The Zennist

Sans frames

Looking at a photograph, we can’t see outside of the frame. Even with moving pictures, we can’t see outside of the frame. In the simple act of reading a book, the world that surrounds the text is significantly greater than the text, itself; which the text can’t cover. Looking at our own culture, including its religious beliefs and attitudes, we can’t see outside of the frame. But the non-framed world is really where Zen begins. In fact, all authentic spiritual paths are always outside of the frame. In the case of Siddhartha, before he became a Buddha, he wanted to leave the framework of his father’s kingdom and enter the forest.

All this leads to an interesting question: what is outside of the frame of our normally human perception? And is it possible to be a super kind of Alice in Wonderland and enter a world without frames?

In typical Western cultures, which anthropologists call monophasic, the focus of value falls within the frame—never outside of it as would be the case in a polyphasic culture. In the Buddha’s case, when is was the Bodhisattva Siddhartha, he rejected the monophasic view of his time. He wanted to step out of the frame. It was as if he knew that the real world was without frames, including the framework of the human body from which suffering is born because of man’s thirst for corporeal identity.

Upon his awakening, the Buddha saw the frameless world which no frame, no matter how great, might surround. Yet, as strange as it sounds, it is from the frameless than all frames arise or can be observed. In different words, what we call the frame of reference is, from the side of the absolute, sans frames. And as we look within during meditation, it is the frameless pure Mind that we hope to discover.

Searching on the outside

Imagine this news bulletin: “A person claiming to be Maitreya Buddha who is the next Buddha after Gautama Buddha is teaching and living in India according to government sources.”

It almost goes without saying but there would be a mass exodus to India of all sorts of people who might expect to be saved from their misery by this Buddha—if he really is a Buddha (and how would they know?).

What we would not expect to see is very much excitement over the announcement that the next Buddha can be found within each of us; who might be revealed to us through meditation (dhyana/zen-na). As we might expect, it is much easier to ignore this way of seeing our Maitreya Buddha and, instead, wait for another to appear in the flesh in India on some future day. In the meantime, we can indulge ourselves in mundane existence. We can get a good job. We can raise a family, and spend what leisure time we have left in the pursuit of entertainment. Yep—no time to look within.

But what if Gautama Buddha, some thousands of years ago (some Hindu scholars say he was born in 1887 B.C.) was just one of many important teachers in ancient India, at that time, who sought union with the absolute from within; who, if he were alive and teaching today, would hardly draw much attention? We also might conclude, with very little to contradict our opinion, that the accretion of stories that make up the Buddha legend—one heaped upon the other—are not the product of the original founder but, instead, are those of his followers.

At any rate, my words will not stop anyone from getting on a plane and flying to India should CNN report that Maitreya Buddha has arrived in India or Nepal. Many people believe that the spiritual path is to be found on the outside that inevitably leads to India or Jerusalem, or even Mecca. They believe that pious behavior is the surest sign of a true religious person (I hope these people are familiar with the play, Tartuffe, by Moliere that is a humorous attack on religious hypocrisy). As is often the case, such people, while they are aware of history’s list of religious charlatans—do not, however, consider themselves to be religious dupes—but they are.

While the bulk of mankind has expertise about the things that make up external reality, it would be a mistake to conclude that spiritual wisdom can be approached in an external manner as if one might enroll in a school to learn a trade. And despite what some Buddhist monks may lead others to believe about the monastic community, donning Buddhist robes doesn’t grant access to the very self (pratyatman) which is unchanging and undying. Such a monk who harbors this view the Buddha likened to “a monkey in a lion-skin.”

Breaking through name and form

Buddhism inherited many of the traditional elements of the Aryans. — Hajime Nakamura, Indian Buddhism

Many technical words used by the Buddha stem from Brahmanism, especially, from the Upanishads in terms of key important notions. The Buddha, himself, was not keen on a metaphysical speculative understanding of salvation (i.e., deliverance from suffering). He sided with the ancient tradition of yoga—yoga, that is, in the sense of a fundamental praxis that penetrates throgh the cosmic veil of illusion by which pure Mind restores itself to itself. This veil can be likened to an interference based texturing of Mind that we behold as our phenomenal world in which non-textured Mind is nowhere detected; having lost its fundamental bearings. This is what the Buddha’s yoga seeks to restore, as is were, the yoking of the absolute with itself.

