The Zennist

A real snake oil salesman

 The Buddha was a genuine snake oil salesman.  Sound crazy?  Well, it depends on what you mean by snake oil.  I realize the word ‘snake oil’ often refers to a quack remedy a huckster sells as a cure-all which, actually, cures nothing.  But have you ever, for moment, looked into the original meaning of snake oil?  According to Wikipedia, “Snake oil originally came from China, where it is called shéyóu (蛇油).  There, it was used as a remedy for inflammation and pain in rheumatoid arthritis, bursitis, and other similar conditions.”  In a nutshell, snake oil actually worked.  

The spiritual snake oil the Buddha handed out free of charge actually worked.  It was like Chinese snake oil, shéyóu, that also worked.

While it is true the original Chinese snake oil was the real stuff, it soon became a generic term for any cure-all that probably didn’t work.  The good snake oil eventually became lumped together with the bad.  Making matters worse, snake oils were generally marketed by a quack or a huckster.  Assuming that there were lots of ailments in the 19th century snake oils and their salesmen were pretty much omnipresent!

Today, when it comes to psychological ailments and suffering, the time honored spiritual snake oil is still Buddhism.  But this isn’t to say that there are not some pretty clever hucksters who even wear robes; who are selling bottles of extra canonical snake oil that isn’t genuine Buddhist snake oil.  I shall not mention names.  But the old saw applies, “Let the buyer beware.”

If anyone wants authentic Buddhist snake oil they first have to have faith that they are intrinsically enlightened but continue to suffer because they are attached to things that cause them not to realize—or even get close—to their true enlightened nature.  Keeping this understanding foremost in their hearts, they then have to begin to follow the Buddha’s teachings, sincerely and enthusiastically, while having less and less to do with the ways of the world which encourages spiritual blindness.  Practicing this is rubbing on the Buddha’s snake oil.

Skillful means gone too far?

I have over a dozen books on my bookshelf whose authors I don’t agree with when it comes to understanding the fundamentals of Buddhism and for that matter, Zen.  This is not to say that if I had my way these books would be banned.  These books are part of skillful means.  (The authors have no idea but they are being used by the Buddhas to catch materialist fishes who might eventually, over time, see the light of Mahayana so as to give up their fishy materialist ways of perceiving the world.)

Over the years I have come to see that the Buddha’s true teaching (saddharma) is always being given which I hasten to add, is not easy to comprehend.  The problem is that the majority of people are sound asleep while the teaching is being given!  In order to wake them up and keep their attention before they doze off again, a skillful teacher, or just an average teacher, may even need to hire some clowns with their props to keep the faithful awake and interested! (Just kidding of course—but it is not a bad idea.)

What this really says is that most people are only interested in adolescent kitsch; who also lack any kind of ability to see the forest for the trees or understand that the finger pointing to the moon is not actually the moon.  While their hormones are enjoying their ascendancy, and their spiritual intelligence is pretty much undeveloped, the only form of Buddhism that can be taught to them is one that seems to give its blessing to being in the here and the now, doing a lot of sitting meditation, atheism, agnosticism, and environmental activism, just to name a few.

It is not surprising to read that the Buddha was aware of all this.  He knew right after his enlightenment that the Dharma he discovered was almost impossible for the average, run-of-the-mill person (prithagjana) to grasp who was caught up in materialism; who believed, in addition, that their real self was their physical body.  Teaching moral behavior involving karma was about all such people could be taught—certainly nothing esoteric which actually had to do with the Buddha’s enlightenment.

Getting back to the books on my shelf that I don’t agree with, my disagreement only extends this far:  the authors of these books sometimes say things that are contradicted by the Buddha's words.  So my question is, ought we go adding our two cents to Buddhism when much of what we have to add is not in the canon or even implied?  I would also agree that the final word is not in print nor is it even thinkable and even the best of Sutras can only hint at the absolute the Buddha uncovered.  But some of the authors of the books on my shelf have clearly gone too far.  

Let me finish by saying that Buddhism is open to a lot of modification being extremely flexible.  Just look at its history how it has adapted to different cultures.  Buddhism can be taught in a variety of ways provided one has sufficiently studied the Sutras;who has also had experiences those Sutras predict.  Too far from this, I can only see trouble on the horizon for Buddhism. 

