The Zennist

Disengaging from the movie

In meditation it is assumed that what is perceived as the physical body (rupa) is absent of the percipient (= the meditator).  Equally the same, the percipient lacks any physical characteristics (rupa).  Nevertheless, during meditation there is a tension going on between the body and the meditator because of a lack of wisdom (prajñâ) that can distinguish the physical from the immaterial.

More fundamental, the meditator has to realize that they are absent of the entire Five Aggregates (skandha) as laid out by the Buddha in the Pali Nikayas.  The distinction between the two, which is not a spatial separation, is absolute, i.e., non-dual.  Consequently, there is nothing in the percipient, as the meditator, that is physical, sensible, conceivable, experiential or witnessable (as something determinate).  The percipient is, in a word, independent—never contingent, in the sense of being liable to change.  It is only the pentadic aggregates to which he is attached that change, suffer, and lack actuality.  The aggregates and the world present to us are really maya or illusion.

Paradoxically, while one may nod their head in agreement with the aforementioned it must be borne in mind that meditation remains extremely difficult.  As earlier noted, there is an ongoing tension between the percipient’s body and the percipient which is spiritually agonizing; lacking wisdom.  

By far, meditation is, in some respects, a corrective process which actually has to undo the previous pattern of desires on the part of mind to invest itself, continually, in the physical body, as it were, to establish itself there and become a hapless subject of its rise and fall.  The meditator can be likened to a movie goer who is entranced with a spectacular movie where disengaging from the movie is the meditation practice.  Thus, depending on the strength of mind’s absorption with the physical body, or the same, the Five Aggregates, does meditation become relatively easy or almost impossible.  This is why in some of the Buddha’s discourses the meditator is told to go to an empty place to begin their meditation since it is free of external attractions.

Desire for worldly things and states of consciousness work against meditation.  Such desire only reinforces the connection between the meditator and the physical body.  Against the fruits of meditation, the worldly ethos aims at an unwholesome coupling between the percipient and the aggregates (skandhas) which, as a result, leads to more spiritual agony.  This ethos soon becomes a vicious circle.  The percipient believes that a deeper bond with the physical body is the sure remedy for suffering in which materialism is the tool.  The more wealth the better, in other words.

That meditation is becoming popular in the West signals a backlash against the worldly ethos.  Indeed, there is no real freedom in becoming deeply absorbed with what is subject to becoming using materialism as a tool.  We suffer because we are too closely united to matter allowing ourselves to sympathize with the Five Aggregates.  It is only by means of meditation that we can free ourselves, remembering our true origin which has no need of a physical body or attaching to external possessions.

States of consciousness

For the Buddha consciousness (vijnana) and its object are mutually conditioning.  To put this in a manner that is practical, if I am eating a bowl of homemade peach ice-cream I am in a “taste of peach ice-cream” state of consciousness.  Consciousness and its object are conditioned, one through the other.  There is a certain amount of time I can continue eating ice-cream until I either run out of ice-cream or something intrudes upon this state of consciousness.  

If, all of a sudden, I were suddenly to hear a loud explosion while eating ice-cream, I would be suddenly thrust into a new state of consciousness.  Then, after everything is settled, and I am relaxed, assured than nothing dangerous happened, I might find another state of consciousness.  

Presently, I exist as a ”sensational corporeal body”.  I am, therefore, in a bodily state of consciousness.  This seems to be the baseline—the one to which I keep returning because I find it most comfortable.

For most people they shift from one state of consciousness to another going back to the baseline of the bodily state of consciousness.

But now we need to consider our state of consciousness if we were to be consciousness of something within us that is imperceptible to the senses, immeasurable in this respect, pure, wherein all previous connections with the physical ceases.  As we might easily guess, this is the state of nirvana.  Instead of being a consciousness fixed to the manifest we are now in an unmanifest state, infinite and luminous.  Again, this is a description of nirvana (D.i.223).

It might be said that it is impossible to escape a state of consciousness and that we really have only two general choices as to states of consciousness.  We can either go for limited and varied states of consciousness such as rebirth which might include eating peach ice-cream (all this being samsara), or we can go for the infinite state of consciousness which is luminous (this being nirvana). 