One of the major Brahmanist notions that found major importance in Buddhism is nama-rupa, often translated as “name and form”. However, this is a woefully inaccurate translation, for it has a wider latitude of meaning. It is more akin to the idea of subject and object, or individuation, whereby consciousness enters into a kind of cosmic self-repulsion—reacting against itself becoming thus pluralized. Nama-rupa can also be equated with maya as something that is an artifact, that is, something constructed rather than primary (svabhava).

Turning to the Buddhas twelve and tenfold nidanas (i.e., sunderings) in which nama-rupa appears, the coupling of nama-rupa and consciousness (vijnana) is the beginning of the fall of consciousness into illusion by which it becomes bound to suffering. This coupling really signifies the pluralization of consciousness becoming thus a corporeal entity.

In this down-going (nidana), consciousness becomes split into ideas or essences (nama), and their forms (rupa), or more precisely, aetheric constructs. Through nama-rupa in which consciousness is tied to the corporeal body, eventually, consciousness succumbs to aging and death according to the twelve (or ten) nidana theory of the Buddha.

In death, mind (citta) which is not yet consciousness-ized [sic] is submerged in its own self-begotten ignorance (the first of the twelve nidanas) from which, again, it emerges to specifically link with another nama-rupa condition. This is rebirth—what Hindus fear the most—which Westerners do not believe; who believe death is utter finality.

This unfortunate state of being is otherwise called “samsara” in which the individual is an admixture of immortal and the mortal; mixed together like gold dust and brass dust. There is yet no prajna or differentiating wisdom for the individual whereby the immortal is distinguished from the mortal this being an important step in the Buddha’s yoga. Said another way, in the corporalized nama-rupa condition, mind conceals its own original luminous nature. It is in a deep sleep from which it is almost impossible to awaken (bodhi).

Being bound in a condition of non-totality; facing death, it comes, therefore, as a great joy for the Buddhist yogi to enter samadhi experiencing a lightning-instant of luminous Mind which has been roused from its sleep. For the first time there is the experience of freedom from nama-rupa.

Here really commences the work of yoga, that is, the work of continually yoking with the vital power of free Mind. Rightly, yoga is a path which is moving away from nama-rupa which leads to nirvana-dhatu (nirvana realm); nirvana being beyond the three lokas comprising samsara consisting of the Desire World, the Form World, and the Formless World.

Easter: Hypocrisy Day

Easter, a Christian holiday that celebrates the resurrection of Jesus, which comes from the pagan celebration of vernal equinox, is recalled by me as the time—once a year—when I saw all the Christians in our neighborhood dress up and go to church. Just a boy, I didn't understand that this was a special day of atonement for the common Christian when finally their hypocrisy got the best of them. They felt they had to do something to make amends. So dressing up and going to church was it.

After Easter, they went back to being religious barbarians. Brandy bottles would be unscrewed, and martinis would be almost ritually prepared. A few times the Bible might be read—but who understood it? especially the part about loving our neighbor which, for Christians I knew, meant only loving members of your particular congregation and damning the rest—especially the pagans.

What I have noticed over the years—in particular since 1979 when the Christian fundamentalists essentially took over the religious leadership of America—is more hypocrisy than ever before. In some fundamentalist Christian churches dressing up and going to church is almost a daily event while these same people support war, Robber Baron capitalism, and the end of all social programs. As the reader can grasp, these modern Christians seem all too proud of their hypocrisy. In fact, it doesn't even dawn on them that they are hypocrites!

When I became a Buddhist in 1965, that was the best day of my life. I had formally shed everything Christian—I mean everything. It was like I had been resurrected! The air smelled clean and pure. Nature was beautiful, and my heart felt strong and light. I was prepared to make the long journey on the Buddha's path. Now as I look back, I have to thank my old dad, too, for all this joy. I forgot to tell you, dear reader, that doing Easter, in his shorts with no shirt, my dad read his yoga book in our backyard. It was by Patanjali.

The flowering

As generally meant, Buddhist terms such as "straightforward mind" (rijucitta), "profound mind", "mind of great compassion" (mahakarunacitta) are, more or less, synonymous with bodhicittopada. Difficult to translate, bodhicittopada is not just the "thought of enlightenment" as if one could just think of it. Bodhicittotpada is the flowering (bodha) of spirit (citta). It is spirit's first manifestation (utpada) in us which is a singularly important event that makes one an authentic Bodhisattva. Fundamentally, one has not reached the level of a Bodhisattva without bodhicittotpada.

