decided to reject the false self or ego hence realizing the true self.  Still, I have to wonder about his book, The Power of Now.  For me, Tolle’s book appears to overlook the implications of his own awakening.  Tolle’s extensive use of “now” (i.e., being in the present moment), which appears to act as a refuge, seems incongruous with his own awakening which was a rejection of the false self by having turned, finally, to the true self.  He makes no mention of the now in his awakening.  I see Tolle’s ‘now’ as something akin to a life raft for those who still fear to leap into the spiritual ocean of absolute Mind.

Understanding emptiness

At least in early Buddhism emptiness or voidness are not in the same category as nirvana or liberation.  These are specific signifiers that are used to signify transcendence and can stand alone.  By contrast, terms like ‘good’, ‘large’ or ‘empty’ cannot stand alone.  

In traditional logic such terms as ‘good’, ‘large’ or ‘empty’ are called syncategorematic.  Each of these terms must be joined explicitly or implicitly to a “categorematic” term which can stand alone.  When joined properly we might get:  ‘a good job’, ‘a large tub’ an ‘empty room’.  On their own, these terms do not signify.  On the other hand, the term ‘nirvana’ has signification. 

As a syncategorematic term, the signification of the term ‘empty’ changes depending on what word it is connected with.  For example. the Zen term ‘empty mind’ or wu-shin, means that the pure Mind is empty of defilements.  Mind empty of defilements  is naturally self luminous.  

On a somewhat different note, the term, highest emptiness (P., paramanuttara suññatâ) has implicit reference to Mind being totally empty of the flow of sensory desire, becoming and ignorance.  When referring to the liberation of Mind/spirit (cetovimutti) that is non-temporal and immovable it is also called the void Mind liberation (suññatâ-cetovimutti).  

Turning to another example the Uttaratantra says: 

“The Buddha-essence is emptiness of traits of adventitious [defilements] with discriminations, but it is not emptiness of the supreme attributes of Buddhahood.”

If I say that the essence of the Buddha is emptiness, I really mean to say that the essence of the Buddha is empty of defilements.  If you’ve personally seen this essence, there are no defilements present whatsoever.  It is like an empty house which is present but is empty of furniture, rugs, curtains, etc.  

When the Madhyamikas say that all things are unreal like a mirage (which is empty of water although the deluded believe otherwise), this is emptiness of intrinsic nature (svabhâva).  Such things are dependently originated (fabrications) which means they lack intrinsic nature.  They are empty of it or nihsvabhâva.

A contemplative path

The goal of the aryan eightfold and tenfold path is to get us to nirvana.  In this sense the path is a contemplative path with the goal of nirvana.  It should not be thought of as something like the Ten Commandments.  

This aryan path begins with right view.  Right view leads the way which is a supermundane (lokuttara) view.  A term such as right speech, for example, doesn’t refer to worldly speech but, instead, to esoteric speech which is transcendent or unuttered vâc (speech) which can only be properly understood if there is right aspiration or intention which is transcendent (samkalpa/sankappa can mean also imagination or thought as in right thinking).  Before right aspiration there has to be right view.  There is a sequence of steps the adept must take to reach nirvana. They can be seen here in the tenfold path beginning with right view. 

“As to this, monks, right view comes first.  And how, monks, does right view come first? From right view proceeds right aspiration, from right aspiration proceeds right speech, from right speech proceeds right action, from right action proceeds right livelihood, from right livelihood proceeds right effort, from right effort proceeds right mindfulness, from right mindfulness proceeds right concentration, from right concentration proceeds right gnosis, from right gnosis proceeds right liberation” (M. iii. 75–76).

Without supermundane right view nothing else follows—certainly not right liberation or nirvana which is what the path is all about.  The path without right view becomes a path of error leading to samsara. 

 

Jainism and Buddhism are not so far apart

I have never been hesitant to read about Jainism and its take on things like meditation or dhyâna, having learned that Jainism and Buddhism are not that much apart when looked at in their early period (Nakamura).  We have to always keep in mind that both Buddhism and Jainism came into existence at about the same time.  The Buddha and Mahavira were contemporaries.

Early Buddhism and Jaina writings use many of the same words although not all meanings are the same.  Some, however, are the same such as samsara which is undesirable and is without a first beginning for both systems.  Both systems agree that our true nature is hidden by ignorance which is the root of samsara.  

The idea of self-nature or essence, which in Sanskrit and Pali is svabhâva/sabhâva refers to the pure essence of self (âtman) in Jaina works.  It does not refer to the  impure jiva which is somewhat like the Buddhist viññâna/vijñâna (consciousness).  Toying around with the Jaina notion of svabhâva, I have substituted Pali sabhâva, in this Buddhist passage about the Five Aggregates, with “the pure self” which is Jain.  It is not farfetched to consider sabhâva and self as fungible.

“Born materiality is empty of the pure self; disappeared materiality is both changed and empty. Born feeling is empty of the pure self; disappeared feeling is both changed and empty ... Born conceptualization ... Born volitions ... Born consciousness ... Born becoming is empty of the pure self; disappeared becoming is both changed and empty. This is ‘empty in terms of change’” (Patisambhidamagga ii.178 in the Treatise on Voidness).

