The Zennist

The former religion minus a few things

I read somewhere that converts to a new religion, as a general observation, never give up their former religion in its entirety. Their new religion, it seems, is just the old one minus what they didn't like about it.  I tend to agree with this.  With regard to Western Buddhists, their former Christian values seem at some level present especially when it comes to being socially engaged, performing charitable deeds, etc.  This also includes the rejection of karma and rebirth to a limited degree.  What they have mainly opted to jettison is the idea of a Creator God and that Jesus is the only way.  I might also add, they’ve dumped the Nicene Creed.  

Generally, I would say there is something wrong with this.  But history speaks to us differently on this subject.  A new religion is mainly made up of members of another religion who find the new religion more adequate for various reasons.  In the example of Buddhism, many of its converts were from other religions.  Upali, for example, before he converted to Buddhism was a Jain.  The Japanese scholar Iwamoto Yutaka claims that over 50 percent of the Buddha’s disciples were of Brahmanic origin.  In light of this, no one can imagine that a monk or a nun, when the Buddha taught, had purged themselves of Brahmanism.  In fact, much of the Pali Buddhist canon doesn’t have anything bad to say about Brahmanism.  Not too long ago, the Buddhist scholar, Christian Lindtner argued that Buddhism should be seen as ‘reformed Brahmanism’.

Turning back to Christianity, we should also remember that during its formative stage when the apostle Paul was still composing his Epistles, many of the Christians were once Pagans.  How much “Paganism” is embedded in Christianity is a subject that has seen a lot of books and papers published.  Certainly both Plato and Aristotle have to be counted as Pagans who greatly influenced the early Church.  In fact, when we take away from Christianity all of the influences of Paganism, a theology library would shrink down to a few books.  

It is not a bad thing to have been a Christian who decides to convert to Buddhism; who brings with them some Christian values to the altar of Buddhism.  Buddhism, I think, is designed to take additions.  However, it will not survive for long with those in the darkness of their own ignorance who want to toss out the main elements of Buddhism such as karma and rebirth or purge from its teachings the transcendent in an attempt to secularize it; making it the good little house boy of the physical sciences.

Real introspection goes beyond

In Buddhism, meditation or zazen (i.e., sitting meditation) is introspection which if perfected can lead to enlightenment.  We can know the true nature of reality and thus deliverance.  For the West, however, introspection is believed to be limited.  According to the philosopher David Hume, introspection cannot give us direct acquaintance with the thinker or I might add, the substance of thought (i.e., the “thing in itself” of Kant).  We can only be aware of our individual thoughts—not their substance which is the thinker.  

Now, if by some stroke of luck we were able to become suddenly acquainted with this substance (i.e., the thinker or our Buddha-nature)—if only for a split second—the Western belief that introspection is limited to observing individual thoughts would come tumbling down.  Not only that, we would recall that the method of introspection we applied before, didn’t go far enough.  We limited it to an awareness of something determinate; a mental artifact.  From this we might conclude that we were looking for this substance or thinker as if it were an external sensory ‘thing’ as in, “I just found my glasses—there were on the kitchen table.”

Continuing with this line of thought, with the discovery of this substance is also the realization of authentic introspection; the kind the Buddha taught—not the limited Western kind.  Going back to David Hume, yes, of course he couldn’t find the thinker—the thinker is not a particular mental image.  Hume, in other words, never once engaged in real introspection.  Had he, he might have been Britain's first yogi! 

Westerners, if we use Hume as a gauge, are too eager to close down any discussion about how far and how deep introspection can actually go.  They seem to want to limit introspection to watching thoughts pass in front of the mind’s eye.  This is somewhat reminiscent of the prisoners in Plato’s allegory of the cave where men dwelling in a cave since infancy are bound in such a way they cannot turn their heads to look upon the true world who, instead, are forced to look upon a false world—a puppet show.

I pass over the more subtle aspects of the cave allegory wishing only to say that the world of thoughts passing in front of our mind’s eye is not outside of Socrates’ description of the cave and its prisoners, which best describes a limited kind of introspection, one incapable of taking us to the other shore.  Indeed, true introspection must unbind us from false introspection, freeing us in such a way so that we might see the sun of true reality and not the puppet show of phenomena to which the West seems unusually attached. 

A new orientation

From the time we are in the womb to the time of our death our orientation has been towards the external world.  We know virtually nothing about intuition and introspection—and certainly nothing about pure Mind.  We only know how to perceive external things and think about our relationship with them.  Even our thinking is limited to external reality; to objects out there which have been turned into abstract signs through language which we can ‘think about’ and mentally manipulate.