Sex is not Zen

 Unlike the Buddha's Dharma, sex can certainly lead to suffering if we are not careful.  It can be like eating fish without removing the bones.  Sometimes three minutes of huffing and puffing followed by a superficial ecstasy can lead to nine months, and more, of pain if we don't use some kind of contraception.  However, by taking precautions we can avoid a huge amount of future suffering and still have many delightful orgasmic thrills!  

With regard to the path of enlightenment, having lots of orgasms doesn’t help us one bit to understand the Buddha’s Dharma or Zen’s pure Mind.  Frankly, we would be idiots to imagine sex can enlighten us.  Sex is something human bodies do not to mention many other animals, including even the gods.  But reaching enlightenment is something that surpasses the human sexual drive including the physical instrument’s ecstasy.  The most sublime sex in the world, in other words, will not take us to Bodhicitta (i.e., the awakened Mind).

Malcolm Muggeridge hit the nail on the head when he proclaimed that “Sex is the mysticism of materialism” reminding us of the fact that sexual ecstasy is no more profound than being behind the wheel of a BMW 550i Gran Turismo (some would argue that owning and driving a BMW is better than sex—my neighbor sure would agree who drives his BMW after work so he can relax).  To be sure, such ecstasy is in the imagination of the beholder!  

The most profound aspect of sex as mystical materialism is when it enters religion as sexual mysticism which has a rather rich and detailed history especially in Christianity.  But even this is not without limits, the limit being, naturally, the psychophysical body, itself, which can also give us fifty false enlightenments (cp. Shurangama Sutra: The Fifty Skandha-demon States).  The important point to grasp is that sexuality can’t take us beyond the Five Aggregates of form, feeling, thought, inclination, and sensory consciousness.  

Being on the path of enlightenment demands of us that we must go through and transcend all the subtle traps that the Five Aggregates, i.e., the psychophysical body, has to offer (yes, Mara the Evil One lurks close by!).  If anything, sexual ecstasy is low man on the totem pole when it comes to what the psychophysical body can throw at the adept to get him off the path.  In fact, the sexual trap, if we can call it that, should be the least of our worries.  The real problems lie with the more subtle kinds of false enlightenments, noted earlier, not to mention the one hundred and sixty types of mind mentioned in The Maha-Vairocana-Abhisambodhi Tantra that have to be transcended for Bodhicitta to manifest (utpada).  For example, compared with the mind of non-attachment and the mind of hatred, sexual ecstasy is not at all that sophisticated.  It is almost self-limiting insofar as the orgasm is followed by a marked deflation of the sexual urge.

Releasing from illusion

The attribution of substantiality to phenomena is exactly what the Buddha is against.  The phenomenal world, including our temporal bodies, is really an illusion, that is, a spectacular illusion by which we can easily become deceived.  It is especially true with our temporal body, with which we are proximate; interfacing with it and being unable to release from it.  As a matter of fact, we have put our entire life into substantializing an illusion and staying bound to it!  The Vimalakirti Sutra has not missed this fact, that our body is, essentially, an illusion.

“Alas!  This body is like a machine, a nexus of bones and tendons.  It is like a magical illusion, consisting of falsifications.  It is like a dream, being an unreal vision.  It is like a reflection, being the image of former actions.  It is like an echo, being dependent on conditioning.  It is like a cloud, being characterized by turbulence and dissolution.  It is like a flash of lightning, being unstable and decaying every moment.  The body is ownerless, being the product of a variety of conditions.”

Of course, after reading the above we should not hastily draw the conclusion that ‘all is an illusion’, although from a Buddhist standpoint it would be correct to do so since the Pali word for all is “sabbe” in which ‘all’ refers to the senses and mentation.

“What, monks, is the All (sabbe)?  Simply the eye and forms, ear and sounds, nose and odors, tongue and flavors, body and tactile sensations, the mind (manas) and its phenomena (dhamma).  This, monks, is termed the All” (S. iv. 15).  

