The Zennist

Vacation time!

I will be leaving in a few minutes for the airport to fly to Washington D.C. I will be back on the 29th which is a Friday.

In the meantime, give some thought as to discovering that which animates your body and your thoughts. Keep in mind, too, that you've been attached to the flesh for aeons—so your memory (smriti) won't be that good.

Dante Zen

Introspection insofar as it goes beyond the riot of mental and emotional images is an attempt on our part to find our unchanging self—not the self that is dearly espoused to the body with which we are all too familiar.

On such an introspective path the goal, necessarily, determines lifestyle which is often the sagely life. Trying to find our unchanging self is hardly concerned with the question, “How shall I live my life.” The question of “How shall I live my life” is, instead, the bourgeois question—one hopelessly mediocre. In fact, this question is more fitting of a person living in Dante’s vestibule who can’t make it to hell, purgatory, or heaven! In the vestibule, a spiritual path is lacking because living my life in a certain pattern is insufficient to break through the barrier of flesh in order to enter the sanctuary of the unchanging self. In many ways, the bourgeois lifestyle is life in Dante’s vestibule.

I have concluded that much of Western culture has made a conscious and serious effort to avoid deep introspection which is really at the heart of Buddhism and other like religions. This would suggest that we are living in a dangerous time for Buddhism—only because many who take up Buddhism are adverse to introspection; who confuse it with sitting on a zafu in a Zen meditation hall. Worth adding, what is taught as Buddhism is really a false doctrine (pratirupakadharma) insofar as it never mentions the animative principle (i.e., the light) which is our very self and the true Dharma (saddharma).

Western culture, it can be argued, is often more interested in defending the bourgeois empire of the vestibule, together with bourgeois values, than transcending them. Scarcely does a modern novel or poem describe the spiritual journey. What the bourgeois mind seems to want from its literati are works that narrate an endless chain of deferrals in which human personality is seen to be escaping from itself, that is, escaping from introspection. In this light, we have nothing comparable with Lao-tzu’s Tao Te Ching which forces our personality to stop running and face itself; to inwardly journey to the very core of being (satya).

Because bourgeois life takes place within Dante’s vestibule, it is nihilistic. While on the surface it seems to follow a moral code, such a life is almost incapable of foreseeing the problem with desire and ambition so that its morality becomes, over time, uncontrollably pathological as does its goal which is the wish for oblivion or the same, death sans rebirth.

Although it should not be surprising to learn, the bourgeois life actually enables a monstrous evil to evolve insofar as it closes off the door to introspection which alone can reach pure Mind (cittamatra) by which we are saved, going to nirvana. I can only describe this evil by citing from the Christian New Testament, “but whoever shall speak against the Holy Spirit, it shall not be forgiven him, either in this age, or in the age to come” (Matt. 12:32). Although not as clear, in the Mahaparinirvana Sutra, the Buddha regards the icchantikas (desire beings) as being akin to blasphemers who do not believe in the Dharma or the Tathagata-nature. They have no chance of salvation, in other words. Forgiveness is denied to them.

I Brahmin

Monks, I am a Brahmin, one to ask a favour of, ever clean-handed, wearing my last body, incomparable physician and surgeon. Ye are my own true sons, born of my mouth, born of dharma, created by dharma, my spiritual heirs, not carnal heirs. — Itivuttaka 101

In Sanskrit, the word “Brahman” (including Brahma as meaning “related to Brahman”), generally means “supreme impersonal spirit” or the same, the absolute. It originally was neuter. Eventually, the grammatical gender of masculine and feminine developed out of the older neuter.

It needs to be underscored that the Buddha, in his discourses, was not opposed to using this term frequently. In fact, he makes the word ‘Brahman’ synonymous with nirvana and Dharma. In a discourse (M.i.386) the Buddha says that one who has attained nirvana is said to become Brahman (brahmanbhuto). Further, the Tathagata is said to have both Dharma and Brahma as his body; to be convergent with Dharma and with Brahma (D.iii.84).

“The body of Dharma that is the body of Brahma, or become Dharma, that is also become Brahma.”

The Eight-fold path leading to nirvana is sometimes referred to as Brahmayana, i.e. the Brahma vehicle. The Buddha is said to turn the wheel of Dharma and Brahman. He also said that to dwell in the Dharma is the same as dwelling with Brahman (S.v.5). With regard to self or atman, Buddha said that the Brahma vehicle “originates within the self” (S.v.6).