                         

 

A toddler, for example, examining a fire hydrant is doing what is natural and expected.  It is part of his normal growth and development.  His perceptual orientation is predominantly external; never internal and introspective.  The toddler will eventually grow up and become a man whose orientation will still be geared to the external world of objects many of which he has mastery over through practice and language.  Even if he becomes a Buddhist there is no guarantee that he will suddenly be blessed with the capacity to ‘look within’, that is, to look not at things but, instead, look at their underlying essence which is immaterial and certainly not a thing.

There is no possibility of comprehending our Buddha-nature, which results from an extensive intuitive/introspective process, without leaving the old orientation behind, marked as ‘useless’.  The belief that we can bring all that we have learned about the external world into intuition has to be corrected.  It will only lead us on a fool’s errand.

If much of contemporary Buddhism holds out hope that we can comprehend our Buddha-nature without first dumping our present orientation towards the external world together with its objects it will be missing much of Buddhism, especially Mahayana Buddhism which is predicated on a specific, preliminary gnosis called Bodhicitta.  In fact, the entire Bodhisattva path only commences with the attainment of Bodhicitta which only comes through intuition—and I might add, a profound, ecstatic intuition.  If you are in the dark about this, you ain’t even close to grasping the wonders of Mahayana Buddhism or, for that matter, Buddhism itself.

Hinayana Buddhism

For those new to Buddhism, whether it’s out of curiosity or because studying Buddhism is part of a required course taught in a university, they first learn that Buddhism starts with the doctrine of impermanence, suffering and insubstantiality.  In other words, all that we perceive through our senses and think about is fundamentally unreal.  Furthermore, nothing we perceive has a permanent essence or nature.  Nor can we affirm anything positive of something or negative.  The Buddha even says, “Regard the world (loka) as void (suññam) and ever.  It is the king of Death” (Sutta-Nipata 1119).

But is is all there is to Buddhism?  The answer is, no.

Judging from what I have seen of some course materials including the many books published about Buddhism for the neophyte, Buddhism is made to stop at the quay—never to cross to the other shore which is where real Buddhism is to be found.  Mainly what the curious and the student learn is hinayana Buddhism by which I  mean  the vehicle (yana) of deficient (hina) Buddhism (I use this term without meaning it to refer to any particular school of Buddhism.).  Said again, the stuff about Buddhism the curious and the student learn is not comprehensive.  It is only half—the negative half.  In fact, in hinayana, very little is mentioned about nirvana and if it is, it usually errs. 

On the subject of nirvana or a higher reality or substance which the Buddha teaches, which isn’t empty, he alludes to it in such a way so as not to admit any kind of access except by way of mystical intuition, or gnosis.  This is meant to stop us dead in our tracks so we won’t hold out any hope that we can access ultimate reality, in this case nirvana, by way of sustained metaphysical inquiry or logical dialectic.  If we do so, we inevitably end up outside of the precincts of Buddhism.  We end up with a counterfeit teaching.  This is hinayana.  

By holding on to such a teaching as hinayana what we continually fail to realize is that our ignorance (S., avidya) bars and deceives us from understanding the true teaching.  This means that we are unable to study what Buddha actually taught.  In this sense, we are bespelled by hinayana, so much so that we mistake this shore for the transcendent shore! 

The illusion of duality

The Cartesian dualism, not to be confused with Ryle’s ghost in the machine, holds that the individual person is a combination of a corporeal body and an incorporeal rational soul.  Not too far from this—but not exactly the same—the Buddha regarded the individual or person as consisting of Five Aggregates and a self/atmâ .  The self, it is important to point out, is different than an aggregate under the familiar refrain found frequently in the Pali canon:  "This [aggregate] is not mine, this [aggregate] I am not, this [aggregate] is not my self [attâ]."  

From what I can discern, the so-called Cartesian dualism is not really a dualism at all (strictly speaking), as if there were a spatial separation between the corporeal body and the rational soul.  Nor is the Buddha's position dual, either.  Later, Mahayana will treat the phenomenal world, including the Five Aggregates, as a mode of an underlying Mind-substance so that the terms self and Mind become almost interchangeable (self is eventually equated with Buddha-nature and Tathagata-matrix in the Mahaparinirvana Sutra).