Getting back on track, the all as illusory is not unlimited.  More properly, it is limited to the senses and mentation, i.e., mental phenomena (from gross to subtle grades).  The problem of substantializing phenomena begins when what is non-sensory and beyond the grasp of mentation, such as mind (citta) or consciousness (vijñâna), vibrates in unison with the temporal embryo during biological conception.  At this point, we as mind (citta) begin substantializing phenomena thus becoming progressively caught up in the illusory tissues of the psychophysical body we call ‘my self’.

The longer we stay in phase with this illusory “machine”, to use a word from Vimalakirti Sutra, the tendency to substantialize and crave the machine increases over time.  This is where the importance of the Buddha’s teaching comes into play.  In a nutshell, the Buddha is trying to teach us how to break, as much as possible, the ongoing resonnance with the illusory body that began at conception.  The main goal is to liberate mind so that it is no longer in phase with the body but, instead, in phase with itself.  In concert with this, we read from the Anguttara-Nikaya:

“The noble disciple unbinds his mind (citta) from things which bind, releases his mind with things which release (vimocaniyesu dhammesu cittam vimoceti), and contacts perfect release (samma-vimuttim phusati)” (AN, IV, xx, 4 [194]).

Our disintegrating world

According to the Buddha the world (loka) is subject to disintegration (S. iv. 52).  Moreover, this same world, according to the Buddha, is said to be empty, empty as regards the self and what belongs to the self (S. iv. 54).  It should be obvious, then, that as far as my practice is concerned, I shouldn’t identify with this empty world or, eye-consciousness and things cognizable with the eye—or for that matter, the ear or thought-consciousness (mano-vijñâna).  These things, in other words, are not my self although I am connected with them.

Based on the aforementioned, contrary to what the Buddha says, most of us act as if the world were not at all subject to disintegration.  As a matter of fact, we look at the world’s many forms—not as being empty—but as being most real and vital.  As a result of this, the lives we live and the dreams to which we aspire reinforce the idea of a world which is not subject to disintegration.  This belief, if we can call it that, goes against Buddhism.  It keeps us from seeing the world the way it really is.

Let’s not forget, that a primary part of Buddhism is not about loving this world but about learning to recognize it for what it is.  But not everyone wants to see the world as it is—certainly not as being subject to disintegration (lujjati).  Most, I assume, would rather see the world as something else in which neither impermanence nor suffering exist in it.  

Yes, of course, it would be nice if the world were not subject to disintegration.  It would be nice, too, if we didn’t die and could live forever.  But as we soon learn as we grow older life can be like a minefield.  When tragedy strikes, only then to we recall the Buddha’s words and take heed.  

But the Buddha’s message is not entirely negative.  It is more of a warning.  The Buddha is not a true pessimist, in other words.  There is optimism in his message because what we fundamentally are, at the deepest level of our being, is beyond the powers of this world to affect us including even death.  Our only problem is that we don’t take the words of the Buddha seriously enough to pursue the positive part of Buddhism; to actually learn to engage with the immortal (amrita) side of our being.  We are still too much in love with this world while being less than enthusiastic about the positive side of the Buddha’s teaching.  

 

Humanizing the Buddha

We like to humanize the absolute, not to mention our gods or our creator God.  The notion of the absolute becomes too much for us to handle when it is beyond the ability of our mind to represent it in some familiar form.  As Xenophanes long ago pointed out (and it is still true today): “The lions, if they could have pictured god would have pictured him in the fashion of a lion; the horses like a horse; the oxen like an ox.”

Most humans are uncomfortable with any religion when it gets too esoteric; when it posits something mysteriously transcendental to human sensory consciousness.  In the case of Buddhism—and to be frank—it is very esoteric which is much more than the average Asian or Westerner can sometimes tolerate.  What is often preferred, instead, is pious pomp and a lot of ritual (although Asians and Western Buddhists aren’t exactly fain to admit this).  In this vein, even sitting in meditation takes on a purely ritual form while the sitter is trying to appear genuinely introspective.