The Buddha’s use of the word Brahman or Brahma appears not to be used in the sense of a personal god except when qualified as a deity in the examples of Baka Brahma or Brahma Sahampati, etc. Neither can Brahman or Brahma be used, exclusively, as meaning ‘excellent’ or ‘divine’.

Using Brahman or Brahma less than it means in a spiritual context is an attempt by some translators to de-transcendentalize Buddhism as if to make it a system of ethics—a kind of latter-day Stoicism. As the reader may judge, if the Buddha equates Brahma with Dharma, then Brahma has to be used in the same sense as Dharma meaning, absolute.

What is enlightenment?

The simplest way to explain Buddhist enlightenment is to say it is awakening from the illusion of embodiment. This is a rather striking answer and may cause both Buddhists and non-Buddhists to raise their eyebrows. This may even cause some consternation for those who have been taught Buddhism differently. And maybe it should.

It certainly can't be refuted that the Buddha taught something quite profound. In many of the Buddha's discourses there are allusions to the transcendent and that our true nature is beyond the pale of the temporal body. Coupled with this, is the problem of attachment. Attachment keeps us locked into the illusion that makes the gnosis of our distinct separation from the corporeal body almost impossible to realize.

Fundamentally, we are liberated. We have never actually fallen into our birth body nor will be die. But being under the powerful tyranny of illusion, as it were, being nailed to the nervous system of the corporeal body, there seems to be little hope of realizing our fundamental freedom.

This brings us to still another problem. We have never experienced the animative power that enlivens our body which is distinct from the corporeal body of our birth. In addition, we are unaware that this power is undying. Presently, we only experience being in the body having to bear its burdens. If the animative power that continually stimulates our nervous system were suddenly to be amplified we would probably become terrified not knowing what possesses us.

We are so bound up with the temporal that when the question is asked, "What is enlightenment" we can find no words with wish to speak. Most people don't actually care. It's Friday night. We will be with our friends. The question will never be asked.

Our very self

Any student of my teaching, said the Buddha, ‘who is eager, intelligent and aware, here and now, can master nirvana (nibbanam) for the self (attano). — Sutta-Nipata

In life,the highest aim (paramartha) of Buddhism is said to be nirvana which is undying (amrita) according to the Buddha. This means there is something within us that can reach this undying nirvanic state. Alternatively, nirvana is, for us, in our very self (pratyatman) according to the Buddha. It is not something outside of us that we have to move towards in a physical way.

Along with nirvana, the self is the ne plus ultra when by the Buddha’s path it purifies itself of the Five Aggregates that serve to make up the image of the temporal world and the bodily being (satkaya). Both nirvana and the self are coordinate and come together in perfect unity. What is realized is that nirvana is the self that sees itself free of bodily dependence so that with this freedom, it also sees itself as being free of all conditioned things which is also the Tathagata.

Kâshyapa, accordingly at the time one becomes a Tathagata, a Buddha, he is in nirvana, and is referred to as “permanent” “steadfast”, “calm”, “eternal” and “atman” (Mahabheriharaka Sutra).

It also needs to be briefly discussed, that knowing and seeing oneself as being free of the body, that is, being independent, carries with it the realization of the fundamental nature of reality, itself, this being Dharma.

“The Dharma obtained by me is profound, of deep splendor, difficult to see, difficult to understand, incomprehensible, having the incomprehensible as its scope, fine, subtle, the sense of which can only be understood by the wise” (Catusparisat Sûtra).

Dharma can be thought of as a subtle cosmological governing force that is transcendent which, incidentally, is often translated as “law”. In this respect, sensuous, worldly matters, insofar as they are conditioned, run counter to Dharma (the unconditioned). The difference becomes thus a transgression leading to suffering. Moreover, the idea of transgression suggests continual judgment (karma) that compels the transgressor to overcome the judgment by many diverse means—many of which are unsuccessful.

On the other hand, as the transgressor approximates Dharma there is less suffering. The transgressor is, in other words, becoming confluent with Dharma. It should be mentioned that when the Buddha came into the world, he revealed Dharma which is regulative towards nirvana and with it, the end of all suffering. His revelation was meant to help, not those who could already perceive the Dharma or those who were incapable, but those beings who were in the middle, so to speak, who needed guidance.

That we are presently entangled with the Five Aggregates (mainly the physical) from which our image of the self is derived, makes nirvana virtually impossible to achieve. Consequently, instead of being free of the conditioned, we are bound to it. And by the proportion of attachment we are judged (karma) by the force of Dharma.