Mystical paths

 

In primitive Buddhism, which is absent of taxonomies (abhidharma) and theoretics; which is directed to mystical gnosis, there is some evidence that a Buddhist monastic system, as we understand it today, did not exist.  What probably existed were followers of the Buddha in various stage of spiritual development.  Buddhist monasticism, in the form we know it today, may have been a concession or borrowing owing to the dominance of Jain monasticism in which monasticism was a venerated profession and laity were subordinate.  It is worth noting that monastic law, after the Buddha’s death, comes from none other than the mouth of Upali, a former Jain. 

 

Be that as it may, the ancient roots of Buddhism, as evinced in the Mahasamghika sect which is as old as the Theravada sect, exhibits only two stages, namely, that of the anagâmin (non-returner) and the arhat (buddha), the former not actually being a stage or marga.  Preceding these stages we can add the preliminary stage of upasaka (taking refuge in the three jewels: Buddha, Dharma and Samgha) and the stage of srotapatti (entering the supermundane path to Buddhahood).  

 

These two preliminary stages of upasaka and anagâmin were probably later twisted into more of a Jain configuration in which the upasaka was considered as being a “lay person” while the monastic course, the higher, was probably developed from the idea of not returning to ordinary life, hence anagâmin.  

 

It makes much more sense to reconstruct the Buddha’s mystical tradition in the following way: 1) Upasaka = going to the three jewels refuge; 2) Anagâmin = committed to pursuing the fruition of three jewels—not returning to the mundane; 3) Srotapanna = entrance upon the supermundane path; 4) Arhat = awakening.

 

What is of particular significance in this reconstruction is the absence of the lay and monastic distinctions.  The lay side of Buddhism was probably for initiates who wished to follow the Buddhist mysteries; who recited the following: 

 

 

“The Teacher has revealed the Dharma as if by turning upwards that which has been turned upside down, unveiling what had been veiled, showing the way to one who was astray, brining a light into darkness” (Falk, Nama-Rupa and Dharma Rupa, 103).

 

 

In this light, monasticism, most likely being originally connected with the anagâmin preliminary stage, was attractive for those who had taken refuge but were strongly committed to gaining access to the stage of the supermundane (srotapanna); not wanting to return to the mundane.  

 

As for the Bodhisattva path, it fits nicely with the stage of the srotapanna which leads to Buddhahood or the same, arhata.  

 

From this we derive our present day forms of lay Buddhism, monastic Buddhism, Bodhisattva Buddhism, and Buddhahood.  Truth be spoken, they were part of one system: 1) Initiation; 2) Renunciation-contemplation; 3) Gnosis-purification; 4) Complete-awakening.

 

I hasten to mention that the upasaka preliminary stage of taking refuge has nothing to do with being in a protective refuge but, instead, has to do with “going to these refuges”.  Thus, one solemnly promises to go to the Buddha refuge, the Dharma refuge and the Sangha refuge as if to, one day, attain awakening, see the true Dharma, and be in communion with it.  The key here is upâsana, that is, psychic devotion to the three jewels.  

 

On the same track, being an anagâmin means to renounce the world like Siddhartha did when he left his father’s worldly kingdom to live in the forest among the mendicants.  This is really at the heart of Buddhist monasticism which is also a preliminary stage to srotapanna.  We can also say, at this point, that the Bodhisattva path (= srotapanna) is completely mystical.  Simply put, one cannot become a Bodhisattva without a gnostic insight into the pristine nature of mind which in early Buddhism was srotapanna.

 

 

Breaking the trance

When we or our children watch television, we are being entranced or, more bluntly, hypnotized.  In fact, when we engage with much of our everyday world we are unaware that it is geared to keep us entranced (asrava).  Still, we believe we are fully awake yet, if truth be known, we are sleep walkers.  We lead unawakened lives.

The psychologist Charles Tart argues in his book, Walking Up, that what we like to call reality may not be so real.  In fact, much of what we believe to be true about our ordinary reality is only conditionally true (samvriti).  Reality, in this wise, is a consensus reality which is the result of being put into a consensus trance.

The induction methods may include parenting, our association with other people and friends, the media, in general, such as newspapers, television, radio, the Internet, including films, and even religion.  These all conspire to induce and maintain the consensus trance.  Even those who are prominent in entrancing us are in a consensus trance—maybe one induced in them a generation or two ago when they were children.