The problem with the label of dualism is that it takes a unity, for example, water, then proceeds to split it up into two incompatible and antagonistic states, namely, water and wave.  Asanga understood this when in his Mahayanasutralamkara he wrote:  “Thus the duality finds itself in appearance, but not in reality.”  He also went on to say that, “Grasping the illusory figure of an illusory elephant is an illustration of duality, even as there is no duality there, the duality is only perceived.”  How true!  The duality hacked out between water and wave, and let’s say wood, and an elephant shaped from wood is unreal; a fiction if you like.  From these last examples there is only water and wood—the mode is illusory and not beyond the substance.  Finally, the Lankavatara Sutra will tell us, all is Mind-only (cittamatra).  Nothing that we perceive is real—there is only Mind (of which we are quite ignorant unless we have had Bodhicitta).

How remarkable, therefore, that we still prefer to dualize, as it were, creating appearances and false distinctions seemingly oblivious to the one substance (Mind) which underlies all; which lies unawakened in each of us.  If we were to only believe that our created dualities were fictions, such as heaven and hell, or good and evil, life might improve greatly.  But even better, if we could be in communion with Mind, where all distinctions are seen to be illusory displays (since they are only Mind modes), we might even get a wink from the Buddha, himself, acknowledging that we have actually started crossing to the other shore. 

Buddhism without the intuitive type

A strictly historical and analytical view of Buddhism (or a strictly intellectual view) often adds up to a misrepresentation of Buddhism.  It could be argued, and not without success, that much of the Buddhism we have in the texts is intended for the mystical, intuitive type who is an oddity these days. (I thank Jung for the term "intuitive type" who got it from Maria Moltzer.)  Of course, for the most part, Western Buddhists are not aware of this—it may not find much notice in academia either.  As a consequence of this unawareness Buddhism is becoming something else which doesn't require the intuitive type.  

I should add, that in looking for a preeminent example of intuitive works, I have to point to the Upanishads.  As regards Buddhism the Dhammapada, and the Sutta-Nipata will suffice for now.  Such works show distinct traits of having been born from intuition—and the intuitive type.  They point to something mysterious and transcendent.  Their composition, to be sure, was not hammered out by the discursive intellect.  Far from it.  To reiterate, these works arose from intuitive types.  

Such works also demonstrate the essential difference between the East and the West during a time when the East was not focused, as it is today, on the orders of the tyrannical intellect which has little or no use for intuitive types or the intuitive mind.  If at this point we need a more concise notion of intuition, I think this one hits the mark somewhat.

“Whereas sense perception is the sense of reality, the perceiving of things as they are, intuition also ‘perceives,’ but less through the conscious apparatus of the senses and more through its capacity for an unconscious ‘inner perception’ of the inherent potentialities of things” (J. Borelli, Jung and Eastern Thought, p. 71).

I would add to this and point out that intuition is often characterized as a direct and immediate penetration into the heart or essence of a subject matter; a gnosis if you like that sees the matter as it is.  For Buddhism, this amounts to a lifting of the veil of our distorted, illusory world presented to  us by the psychophysical body or the same, the Five Aggregates.  Importantly, this also means that without valuing intuition we end up making ourselves virtual prisoners in an illusory reality with no chance of escape since a viable escape route demands a high degree of intuitive perspicacity.  

Modern Buddhism naturally suffers from a devaluation of intuition and intuitive types.  This is to say that its present form in the West is not suited for intuitive types but instead is for those who prefer to be guided by the discursive and sensory intellect which takes things from the outside.  As we might expect, this yields no certainty, for the ultimate foundation of Buddhism—and certainty—is only accessible by intuition at least this is what Buddhism teaches.  To underscore this, this is where meditation or dhyâna comes into the picture which is a major part of Buddhism.  Surely, the modern Buddhist doesn’t believe that Siddhartha rejected his ascetic practices, which almost killed him, for meditation because it was more relaxing and less troubling!  He rejected his previous practices because, unlike genuine meditation, they focused on the external.  In other words, meditation suited Siddhartha because he was an intuitive type.

Confession of a Buddhist heretic

Yesterday I came across the title of Stephen Batchelor's new book, Confession of a Buddhist Atheist.  There is something about the title that I found odd.  I still can’t put my finger on it exactly.  Suffice it to say that for a Buddhist confessing that he is an atheist is about as uninteresting as atheist confessing that he or she enjoys Buddhism and studies it a great deal.  Unless one has never read much Buddhism, the Buddha was no big fan of a creator God.  I think the following two examples serve to underscore this.

 

He who has eyes can see the sickening sight 

Why does not God set his creatures right?

If his wide power no limit can restrain,

Why is his hand so rarely spread to bless?

Why are his creatures all condemned to pain?

Why does he not to all give happiness?

Why do fraud, lies, and ignorance prevail?