The only way out of this mess is for the self to distance itself from the Five Aggregates; to realize that I am not form, sensation, percepts (i.e., perceptual), volitional formations (i.e., experiences), or sensory consciousness. According to the Buddha, there should be a clear separation between the aggregates and the self so that he knows, referring to each aggregate, “This is not mine, this I am not, this is not my self.” By this method one is following the Buddha’s Dharma while acquiring a better understanding of nirvana which is for the self.

The reference point

Many of the reasons given in contemporary Buddhist literature as to why the Buddha rejected the notion of the self amount to gobbledegook especially if we bear in mind that the self is the ultimate reference point for distinguishing the conditioned from the unconditioned absolute.

Much of the current view of Buddhism as regards the self is wrong. The Buddha’s teaching was never directed towards the elimination of self. He mainly taught that the ultimate reference point, namely, the self, cannot be the Five Aggregates consisting of form, feeling, perception, volitional formations, and consciousness.

“Bhikkhus, form is nonself [lit., not the self]. What is nonself should be see as it really is with correct wisdom thus: ‘This is not mine, this I am not, this is not my self.’ Feeling is nonself... Perception is nonself...Volitional formations are nonself...Consciousness is nonself. What is nonself should be seen as it really is with correct wisdom: ‘This is not mine, this I am not, this is not my self.’” (S.iii.22–23).

Failing to understand that the Five aggregates are what is to be dropped, instead of the self as the ultimate reference point, has led to much confusion for over two-thousand years, especially in regard to Theravada Buddhism and now, it would appear, American popular Buddhism.

This shouldn’t suggest that the Buddha wasn’t clear in what he taught. The problem with what the Buddha taught rests with those who hold there is nothing beyond impermanent and suffering corporeality. They firmly believe that the body they possess together with its mental life and passions, is the sum of who they are. There is no beyond, in other words. This is extremely nihilistic, I hasten to add.

I find it exceedingly interesting that in the many discourses of the Buddha where he unambiguously states that the Five Aggregates are impermanent and suffering, he never once states, in plainest words, that the self, too, is impermanent and suffering. As a matter of fact, on one occasion, the Buddha said that “What is suffering is not the self” (yam dukkham tad anatta)!

Why, then, do so many Buddhists insist that the Buddha denied the self? Can anyone really believe that the Buddha asked us to deny the reference point of self so that we might enjoy the impermanence and suffering of the Five Aggregates which are mere accidents? But apparently many Buddhists, by implication, believe such. How then do they explain the fact that these same aggregates are synonymous with the Buddhist devil who is called "Mara the Evil One" (cp., S.iii.195)? Shouldn’t the self, instead, be the devil instead of the Five Aggregates?

It is a fact that never once is the actual self, as our true reference point, deprecated by the Buddha. The only error we make with regard to the self, is to view the body, consisting of the Five Aggregates, to be the self. But the self is never temporal. In Mahayana Buddhism the notion of the self is further developed into the Great Self which is synonymous with the Great Nirvana according to the Mahaparinirvana Sutra.

In the very self

The late Dr. Nakamura, who was perhaps one of Japan's greatest Buddhist scholars and who, by the way, was a great Vedic scholar, had this to say about personality-view and the self (atman).

"Thus, in early Buddhism, they taught avoidance of a wrong comprehension of non-âtman as a step to the real âtman. Of things not to be identified with the self, the misunderstanding of body as âtman is especially strong opposed. Foolish people comprehend their body as their possession. Buddhist of early days called this miscomprehension 'the notion on account of the attachment to the existence of one's body' (sakkâyaditthi) and taught the abandonment of it" (Ways of Thinking of Eastern Peoples, 90-91).

Some Buddhists, today, believe the Buddha denied the self, altogether; that it is the central theme of his religion. But there is no undisputed evidence in the Buddhist canon that the Buddha made every effort to both de-transcendentalize and deconstruct the self; hopefully to eliminate its sacred privilege for us. The case against the self has been largely a straw man attack by a particular school of Buddhism. Incidentally, nobody should be surprised that Dr. Nakamura, despite his credentials, has been all but ignored when it comes to his academic view about self.

It is almost a given in virtually all of the Buddha's discourses that the criterion is the self, in the sense of being the implicit point of reference for disclosing what is real and what needs to be abandoned. In keeping with this, the central aim of the Buddha’s methodology is to get us to abandon the conditioned for the unconditioned.