What I have rendered differently, fits well with many Buddhist passages in the Nikayas in which we learn that the five skandha/khandha are not the self nor is a disciple to regard them as their self. 

Turning to the idea of "disciplines" in early Buddhism, according to Nakamura it "was very simple, and similar to those of Jainism."  Later, Buddhism coined the new term, patimokkha which early on had to do more with the liberation of mind (cittassa) from samsara (UdA 223–24) than a collection of specific rules.  Only much later did patimokkha become associated with monastic regula.  The simple portrayal of the ideal Buddhist monk, which is quite early, is to be found in the Sutta-Nipata in the Tuvataka Sutta (beginning with passage 935).  The passages are similar to those in Jainism according to Nakamura.

I am of the opinion that Jainism can be of help in making certain aspects of Buddhism clearer, at least in early Buddhist thought. 

The world of the unessential

Looking at a heap of sand or, if you like, a sandcastle, both are devoid of the substance sand.  The abstract “heap-ness” or the abstract “sandcastle-ness” depend upon sand thus they are nothing in themselves.  The heap and the sandcastle are dependent originations, in other words.  

Everything that is dependent is unessential or the same, lacks true essence.  Dependent existence is only through essence which is independent of the contingent nature of such existence.

Turning to our psychophysical body, the five skandhas or aggregates, consisting of material shape, feeling, perception, habitual tendencies and consciousness lack essence thus being also empty.  They depend on the essential just like a heap-ness needs sand. 

Likewise in the world of human thought-forms or concepts they, too, lack essence.  No thought-form is the Buddha Mind or pure Mind.  No thought-form is nirvana and so on.  We can say this of what we imagine, for example, an imagined Buddha is not the Buddha and so on.  As Buddhist seekers our goal is to see the very substance or our thought-forms which is pure Mind.  Seeing this, suddenly we understand what the old Buddha was talking about; we see eye to eye with the Zen masters, too.

Where is the transcendent?

Is the transcendent important for modern Buddhism?  Let me stop here before I answer this question.  First of all, what do I mean by the transcendent?   Based on several dictionary definitions, the transcendent refers to that which is beyond ordinary experience and scientific explanation.  In Buddhism, the transcendent would be independent and separate from the psychophysical body (i.e., the five skandhas).  Specifically, this would be the self or liberated spirit (cetovimutta).  This is demonstrated in many discourses in which we learn that the self of the disciple is not connected with the psychophysical body.

Getting back to the original question, my answer is no.  The transcendent is almost always ignored by the most popular and modern forms of Buddhism especially secular Buddhism which views the transcendent as having indirect reference to deity or a religious absolute.

The modern position is certainly not in keeping with what the Buddha taught.  One can only defend such a position by ignoring most of what the Buddha taught with regard to the transcendent, for example, that nirvana is eternally beyond the pale of causes and conditions (Pande, Origins of Buddhism, 451).  Or nirvana is understood to be also eternal, changeless, immortal, transphenomenal, beyond thought, etc. (Pande, Origins of Buddhism, 473–74).

In addition, the personal realization of nirvana by the inmost self (paccattam) seems to be all but ignored along with the self being purified (visuddhamattânam) and the self being liberated (vimuttamattânam), liberation also being the meaning of nirvana which, incidentally, has no connection with the psychophysical body.

What the modern Buddhist is left with, sans the transcendent, is really nothing in the way of true Buddhism; certainly nothing in the way to the beyond or parâyana.  Such Buddhism is sham Buddhism taught by teachers who need to actually read what the Buddha taught; not making assumptions.  The big loser in all of this is the beginner who is learning the wrong stuff that, sooner or later, will have to be dropped if he or she wishes to realize the right stuff.

Failure to see and to teach the transcendent underscores Western culture’s current love affair with materialism.  Materialism also serves to ground Western culture in evil in which there is a decisive loss of the individual’s sense of spirit which opens to the transcendent.

True practice

I have been asked several times as a Buddhist, what my practice is.  As a general rule I dodge the question.  I think it is stupid.  And here is why.  True practice is about the integration of the Buddha’s teachings into our life as we are living it from one samsaric moment to the next.

It is easy to read a little bit of the Buddha’s teaching (a few of his discourses).  It is also easy to sit in meditation after a few yoga exercises.  But this doesn’t mean that we are integrating the Buddha’s teachings into our lives.  The Five Aggregates (pañca-skandha) of Mara the Evil One still dominate.  They are the first noble truth of suffering.  We are still self-programmed not to see the pure Mind even though it is right in front of us.  We are still deluded, full of hate (fear of the other), and have a difficult time controlling our passions.  In short, we remain prithagjana (unspiritual persons).

Integrating the Buddha’s teaching into our lives is a difficult task.  It is easy to lapse.  There are so many distractions around us; so many things to get us off track from our jobs to our children’s needs.

Turning to our subjective side, we have an internal dialogue going on not to mention countless daydreams and fantasy thoughts to contend with.  We are beset with worries of every kind and degree.  We face sadness, heartbreak, disappointments and fears.  Yet it is here, in this inner jungle, that we are to seek for pure Mind.  Make no mistake about it, it is here and we must find it.  This is what real integration is about which is true practice.  And even if we find pure Mind there is still much more work to do.