Looking through the Pali canon we find that the Tathagata (i.e., the Buddha), in The Parable of the Water-snake Sutta (i. 140), described himself as unknowable (ananuvejja. lit., not to be known).  He says in this particular discourse:

“Monks, when a monk’s mind is freed thus, the devas—those with Inda, those with Brahmâ, those with Pajâpati, do not succeed in their search if they think: ‘This is the discriminative consciousness attached to a Tathagata.’  What is the reason for this?  I, monks, say here and now that a Tathagata is unknowable (ananuvejja).”

We should not conclude from the Buddha’s words that there is no gnosis, so to speak, of the Tathagata.  In fact, there is.  But it is not something determinate for the senses as when we look at a painting on the wall and say, “That is a beautiful painting you have.”  Such a sensory approach which hopes to see a trace of the Tathagata will never work.  Nor can we mentally represent him since thought and imagination do not go far enough in the case of the Tathagata. 

Unable to view or know our Buddha with our all-too-human senses we go so far as to construct an artistic image of him in the form of a three dimensional statue.  But before any image of the Buddha was constructed by ancient Greek artisans (yes, the Greeks were the first to make Buddha statues) the Buddha was represented by the “Wheel of Dharma” since he had awakened to the presence of the supernal Dharma.  In fact, the Buddha said, “He who sees the Dharma sees me” (yo kho dhammam passati mam passati).  

From an esoteric point of view, symbolically representing Dharma with a wheel, is meant to convey the idea that the Buddha (who is the Dharma) is the immanent mover.  (We read else where that the Buddha turns the wheel of Brahma [brahmacakkam pavatteti, M. i. 71])   Dharma is thus an animative power we cannot see except to directly engage with it or the same, awaken to it.  Something in line with this is found in this pericope from the Avatamsaka Sutra.  “The Buddha’s power of mind and will turns the wheel of truth.”

Trying to overcome the habit of mentally representing the absolute, i.e., Dharma, is very difficult.  Just as much, we want our Buddha to appear human even though the real Buddha is the Dharma.  But then when he becomes too human, Buddhism becomes something it was never intended to be.

Rejecting Buddhism based on personal knowledge

It has become accepted in modern circles of Buddhism, particularly in the West, that the doctrines and teachings of the Buddha shouldn't be accepted just on the basis of belief; rather one should follow one’s own personal knowledge when deciding which doctrines are to be accepted and which ones are to be rejected. 

All this sounds great.  But is it?  Not to mince words, and cutting to the chase, it is a  flawed methodology that decides which doctrines and teachings of the Buddha should be observed and which should be rejected based on one’s personal knowledge.  

If we were to judge the worth of the various sciences based on our personal knowledge, there would be, most likely, no physical or biological sciences.   

In fact, the huge majority of people that populate this planet live most of their lives without accepting or rejecting things or ideas based on any degree of personal knowledge.  First of all, most people are in what Dr. Charles Tart calls a “consensus trance” which means that most people are programmed to do what they normally do—although they would deny it.  As regards their huge store of personal knowledge, they have very little.  Their shelves are almost bare.  And much of it is wrong knowledge.

When those new to Buddhism take up the study and practice of Buddhism they need to be very careful about rejecting any part of it.  Indeed, as I learned many years ago, there is far more to Buddhism than anyone can imagine.  A word of caution: all the rejecting should be done before an individual decides to follow the Buddha’s path—not after.  Putting this aside, the pertinent question we need now ask is how should we deal with doctrines and teachings of the Buddha we are unsure of or which seem confusing and difficult to grasp?  The following may help in answering this question.

“The [beginner] merely adheres to the profound texts which his intelligence cannot fathom; he tells himself those are truths within reach of the Buddha and not within reach of our intelligence, and he refrains from rejecting them. In this way, he is protected from any fault” (Bodhisattvabhumi 108 [Donald Lopez, Buddhist Hermeneutics, P. 13]).

The gist of this is when in doubt, don’t straightaway reject what you don’t understand or lack personal knowledge of.  In the future—and hopefully more mature—you might find that your intelligence has grown by leaps and bounds; and what seemed difficult to wrap your brain around is now fairly straightforward and clear.  Above all, don't assume that your personal knowledge is adequate to judge Buddhism—it ain't.