Why triumphs falsehood -- truth and justice fail?

I count your God one among the unjust, 

   who made a world in which to shelter wrong (Bhuridatta Jataka).

 

And,

 

If there exists some God all-powerful to fulfill  

In every creature bliss or woe, and action good or ill

That God is stained with sin. 

The human being does but work his will (Mahabodhi Jataka).

 

Rather than entitle his book Confession of a Buddhist Atheist why not change it to read, Confession of a Buddhist Heretic?  It might be more provocative with such a title and sell like freshly baked chocolate chip cookies.  To be sure, Batchelor has always admitted that he doesn’t accept some primary Buddhist doctrines such as rebirth and karma which are considered by him to be Hindu accretions; a claim which most Buddhist scholars might take issue with.  I have studied enough of the Buddhist notion of rebirth and karma to appreciate its uniqueness.  Nor, I might add, did all Indian systems buy into rebirth and karma.  It could even be argued that Buddhism perfected the notion of rebirth and karma. 

 

If Batchelor would consider himself to be a compassionate Buddhist heretic instead of an agnostic/atheist Buddhist, it might serve to portray him in the correct light (an honest light, too).  I must say after reading his other book, Buddhism Without Beliefs, I was moved by how much of it had very little to do with Buddhism.  It was really a work composed by a secularist who used the name “Buddhism” to sell us on his own religion—a religion he had made up along the way from his life as a hippie fleeing the British Isles, to being a Buddhist monk, an apostate, and now a wise old Westerner who finally believes that much of Buddhism is bullshit.

 

I can’t wait for the price to drop on his new book (right now it is outrageous) so I can actually read it.  I know, however, Batchelor will not surprise me.  The book will be boring and of little spiritual value.  

 

By the way, I am also an atheist and an agnostic and older than Mr. Batchelor.  But unlike Batchelor, I hit pay dirt with Buddhism.  It opened my eyes to a universe that I had no idea existed behind the Western secular facade.  Because of that, I am forever thankful to old Gautama and the teachings he left behind.  I bow to you old dude!

 

 

Real Buddhism abhors a vacuum

From the standpoint of thought, the substance from which it is composed seems non-existent or empty to the run-of-the-mill person (prithagjana).  Said another way, from the standpoint of dependent origination, there appears to be neither substance nor ultimate reality.  Only phenomena appear to exist, in other words.  But reason informs us that things cannot arise from other things or by themselves or through combinations since they are of a contingent, dependent nature.  

When we hear that all sensory phenomena, including our thoughts, are empty we are to understand that only their superficial, temporal nature is empty and transitory.  But this does not mean that a substratum does not exist or is lacking.  Without such a dynamic substratum no dependent thing can arise.  In the same way, before I can make a heap of something I first need something such as sand or nuts.  There is no attribute without substance.  Nor can waves be propagated lacking a medium.  This, I hasten to add, was not overlooked by early Buddhists like the Mahasanghikas who postulated the doctrine of beginningless and endless pure Mind (anadi-ananta-vimalacitta).

Without understanding or accepting that things cannot simply arise from mere absence nihilism takes hold of us—and takes hold of Buddhism.  For one snakebitten by nihilism all is empty.  Accordingly, there can be no substance from which empty things arise—there are only empty things.  Because this nihilism is also a form of skepticism we can advance no farther except to cast every determination into the abyss of emptiness calling ourselves agnostics!

But of course even Buddhism eventually must abhor a vacuum.  Eventually Buddhism reaches a stage where it must depart from the absurdity of emptiness wrongly grasped.  Underscoring this, the doctrine of emptiness (Shunyavada) according to S.N. Dasgupta can become “blank phenomenalism which only accepts the phenomenal world as it is but which would not, for a moment, tolerate any kind of essence, ground or reality behind it (cited by Narain, The Madhyamika Mind, p. 50).  

What eventually has to rise from the ashes of nihilism or blank phenomenalism is the Phoenix of absolute or pure Mind for which emptiness, it can truly be said, ironically describes the indescribable nature of this Mind which being the substance of all is translucent and devoid of attributes.  It is not surprising, therefore, according to C.D. Sharma that,  

“Nagarjuna himself in his Ratnavali (I, 45 and 60) identifies Reality with Pure Consciousness or Bodhi or Jñâna.  Aryadeva also identifies Reality with the Pure Self or Chitta.  (Cittvisuddhiprakarana, 27, 28, 74).  Shantideva in much-inspired verses praises the only Reality, Bodhi-Chitta or the True Self which is Pure Consciousness.  (Bodhi charyavatara I, 8, 10, etc.)  If the Bodhi of Nagarjuna, the Chitta of Aryadeva, and the Bodhi-Chitta of Shantideva are not the self-luminous Self, which is Pure Consciousness, what else on earth can they be?” (Narin, The Madhyamika Mind, p. 52).