So how do we know we are in such a trance?  Well, the answer is not so easy.  Often, we only know we have been in a trance when its spell (asrava) has been broken.  Not surprising, too, many who are deeply involved in the consensus trance would, naturally, deny they are.  Nobody wants to admit that they are operating under numberless post-hypnotic suggestions.  

Important in this train of thought, the original understanding of hypnosis was believed to involve the transference of one mind to another where say, a suggestion, dominated another’s mind.  In this wise, hypnosis was conceived to be an instrument by which to impress a foreign idea on the mind of another.  Moreover, as Freud discovered, by using post-hypnotic suggestions, behavior, such as opening an umbrella in doors can be induced without the patient being able to explain or be aware of why he or she opened it.  At this point the patient also becomes defensive, if not altogether angry, if pressed as to why they opened the umbrella indoors.  Here enters the unconscious:  the hidden world of active suggestions.  But for Buddhism, perhaps it might be better said, here also enters unawareness as the susceptibility to suggestion including all forms of sensory impressions (asrava).

At this point, I would argue that much of preliminary Buddhist training involves breaking the present trance we are under through the practice of awareness thus, to wake up from the consensus trance.  For it is only by being free of the consensus trance that we can see the doorway to the Buddha's path inside of us which is self-verifying—a path that requires neither master nor follower.

Such awareness is not easy to master—especially, for one in a trance.  In the beginning, it demands that the Buddhist practitioner be constantly aware of their physical actions from such small things as turning a doorknob, to taking a third person perspective with regard to the flood of their thoughts and emotions, being able to describe them freely (i.e., without hesitation) and in detail.  In Zen training, as passed on in the tradition, one of its key features has always been the insistence of cultivating self-awareness: not doing things in a trance or behaving with an unalert, boring (middha) attitude.  It cannot be stressed enough how heavy the demand for self-awareness is in Zen training.  And if it is not there—Zen training is nothing less than Zen brainwashing.  One, in this respect, is being put into a Zen consensus trance.

Beyond desire

Man, like his relatives the animals, has implicit trust and dependence upon the senses.  Indeed, the ordinary person (prithagjana/anaryan) cannot but otherwise live according to their senses and be almost forever enthralled by them, desiring only the sensory.  In this regard, desire is almost too much for the average person to supersede—especially in a culture that enhances desire to the point of addiction.

It is easy to see that suffering can only arise from the sensory that knowing no better, we desire it only to repeat suffering.  What is more, as spirits (sattva) we live in continuous dependence upon the sensory so that even death is insufficient to end sensory desire.

The only reasonable way to end such desire is not to be crushing it involving a brutal kind of asceticism but by profoundly comprehending what it is that actually desires thus to see how it is to be ultimately satisfied.

For the Buddha it was primordial mind that desired.  But what did it desire?  Mind desired itself—what else might it desire?  And by the very agitation of such desire mind also profoundly lost itself. It phenomenalized itself by desire, in other words.  Mind, thus, became alien to itself enclosing itself in its own primordial ignorance (avidya).  In a word, mind became its very own nemesis. Hence, karma.

It is only when one becomes a Bodhisattva, seeing the Mind (bodhicitta)—not the defiled mind in sensory garments—that desire is really grasped and its quenching is realized as attainable in the future by practice.

Those who are intent upon superseding the sensory are the Bodhisattvas, according to the Buddha.  And because they choose this road they have a measure of authentic compassion seeing how desire brings ruin to all beings who are under its power.  They, alone, are blessed among all beings; they are the guides of the world.  But alas, I  dare say that our present world wants none of this.  It wants to suffer more as if it believed that the maximum amount of suffering might save it—as if its Messiah might return.  This, to be sure, will never happen.

Taking off the spectacles

It should be emphasized that phenomena of which we are aware is never in nirvana.  To look for nirvana in the world around us through the spectacles of sensory consciousness is like going on a fool’s quest.  No matter how much we refine our search, all sensory objects, no matter how subtle, block us from attaining nirvana.  

Also included are our mental images and our language—even reason.  One cannot read Nagarjuana or study Abhidharma literature then imagine they have set foot on the far shore of nirvana.  Such is a fool’s dream.  And surely did some Buddhists dream who, like the Sautrantika, were adamant that nirvana was absence (abhava).  Nirvana truly has to be free of possible language games or paradoxes.  Nor can it said to be where individuality ceases (parinirvana pudgala).  Indeed, it is totally positive and exists by itself.