For Zen master Dogen, bodhicittopada, seemed to mean to imitate a Buddha, for example, by sitting like a Buddha. But how does a Buddha sit since the Buddha has an immaterial Dharma body? Here we must look upon imitation in the sense of resonating with Buddhahood, itself—not mere sitting. Dogen also wrote that bodhicittotpada "arises not spontaneously but only when we have a spiritual communion with the Buddha."

By and large, Zen is a propaedeutical course directed at the accomplishment of bodhicittotpada. Its literature, including its various practices such as koan instruction, constitute propaedeutical instruction.

It would be a great mistake for beginners and Buddhist clergy to patently assume that Buddhahood commences with the baptism of bodhicittotpada. Technically speaking, it is only the first stage of a Bodhisattva, despite the earth shaking experience it confers. It also needs to be addressed, that the ‘samadhi of oneness’ (ekakara samadhi) is earth shaking, too. By it one enters through the gate that separates mortal from Bodhisattva. Both the samadhi of oness and bodhicittotpada are the same.

Worth mentioning, it is easy to take spiritual awakenings (J., kensho) to be Buddhahood. But they are not. Such awakenings are akin to way stations on the road to enlightenment. Buddhahood is far different as one might imagine, and truly cosmic in its scope and power. Without going into the nuts and bolts of this subject, it is sufficient to say that Buddhahood commences with the complete exiting of the animation principle from its former condition of dependence on the temporal body which, as a mere reflection, was previously adhered to as if it were a true refuge. Thus, we come to understand that temporal existence was wrongly imbued with power while the power giver was treated as virtually non-existent! In this regard, bodhicittotpada is the first awakening of this infinite power to itself in which, for the first time, it reflects back into itself instead of reflecting into its alter and grasping the alter as itself.

Consciousness is not the highest point

Consciousness is Mara [the evil one]. — Samyutta-Nikaya

Just recently, I have been giving a great deal of thought on the difference of vijnana from our translation of it with ‘consciousness’. The rendering of consciousness for vijnana is just an approximation. The latter doesn’t include all vijnana suggests. What is missing, in my view, which is an extraordinary insight on the part of the ancient Hindu mind, is that vijnana can also refer to the faculty of validity (I am still not happy with the term ‘validity’ but for now it will have to suffice). In simple words: whatever vijnana shines upon it makes it seem real which might be a dream or our everyday life—or even a mere thought. In also needs to be kept in mind that validity is not the same as truth (satya). Truth is ever beyond consciousness.

In the example of the Twelve Nidanas (nidâ, lit., to bind down thus ‘bindings’) beginning with ignorance (avidya) and ending with old age and death (jaramarana), vijnana/consciousness (the third nidana) gives the highest validity to name and form (namarupa) which is the fourth nidana. In the case of rebirth, vijnana, so to speak, shines on the fertilized ovum (namarupa). As a result, vijnana continually validates this human cellular existence giving it the sheen of true reality. But in so doing it becomes deeply embodied and individuated (satkaya) from whence arises our sense of personality.

Another illustration, turning to the so-called practice of ‘conscious dreaming’, we underscore the fact that vijnana imbues the dreamscape with validity so that the dream seems quite real. This is so with any psychosis.

As regards the use of drugs, the altered state of perception is, again, validated by vijnana so that the euphoria which is experienced seems real enough. As a result, one is subject to becoming addicted—only because vijnana validates the drug-induced perception of reality.

As the reader can surmise, vijnana/consciousness is quite powerful. It can even validate the false, making the false seem to be the truth. Just as much, it can make an absurd belief seem otherwise important and necessary. Yet, vijnana is not the highest point. Far from it. What is valid is not necessarily true. This, by the way, is why Western knowledge, including its religions, will ultimately fail. Both are dependent upon the validating effect of consciousness (vijnana).

In the West, consciousness is trained to fixate on the sensory organs and their respective fields thus validating their data. This stems from the long standing belief that what the senses perceive is fairly true. However, it is not. It is the field of the unconscious where the road to the true is to be found. This is why the way of Zen can seem to be so paradoxical for many people.

The question of religion

The goal of religion is what? Is it to give praise to a creator of the universe? to be obedient to this creator? or to see him? For Buddhism these questions are almost silly. The goal of religion, as Buddhism understands it, first requires no anthropomorphic-like creator. Truth is to be verified by our very self (pratyatma). It is self-evident, in other words.