In light of this, only the modern reads the Buddha's teaching otherwise, in a completely heterodox and skeptical manner as if the Buddha were saying, "See, we are conditioned all the way down." (This brings to mind a story told about Bertrand Russell. After his lecture to the public about the wonders of astronomy, describing the planets and the sun, a little old lady, sitting at the back of the hall, told him,"What you have told us is rubbish. The world is really a flat plate supported on the back of a giant turtle." Amused, Bertrand asked her, "What pray tell us what is the turtle standing on?" "Oh you're very clever, young man, very clever," said the old lady. "But it's turtles all the way down!")

For a mind trained in the most simple basics of classical philosophy and theology, the Buddha's methodology is clearly apophatic inasmuch as what is to be removed is the conditioned so that unremovable self is laid bare. Indeed, the Buddha’s teaching is all about the shedding of the conditioned garments of impermanence and suffering to reach complete nirvana in the very self (praty-atman).

Where is thy sting?

In Buddhism, birth and death are polaric. Both, by analogy, are like ocean water that is surging into waves (birth) which then falls back into the original medium, this being their death. The polar difference between birth and death is fundamentally nonexistent from the perspective of the medium, itself. Thus, to escape from death is a matter of knowing and seeing the medium from which our existence springs. By profoundly remembering this medium, it will testify through us that we are eternal insofar as our true nature, as this medium goes (tathagata), is forever beyond the pale of birth and death. And so joy arises within our hearts—a victory over death.

However, for the Western mind, birth and death are hardly treated as being polaric. Death has become a strange hypothesis in the West: that when the body is lifeless there is nothing left of us. We are as dead as a door nail. But this is unproved. It is only strongly believed to be the case. Many, I am sure, would like to believe that death is our finale. For the Buddha this is hardly the case.

The ubiquitous medium that is mind (citta), which is ever becoming conscious of something (hopefully, itself, as sambodhi), is eternally surging up like a wave then falling back into itself. What we fail to understand is that this process is the very function of supreme intelligence! However, for those of us who live in an unawakened state (abodha), the life of this medium is a restlessness, a desire if you like, that exists unsatisfactorily (duhkha). Being so blind, we only see birth and death—not the unborn or the undying which Zen master Bankei so patiently taught even the poor farmer.

This mind is originally unborn and undying and without illusion; not realizing this, thinking that thoughts are existent things, you roam around in the routines of birth and death.

The Western way of treating death is disrespectful and shallow to say the least. And because it is treated this way it also, many times, becomes a tool for every despot who wishes to herd the masses in ways that profit the shepherds for purposes which are often ignoble.

If religion—true religion—should offer humanity any value, it should be in overcoming the belief that death is higher than the spirit that animates us as we live in this moment. This is, in fact, what the Buddha did and why he achieved such popularity (he wouldn’t make it today). He gave to humanity the vision of the deathless (amrita) having defeated death (Mara) under the Bodhi-tree.

Still, for anyone who has been a witness to such an immortal spirit that animates the body, including even those who have had near death experiences (NDE) in which a loving white light is sensed, death’s sting vanishes. As a result life takes on a whole different meaning. What brings us joy, is not materialism, but watching, instead, pure spirit (bodhisattva) attempting to awaken everything. All things, we might say, are being taught to abide deathlessly, in utter joy and freedom.

It's only an illusion

As strange as it sounds to Western ears the leading Sutra of early Zen, the Lankavatara Sutra, suggests that embodiment is an inveterate or almost beginningless illusion in which case enlightenment consists of the removal of the illusion of non-enlightenment.

There is really nothing to change or to rearrange in our pursuit of enlightenment. We only need to know and see things as the are; revealed fully in their unvarnished state. Stated more precisely, we only have to realize how the illusion is setup as one might find out how a magic trick is performed. It almost goes without saying that this is no easy task. We have a lot invested wrongly; wrongly in the sense of the inveterate belief that we are inseparably bound to the fate of our carnal body. However, this is not the case when we discover the mano-maya-kaya or, as sometimes translated, the will-body. According to the Lankavatara Sutra:

What is the will-body obtained by recognising the self-nature of the Dharma? When [the Yogin] of the eighth stage has a thoroughgoing penetration into the nature of things which is like Maya and not image-producing, he experiences a revulsion at the seat of consciousness and obtains the Samadhi known as Maya-like and other Samadhis. By entering upon the Samadhis he gains a body which exhibits various powers of self-mastery and supernatural activity, which moves according to his wish as quickly as a flower opens up, which resembles Maya, a dream, and a reflected image, and which is not a product of the elements but has something analogous to what is produced of the elements, which is furnished with all the differences appertaining to the world of forms and yet is able to follow up all the assemblages in the Buddha-lands. This is the body which has a thoroughgoing knowledge of the self-nature of the Dharma and for this reason is called will-body.