To be sure, all possible determinations of nirvana are mind constructions.  In a word, they are distortions of pure Mind.  As such they are ever changing—they are not what they are.  It is only by seeing the very unconstructed or undistorted substance of Mind, itself, that nirvana is attained.  Moreover, it is important to keep in mind that words like “nirvana” and “emptiness” refer to Mind that is liberated and emptied of distorting fluctuations.  There is no nirvana or emptiness apart from Mind, itself.  Why schools of Buddhism haven’t firmly understood this is puzzling.  Only our mind is surely at hand for us to develop, purify, and come into unity with (ekacitta).  What else is there?

The positive side of emptiness

There is a negative and a positive side to emptiness.  When it is said that to meditate a monk may go to an empty hut (S.v.311) it is common sense to understand that this hut is empty of distractions.  This is the negative side.  On the other hand,  this same hut is real.  This same empty hut is protection from wild beasts and the elements.  This is the positive side.

In the Culasunnata Sutta (M.iii.104), the Buddha explains to Ananda the meditation on emptiness by saying that when the monks are gathered in the hall, the hall is said to be "empty of elephants, cows and so forth."  What remains in the hall is the community of monks.  Again, the Buddha explains to Ananda that when a monk goes to the forest to meditate, he perceives the lack of a village and villagers.  What remains is the positive forest where he is practicing.

Key to understanding the proper notion of emptiness is that while something is removed or set aside, something always positive remains (avashista).  In a word, correctly applying emptiness, the positive is disclosed.  There is no attainment of a super emptiness—a sheer lack or absence, as it were.

By the same token, the same thing can be said of mind.  Let’s use the example of Zen master Tsung-mi (Zongmi).  He said the following: “When there are no discriminating thoughts such as desire or anger in the mind, the mind is said to be empty—it does not mean that there is no mind.”  For Tsung-mi, a mind which is empty is positive.  It is only empty of defilements (klesha).  This is the negative.  Once the defilements have been emptied out, only the immaculate mind (vimalacitta) remains.  This mind is immortal.  This mind has always been liberated.  However much our bodies and thoughts change—and however much we engage with the changing conditions of the world, the empty mind (wu-hsin) is untroubled and undisturbed.  Ironically, this mind is positive although it is empty!

Turning back to the Culasunnata Sutta, when a monk achieves the signless samadhi of mind (animittam cetosamadhim), what is removed are the spell binding disturbances of mind which prevent one from seeing mind as being truly liberated.  What remains after the emptying out of these disturbances is the pure Mind (cittamatra).

Now let me conclude this with a little Zen story.  One day the Zen master who saw that his best monk was now like low hanging fruit, ready to be plucked, asked the monk to bring him an empty water pitcher.  The monk quickly complied with his master’s request and brought him an empty water pitcher setting it on the table.  The master then requested that the monk bring two empty cups.  Again the monk complied with his master’s request and went to fetch the empty cups.  Then the master asked the monk, who had just put the two cups on the table, “Now bring me your empty mind!”  Upon hearing the master’s request, the monk’s mind froze on the spot—in a split second he uncovered something he had never seen before.

Zen: a look back

Most Zen centers are run like a typical Christian church or community.  There is the Zen preacher and the congregation.  The former ministers to the congregation while the latter try to be good followers.  What makes the Zen center a novelty is its use of Japanese and Chinese religious art.  

Thus, is formed a modern bustling Zen community that scarcely has anything to do with Bodhidharma's Zen which made up the early Lanka School; which, I hasten to add, is the very heart of Zen.  We know this because we have documents that were discovered in a sealed cave-library in the desert region of Tun-huang in modern northwestern Kansu Province, China.

From these early documents, Zen makes its presence known publicly when in 700 CE Empress Wu invited a Zen monk of the Lanka School to her court in the city of Chan-gan.  The name of the monk she invited was Shên-hsiu who at the time was probably over 90 years old; who lived in the hilly retreat of the Wu-tang mountains. It took him about a year to walk to the capitol arriving in 701.  He taught in the court of the Empress for four years then died in 705.  