The Buddha’s religion is thus a science—science in the formal sense of the apprehension of the true nature of things; more specifically, the apprehension of the animative nature of our biological being which is intrinsically liberated. This is a critically important distinction. To gloss over this is to miss the scope and importance of religion. For all true religion is just this: the direct apprehension of the animative spirit that enlivens us.

To grasp the importance of religion from the Buddha’s perspective, we have to consider the various grades of life from say, primitive bacterial life to human life. Each grade can be characterized as lacking, more or less, the ability to detect and cultivate the animative force that controls its existence. For example, an animal, such as an insect knows nothing of it. Humans, on the other hand, have discussed the animative principle under various forms throughout history but only a few have directly witnessed it.

In this respect, religion as the Buddha might see it is a necessary part of normal human evolution in the example of the gradual development of human knowledge and consciousness whereby we are able to reflect upon ourselves and question the very meaning of our existence. As we might expect, there will always be a very small number of human beings who are more advanced than others—not based upon the power of cunning reason, but upon their capacity to transcend their bodies while animating them; having, instead, realized a higher body; one made of spirit (manomayakaya). As we can imagine, perhaps in another million years such beings will be common instead of rare.

These higher beings (aryans) will be distinctly different from ordinary beings (prthagjana); who have a least accepted, in principle, that matter (i.e., resistance) is moved by invisible spirit whereby its work (karma) is transformed into various emergent conditions (i.e., phenomena). While this seems difficult to grasp, it needs no elaboration to understand that the world set before us is a stark after-image which is continually being modified by some force outside of it. It is at this point that the higher being is separated from the lower being insofar as the higher being seeks to be in accord with spirit, superseding thus the moved.

Under the banner of true religion, looking at our present world, there is virtually little or no interest paid to spirit (i.e., that which animates us). Phenomena takes precedence over the spiritual life, itself, which, ironically, gives phenomena the very sense of being real when, in fact, it is illusory. In this wise, also the practice of religion means almost nothing these days. There is no attempt given to superseding the human creature—to find its ultimate source of being. Under this ethos, religion degenerates into pious hypocrisy that further paves the way for every abomination under the sun. This is the backwardness of modern religion such that it is a mere costume without which man stands as a naked barbarian.

Change into the undying

they have not reached the truth that there is not self-substance in anything, nor have they attained the inconceivable transformation-death (acinty-parinama-cyuti). — Lankavatara Sutra

Death is the separation of the animative power of mind from the corporeal body (passive mind). Ordinary people have no knowledge of this inconceivable distinction. Their unbroken attachment to the corporeal body is all they have ever realized. Then to die, letting go of everything previously linked with the body, including the body, is truly perplexing.

But the mind that once animated the body continues. Its drive, prompted by habit-energy (vasana), is towards a resumption of the previous life, that is, towards a resumption of embodiment. To boot, nothing by way of the antecedent conditions necessary for rebirth has been sufficiently altered or superseded. And this is what Buddhism attempts to do: alter or supersede the necessary antecedents for rebirth.

But human consciousness is unwilling to take the first baby steps in this process. Human recorded history is not a history of getting off the wheel of samsara. Instead, it is a history of desire’s unremitting struggle to attain, within the context of human embodiment, its various goals all of which miss the transcendent. Thusly, it is an all-too-human struggle to borrow from Nietzsche.

Owning to its desire, the animative spirit of humankind is forever nailed to the tissue of biological being; that peering through its senses receives an extremely limited image of spirit’s work and its true nature (tathata). But what we perceive through our senses is only the filtrate of what true reality is not. And this includes the specter of death that hides the undying: the undying being nirvana as the supreme security from bondage to the wheel of samsara.

By comparison, the Bodhisattva (one who has had bodhicittotpada) who is aware of Mind’s true nature is also aware of the transformation or change of death (parinamacyuti) in which there is an inconceivable or unthinkable change of death into the undying (spirit as reflection into itself instead of reflection into other).

For the Bodhisattva, spirit, which previously attached to the false security of the flesh, has found itself so that it knows it need not depend on the temporal body anymore. In other words, spirit has become independent. Yet strangely, spirit has always been independent from its various creations. But never knowing itself, what could it do but believe that its creations were itself in which case it became bonded to them. As a result, it needlessly suffered countless rebirths into its phenomena.