Such a body can be better described as a causal body: causal in the sense of being animative because this causal body is really the basis of who we are which has now been full distinguished from the temporal or carnal body. Adding to this, its apperception (a transcendental apperception if you like) involves the clear observation of one’s consciousness (vijnana) as enveloping the physical body being entirely distinguished from it. Whereas normal consciousness is entangled being seemingly subsistent on the physical body, the causal body, as detached consciousness, is revealed to us as only enveloping the physical body being thus inherently disembodied.

The inveterate illusion of embodiment that we suffer from is attended with such an entanglement that its supercedence (nirodha) seems almost impossible to comprehend, let alone, accomplish. Yet, the Buddha’s Eightfold Way has to logically lead us to a kind of supercedence where our consciousness or mind (citta) ‘awakens’ from the sleep of embodiment and sees that it has always been detached from the carnal body. This is implicitly suggested in the story of Sumedha when he was striving after Buddhahood who saw Dipankara Buddha (the light-maker Buddha).

Even as a man might rid him of
A horrid corpse bound to his neck,
And then upon his way proceed,
Joyous, and free, and unconstrained;
So must I likewise rid me of
This body foul, this charnel-house
And go my way without a care,
Or least regret for things behind.

It seems that suicide had been ruled out by Sumedha! Obviously, he was attempting to find a non-suicidal means of releasing the “horrid corpse bound to his neck”. And by seeing Dipankara Buddha (who knows the animative light of all beings) he sought this path and eventually, himself, became the eleventh of twenty-four Buddhas.

Although in our lifetime we may never accomplish this feat, to know, nevertheless, what has to be accomplished is a great victory in itself. In a way, we enter the path insofar as it makes sense for us to realize that rebirth and with it, samsara, can only end with the supercedence of the illusion of which we are presently under the spell (ashrava).

The immaculate garment

"The clear Self has been soiled by primal and adventitious defilements and (therefore) is regarded like a soiled garment which have been washed off." — Sagathakam (Lankavatara Sutra)

Self or atman (P., atta) should not be construed by us as being akin to ‘personality’ which is strictly a temporal condition, i.e., a mask (persona) fitted over the enduring spirit. It is nothing of the sort.

The Self refers to what is actual within us: the actual that is opposed to the unreal. The unreal, on the other hand, is what can be added or taken way from the actual—the latter being always unaffected. Considering the example of a soiled garment, the actual is never removed by washing the soiled garment. Only adventitious defilements can be removed while the garment's immaculate nature remains steadfast throughout the washing process.

To find our true Self, we never begin with the actual Self. We begin, instead, in bondage to a simulacrum of the Self called the anatman or literally, not-the-self. In this position, we are so thoroughly maculated that were we to be suddenly cleansed of our adventitious impurities, we would be someone quite different; someone profoundly divine.

In the Buddha’s time, many believed they understood the Self; that it was something perceptually discernible. They produced various representations of it like modern day religionists produce various representations of God. Of the various representations of the Self, the Buddha said the Self is, essentially, undiscernible because the Self is not temporal. What is spiritually actual is always beyond the discernible since it it outside the bourn of the temporal.

It is certainly a frustrating undertaking to look for something which is finer than the nets we employ to capture it. And considering that our temporal senses are net-like, how is it possible to discern the undiscernible since it is not 'a something', that is, something for our senses to receive? It would be a fool’s errand to do so.

Much of the present day confusion about Self (atman) in Buddhism perhaps stems from its undiscernible nature such that when we look for it, we find nothing except the Five Aggregates which, I hasten to add, belong to Mara the Evil One. But that we are unable to find it within the bourn of the Five Aggregates should only tell us that we must conduct our search differently. But to deny it because one can’t find it is absurd.

The Self is always implicit in our actions although we are unable to see it that way. Instead, we are mesmerized by the adventitious defilements which then become our lodestar, not to mention our instrument for determining what is actual from what is unreal and false!