From these same documents, the so-called genealogical line that Shên-hsiu came from began with Bodhidharma who transmitted the Lankavataa Sutra.  It should be noted that there is no list going back to the Buddha, such a list being unknown even in Indian Buddhism. 

As would be expected, the list that began with Bodhidharma ended with Shên-hsiu. We know this because the a relative of the Empress wrote down the genealogy for a monument.  Moreover, the list purported to go back to the time of the Buddha (there are several) is not connected with the Lanka School.  And where Bodhidharma's name appears in another list, viz., The Ch'an Ching (The Zen Sutra), linking him with the Buddha, it was cleverly added by the Zen monk Shen-hui (670–762 CE).  This is why we sometimes see Bodhidharma listed as Bodhidharmatrata because the last person on the list was not Bodhidharma but Dharmatrata!  Shen-hui simply added ‘Bodhi’ to Dharmatrata.

The original Lanka School was not noted for seated meditation.  The heart of the Lankavatara Sutra does not take up formal zazen, i.e., sitting meditation, as a means to enlightenment.  Its key focus is the positive realization of pure Mind—seeing it completely devoid of subtle convolutions and imagery.  By analogy, instead of being mesmerized by the images one sees in the mirror, the illuminating surface of the mirror is seen, only.  This is what is termed in the Lankavatara Sutra as the field without appearance (nirabhasa-gocara).  In other words, one directly apperceives Mind—Mind as immaculate (vimalacitta).

Hardly required, is evidence that the modern practice of Zen has all but forgotten its esoteric roots which mark the pages of the Lankavatara Sutra.  Modern Zen is like the empty shell of a beautiful, vibrant blue dragonfly—its life departed.  There is nothing left of it except a somber nostalgia for the past.  And if a Bodhidharma were suddenly to make his entrance in some modern Zen temple in California, he would no doubt be asked to leave.  Such is the state of Zen these days.

In the very medium

We are subjects in an objective world.  There is the internal subject as 'me' and the external world as 'that'.  For the Zen adept, there is a point at which the two coincide in which the ultimate stuff of our mental images and the stuff making up the external world converge, becoming one.  As a result, we are at once in the very medium of pure Mind (cittamatra).  

Our body and the world which it inhabits are no longer seen to be ours as they were before.  We are Mind, the ultimate medium of existence.  What has significantly changed is our orientation.  In the snap of a finger it has shifted.  The binary of subject and object; birth and death; being and non-being are realized to be Mind's phenomena like ocean waves that arise and fall in the medium of water.

Yes, of course, the world goes on as it always has.  But because we no longer depend on the body and the world it inhabits, we are now truly free of the burden that comes with that kind of dependence.  

A whole new field opens up before us.  And now, because we are the very medium of pure Mind, things—including our temporal mental life—float, as it were, on a ocean of bliss that is permanent, free from suffering, and the immaculate true self (shuddhisatyâtman).

Truth be known, it is by clinging to what are Mind's phenomena that we experience only the impermanent, feel only disturbance, and find no self identity—never being fulfilled.  In short, the phenomenal world is not the true world; it is born of desire for what is inadequate to Mind.

Such inadequacy haunts the human psyche.  We can never be content nor can we ever feel secure in our world try as we might to out think nature.  What we are left with is anxiety:  a restless uneasiness—yes, a thirst—that drives us forward from one kind of darkness into another with no end in sight.  Yet, ironically, the pristine medium of mind, itself, is always present.  And perhaps this is why there is always hope if we could bring ourselves to see, for a second or two, the one true light of all which is unaffected by the darkness—this is our redemption.

Prayers

The only prayer ever answered is the prayer that asks for enlightenment (sambodhi).  No other prayers need apply nor will they work—you might as well roll the dice.  In this regard, it has to be childish and pitiful to watch adults praying to God or to some savior.  Moreover, such prayers are for finite things.

Let me say it again, the only prayer that is ever answered is the prayer for enlightenment.  It alone is heard.  And the path is almost immediately open before us in answer to this prayer. It is truly a mystery.  Indeed, for anyone who has prayed for enlightened wisdom they can tell you that their life began to change for the better, spiritually.

But often great pride will not pray for this. Such pride believes it is better to pray for wealth or success on the battlefield.  What immaturity.