If we see the undying within our being which is like a light that enlivens our body but is not subject to its death, we have significantly altered the antecedents of rebirth. By even accepting this, uncritically, we can rest assured that our next rebirth will be higher. On the other hand, to scout even the possibility of transcendence, believing that after death there is no more, we open the gates to endless suffering.

Just sitting

A crucial observation: some who claim to be serious practitioners of meditation have confused mere sitting with contemplation (dhyana). Whereas contemplation is always introspective, shikantaza (lit., “just sitting) is not. The latter is based upon Zen master Hung-chih’s school of Silent Illumination Zen which made it way to Japan through Dogen Zenji.

Hung-chih (1091–1157) believed that prolonged hours of seated silent meditation is sufficient to reveal our latent Buddha-nature; that it will eventually illuminate itself if we just sit in complete silence. He said: “Just being completely silent we are naturally illuminated” (Hongzhi lu p. 159b5; Hongzhi guanglu, p. 37a8).

Hung-chih’s method might be characterized as akin to merely waiting for fresh cream to turn into butter. This is reminiscent of a passage from the Mahaparinirvana Sutra which suggests, under Hung-chih’s banner, that cream naturally becomes butter if we let it. But this view is clearly not the Buddha’s teaching.

O good man! As an example: there is a man who has some cream. People ask: "Do you have any butter?" He answers: "I have". But, truth to tell, cream is not butter. Skilfully worked out [i.e. using skilful means], he is sure to gain it [i.e., butter].

Assurdely, such quietism is not the answer. Silent sitting, alone, cannot bring forth illumination. By analogy, cream cannot become butter on its own. A certain method is required to cause cream to become butter. On the same track, in the Mahaparinirvana Sutra the Buddha said:

O good man! An example: from cream, water, churning, a pot, and a person's hand holding it, we obtain butter. The cream does not think to itself: "I will call forth butter." Nor, even, does the person's hand think to itself: "I will call forth butter."

The method required for us to see Buddha-nature is much more complex than just sitting (shikantaza). Literally, lifetimes of ignorance have obfuscated our true nature. Accordingly, to seperate what is true from what is false is no easy task—often, in fact, the false is our criterion at first. Indeed, this was so in the Buddha’s own life when he was a Bodhisattva. He went through a number of teachers and their teachings only to reject them as being inadequate. He never once attributed his awakening to just sitting. Nor did he teach the many to just sit.

In the practice of seated meditation, posture, breath attending, and the control of mental modifications constitute its general technique whereas inward sustained silence is its goal. However, this ignores, altogether, the animative force that enlivens the biological body, itself, which is the real target of Zen. It also ignores the fact that this spiritual animative force can only be reached by introspective contemplation by which one has to penetrate through the illusory rind of mind generated phenomea; therein to discover the undying noumena, i.e., our Buddha-nature (lit., “the character of the Buddha”).

The forever unchanging

Shutting our eyes we view the dark inside of our body. We particularly feel the presence of our being more localized in the head. In fact, our sensory awareness is strictly localized and confined to our biological tissue which is the meaning of ‘embodiment’. What we think, imagine, or feel emotionally is a reflection taking place on our biological tissue much like the reflection of the moon on the water in a shallow stream at night.

Despite some of the claims of Western science, the source that causes localized reflections to arise within us is not rooted in biological tissue. In fact, this source is not localized or embodied at all (this source is really who we are otherwise called the atman). It is only an illusion that it seems so. By this extraordinary illusion we believe we are the body so that we become dependent upon it. This is the false self, or the same, the Five Aggregates.

Unfortunately, we cannot detect this animative source—we only perceive the stark totality of embodied life and limitation. The source, itself, does not leave a tissual impression or even a trace of its native presence. In a way, we are like a life-giving light that faces what it animates and illuminates seeing, as a result, only illuminated phenomena—never the light, itself, that makes illumination possible.

At this point, what we have to keep in mind is that our localized condition is not only not-the-self (anatman) it is also entails the very notion of attachment. Were we, on the other hand, a Buddhist arhat (P., arahant) we would be perfectly liberated from our biological tissue—although being still able to continue to animate the body. And as strange as it sounds we could perform all of our daily tasks without being in the body.

Naturally, the only way to detach from biological tissue which acts to contain us, is to pierce through the tissue, as it were, cognitively breaking through the field of phenomena which ensnares us; reaching thus the noumenal ground. Instead of primordial mind being mesmerized by its very own constructions, it passes through them, back to itself. In other words, it directly comprehends the forever unchanging in the every changing.