Clearly the above shows that Buddhists like Nagarjuna were not run-of-the-mill Buddhists who were satisfied with the easy road of nihilism or blank phenomenalism; believing all is empty which demands we do nothing except wait for our death which in this respect amounts to a kind of ersatz nirvana.

Clifford's mind-stuff and Buddhism

 The Lankavatara Sutra (in full, Saddharmalankavatarasutra) proves a demanding and difficult Sutra to comprehend.  Still, it is not without simplicity and, we could say, elegance provided one has had a glimpse into the nature of Mind, itself, which is the absolute substance of reality.  

The theory or notion underlying the Lankavatara Sutra is not far from the theory of William Kingdon Clifford (1845–1879), the English mathematician and philosopher, who postulated that our material universe is essentially “mind-stuff” (Clifford coined this term in 1878).  

Both Clifford and the Lankavatara seem to be in agreement that the material or phenomenal universe we see before us and experience through this materialized body is an imperfect representation of this mind-stuff.  Seeming to echo this, in the Lankavatara Sutra the Buddha says the following:

“Again, Mahamati, my teaching consists in the cessation of sufferings arising from the discrimination of the triple world; in the cessation of ignorance, desire, deed, and causality; and in the recognition that an objective world, like a vision, is the manifestation of Mind itself.” 

To put it another way, matter is a disharmony (duhkha) that is generated by mind-stuff's imprecise cognition of itself or the same, its discrimination which the Lankavatara never tires of reminding us.  Thus, the picture of reality we have before us which we hold dear is merely a representation, that is, a complex configuration of mind-stuff (modern science would perhaps say all things are made of vacuum).  Summing this up, I go back to Clifford who may have said it best:

“The universe, then, consists entirely of mind-stuff.  Some of this is woven into the complex form of human minds containing imperfect representations of the mind-stuff outside of them, and of themselves also, as a mirror reflects its own image in another mirror, ad infinitum.  Such an imperfect representation is called a material universe.  It is a picture in man's mind of the real universe of mind-stuff.”

Of course, realizing this mind-stuff proves a daunting task especially for those who are enthralled with appearance; who can't let go of it preferring, instead, to stay on the wheel of samsara going from one dream world to the next in the belief that each rebirth is getting them closer, somehow, to nirvana.  But then it was never the Buddha's mission to teach people who were hard to teach; who believe the world is not Mind-only (cittamatra).  

Beyond the defilements

 We can better understand the notion of klesha or kilesa (Pali), which is often translated by “defilement”, by the compound upakkilesa (upa + kilesa) which The Pali-English Dictionary defines as “anything that spoils or obstructs.”  

But now we have to ask, what does upakkilesa spoil or obstruct? We find the answer to our question in the Kilesasamyutta (27) of the Samyutta-Nikaya of the Pali canon.  It is mind that is obstructed and obscured which obviously prevents it from directly apperceiving itself (this is the substance of mind which has always been devoid of defilements).  

Borrowing an idea from the Samadhiraja Sutra, when mind’s determination of itself is coarse, which in this case means it is defiled (kilesa-ized!), it always fails to resonate with itself as pure Mind.  As a result, it stays in samsaric bondage.

Making this bondage even worse, according to the Buddha, speaking in the Kilesasamyutta (S. iii. 234), the Five Aggregates or the same, the psychophysical body, is a kilesa/defilement of mind (cittasseso upakkileso).  

Such a body affords no refuge.  In fact, much of this body’s inner life is a beehive of secondary defilements consisting of anger, grudge holding, action which results from anger, the intention to harm, jealousy, pretense, hypocrisy, shamelessness, avarice, pride, lack of faith, laziness, depression and so on.  Incidentally, these defilements, while serving to bind us to samsara also can propel us into lower states of rebirth.

There is no exit from this self-created hell until mind, so to speak, passes through the defilements it has generated finally coming to rest in its own pure substance or nature.  Now at rest with itself as the absolute medium which transcends the configurations of the medium (and by implication, samsara), Mind sees everything like an ethereal flower.

“When thou reviewest the world with thy wisdom and compassion, it is to thee like an ethereal flower, and of which we cannot say whether it is created or vanishing, as [the categories of] being and non-being are inapplicable to it” (Lankavatara Sutra).