Laying down of the burden

In some passages of the Pali canon the Five Aggregates consisting of form, feeling, thought, inclination, and consciousness are suffering or duhkha.  Tied to this is the fact that we crave these five psychophysical constituents.  We even mistake them for our Self.  In fact, our craving has caused us to interface with these aggregates as being our Self which keeps us endlessly in samsara.  

By craving these aggregates, thus entering into the world of suffering, we consequently become the bearer (hâra) of the burden, the burden (bhâram) which according to the Buddha is the Five Grasping Aggregates (pañc-upâdâna-khandha).  

As we might surmise, the bearer who takes up the burden of the aggregates is unable to tell the difference between the Self and the aggregates.  The bearer considers each aggregate as, “This is mine”, “I am this”, “this is my self” instead of na me so attâ, “That [burden] is not my Self.”    

Keeping the aforementioned in mind, this passage from the Samyutta-Nikaya in the Khandhavagga (iii. 26) sums up the central idea that the aggregates must be transcended or in this case, laid down.

A burden indeed are the Five Aggregates and the bearer of the burden is the person (puggala).

The taking up of the burden in the world (loke) is sorrow (dukkham),

The laying down of the burden is bliss (sukkham).

One who lays down the heavy burden,

And does not grasp at any other. 

Having eradicated craving,

Being without longing (nicchato), one is fully released (pari-nibbuto).

We should keep in mind that laying down the burden of the Five Aggregates means we are rejecting something which is painful and unreal with reference to the real which transcends the burdensome aggregates.  Indeed, there is something spiritually beyond the ambit of the aggregates.  Of course, we can’t speculate about it.  Mere words will not bring us there.

Wearing negative spectacles

Almost all early Western interpreters of Buddhism wore negative spectacles.  When they read Buddhism they saw Buddhism as a form of annihilationism. They understood that nirvana meant utter extinction.  The translator Max Müller even condemned Buddhism for “hurling man into the abyss, at the very moment when he thought he had arrived at the stronghold of the eternal” (Becker, Breaking the Circle, p. 25–26).  But what the Buddha an annihilationist?  Here is what the Buddha says:

“Although I, monks, am one who speaks thus, who points out thus, there are some recluses and brahmans who misrepresent me untruly, vainly, falsely, not in accordance with fact saying: ‘The recluse Gotama is a nihilist [venayika], he lays down the cutting off, the destruction, the disappearance [vibhava] of the existent entity [sato satta].’  But as this, monks, is just what I am not, as this is just what I do not say, therefore these worthy recluses and brahmans misrepresent me untruly, vainly, falsely, and not in accordance with fact when they say: ‘The recluse Gotama is a nihilist [venayika], he lays down the cutting off, the destruction, the disappearance [vibhava] of the existent entity.’  Formerly I, monks, as well as now, lay down simply anguish [dukkha] and the stopping [nirodha] of anguish.  If, in regard to this, monks, other revile, abuse, annoy the Tathagata, there is in the Tathagata no resentment, no distress, no dissatisfaction of mind concerning them” (M. i. 140).

We would not be wrong to say the existent entity (sato satta) spiritually survives whereas its suffering (dukkha) is brought to an end.  On the same track, it is only the fire of craving or desire (S. i. 39) that is extinguished—not the real, or existent entity.  Indeed, the Buddha says, “By destroying craving with root, one being free from hunger attains the perfect nirvana” (S. iii. 26).  As we can see from this, there is an attainer of nirvana who has destroyed craving. 

Of course, is one looks at nirvana with an eye only to making it appear to be a state of complete extinction, where nothing survives, it can be marketed that way.  But nirvana has its positive epithets, too.  Nirvana is said to be the ultimate, the truth, the further shore, the subtle, the stable, the peaceful, the excellent, the good, the security, the wonderful, the marvelous, the purity, the island, the cave, the protection, the refuge, the goal (S. iv. 373).

Nirvana is, itself, positive but as unconditioned.  In this respect, it is transcendent meaning it is beyond the plane of phenomenal causation, including the Five Aggregates, and of course, rebirth.  Put in more direct words, nirvana is nowhere to be found in the sphere of conditioned things.  This is seen in this passage from the Udana (80).

“Monks, there exists that condition where is neither earth nor water nor fire nor air: wherein is neither the sphere of infinite space nor of infinite consciousness nor of nothingness nor of neither-consciousness-nor-unconsciousness; where there is neither this world nor a world beyond nor both together nor moon-and-sun.  Thence, monks, I declare is no coming to birth; thither is no going (from life); therein is no duration; thence is not falling; there is no arising.  It is not something fixed, it moves not on, it is not based on anything (anârmmanam = it cannot be made an object of thought or sense).  That indeed is the end of Ill [dukkha]” (PTS).

In the Udana Atthakatha to the above, we also learn that nirvana is “deathless” and has an “immaterial nature.”  We also learn that it cannot be seen by those who do not possess the “aryan eye.”

Turning in a slightly different direction, in one passage of the Samyutta-Nikaya (S. iii. 55) we read that when a Monk abandons attachment for the Five Aggregates, there being no longer any finite object or support for consciousness (vijñâna), his consciousness attains nirvana.

“When that consciousness is unestablished, not coming to growth, nongenerative, it is liberated.  By being liberated, it is steady; by being steady, it is content; by being content, he is not agitate.  Being unagitated, he personally attains Nibbana [nirvana]” (trans. Bhikkhu Bodhi).

Since Buddhism began on a sour note with many of its Western interpreters treating nirvana as a kind of mystical annihilation or absorption into nothingness, rehabilitating the image of Buddhism to be one which is entirely positive and joyful (sukha) has not been easy.  Turning the tables, Paul Oltramare has this to say about life in contrast with nirvana.

“According to the principles laid at the base of the ontology, life—not nirvana—annihilates life.  The law of the momentariness of all things and that of Conditioned Production make life and not nirvana a ceaseless destroyer.  And it is in life and not in nirvana that one is made conscious of the absence of a soul” (Welbon, The Buddhist Nirvana and its Western Interpreters, p. 304).

What the Buddha didn't teach

Still a popular book, What the Buddha Taught, by the Walpola Rahula, is not without errors when it comes to explaining the Five Aggregates (P., khandhas) and the Self (P., attâ; S., atman).  Instead of saying the Five Aggregates are not to be identified with as being our Self, Rahula leads the reader into believing the aggregates, or khandhas, serve as a kind of criterion for determining whether or not the Self is real.  And since there no Self is in these aggregates, it proves—at least to Rahula’s mind—the Buddha rejected the Self!  

One might further draw from Rahula’s book that the Buddha sees the Self's existence as the central problem when, in fact, it is our continuing identification with the Five Aggregates, as being the Self, that is the actual problem.  What Rahula fails to understand is that the Buddha is telling his followers not to regard as their Self that which is not their Self, i.e., the Five Aggregates.

Far from rejecting the Self, judging from the surfeit of discourses about the Five Aggregates in the Pali canon, it seems fairly evident that the Buddha’s followers were having a great deal of difficulty with comprehending that their Self is not an aggregate such as material shape, a feeling, a perception, an inclination, or consciousness.  On the other hand, the Buddha’s followers appeared to reject the assertion that there is absolutely no self, i.e., nattha attâ, since this position was condemned by the Buddha, himself, as being annihilationism (S. iv. 400-401).

Despite this, Walpola Rahula, informs the reader that “according to the Buddha’s teaching, a being is composed only of these Five Aggregates, and nothing more” (p. 57).  But actually the Buddha never says this in the way Rahula expresses it.  As his book shows, Rahula invests a lot of ink in trying to prove there is no Self while trying to stay away from annihilationism which, frankly, can’t be done.  Also, Rahula avoids addressing a standard line that appears in many of Five Aggregate discourses which refers to each and every aggregate.  It goes:  “This is not mine, this I am not, this is not my self (attâ).”  

Citing from the Majjhima-Nikaya, we notice this standard sentence at end of this section of a discourse and also before each of the Five Aggregates which appear here as material shape, feeling, perception, habitual tendencies, consciousness.

“But monks, an instructed disciple [ariya-savako] 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 see, 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).

Apparently, there is more to a being than the Five Aggregates—so Rahula errs.  There is our Self which we should not regard as an aggregate.