The Zennist

Hope and false hope

We are all familiar with phrase by Karl Marx that “Religion is the opium of the people.”  Adding a bit more context.  Here is what Marx said (italics added):

“Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people. The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their real happiness. To call on them to give up their illusions about their condition is to call on them to give up a condition that requires illusions. The criticism of religion is, therefore, in embryo, the criticism of that vale of tears of which religion is the halo” (Marx, Introduction to a Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right).

Marx, as I read him, fails to understand that for the masses hope is everything and that hope comes in many forms, including religion, trying to get rich, and lottery tickets.  It is fair to say that as long as religion offers plenty of hope, people will forever remain religious to some degree.  Marx’s conclusion that religion is the opium of the people is made more ridiculous by phrasing it, “hope is the opium of the people.”  Well, from a biological point of view, our species could not have survived without hope.  Hope allows us to override discouraging thoughts that might eventually paralyze prudent action.  Hope allowed our ancestors to override the fear of getting devoured by huge hungry predators.  Today, hope permits us to get through a variety of minor and major catastrophes. 

The Communist revolution didn’t end despair.  The Communists tried to provide hope but in the end, they couldn’t provide enough.  Nor does capitalism fare any better in some respects.  We’ve all read about the Great Depression during the 1930s and seen its devastation on the History Channel.  It was certainly a time of great despair for many Americans and Europeans.  At the same time, there was no shortage of hope-givers some of whom preached the Gospel of Jesus Christ in a tent or on the radio.  People also found hope in a bottle of cheap liquor.  

Presently, the spirit of modernity doesn’t have a high regard for religion.  This can only mean that relying on religion, as a means of hope, is a tad uncool.  In fighting despair or the same, depression, modern science offers us more hope than religion, or so it is currently believed.  Science has a powerful arsenal of drugs.  Just pop one pill, depression disappears.  To be sure, religion as a means for alleviating depression cannot compare with modern science!

Our world is not unlike Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World (1931) which gave its inhabitants hope through the drug, soma and unlimited sexual access.  Huxley’s world was the creation of science as is our own emerging brave new world, yet despair, that is nihilism, is always present.  We have become (or are becoming) blissed-out workers of nothingness living in the here and now.  A twist to this, Huxley wrote his novel as a parody of utopianism and especially, American optimism.

As I see it, the failure to understand the importance of hope for people in despair will be one of the significant booboos of the modern age.  This is witnessed by modernity’s unwarranted attack on religion (and I am thinking at the moment ‘tradition’).  Such an attack, which comes from scientism is, in effect, sending a signal to those who are religious that they cannot have hope.  This reminds me of neuroscientist and religious critic, Sam Harris, who tells Buddhists to get rid of Buddhism.  I assume because it offers less hope than a handful of pills.

Hope that has been scientifically realized which Huxley’s Brave New World explores and which, to a certain extent, we see unfolding in modern society, is really false hope.  Moreover, it is a false world supported by false philosophy (i.e., ideology) and false values and norms.  What is missing is a spiritual content so we are left to believe that man is only the sum of his biological parts.

Authentic hope can only come to man when he acknowledges a spiritual content within himself that he can directly apprehend which is truly eternal and beyond despair.  This does not mean, of course, that all religions are not false and give the masses true hope.  Indeed, there are false religions just as there are false utopias.

Buddhism is a science

Periodically, I have to point out with a blog or two that Buddhism, strictly speaking, is a science—though not to be confused with say, the physical or biological sciences.  Still, it is a science.  As a science, which is “cognizance of something specified or implied” (OED) there is a cognition, for example, of pure Mind as animative, or of its transcendent, empty ‘field’ which is like a pure matrix (garbha).  

Where the problem arises for the curious or for Buddhists on the wrong trail is they have little or no appreciation of the subtlety involved in cognizing Mind.  They are too quick to theorize or to make comparisons with mental states with which they are already familiar such as awareness or consciousness.  Yet both are still subjective.  Mind, however, is not subjective or something sensately objective like the bushes I see outside my window.  Such is Mind which is phenomenalized and hidden from itself—not Mind-only.

Ironically, the modern world we live in has Mind analogues of Mind in radio and television.  The signal that is amplified by the radio or the television is like Mind.  And like Mind, we can neither see the signal as a visual determination nor are we conscious of it—not until the signal goes through a particular amplification or magnification process.

What a great Buddhist teacher does is try to get us to connect with Mind’s immaculate substance which is like a signal, but of a very much different sort.  The teacher is bending over backwards with compassion trying to help us see this Mind; to have a direct cognizance of it.  But his efforts are not without problems and failures.  The difficulty that such a teacher faces is that when he really tries to remove the normative and intellectual obstructions that are plastered over the luminous nature of Mind; that prevent us from cognizing it, we go into a tizzy, or get defensive and hostile.

I sometimes get the impression that those new to Buddhism, and even old Buddhist veterans, really believe Buddhism is easy; that one can become enlightened in a few minutes or there is no real enlightenment at all because we have never been non-enlightened—or samsara is nirvana.  Such conclusions are unwarranted and hardly scientific.  There is no authentic attempt on the part of the practitioner to go beyond the boundaries of the psychophysical.  This kind of Buddhism is really a concession to samsara which teaches the ordinary person how to cope with their desires.

The truth of perturbations

Of the Four Noble Truths (chatvari arya-satyani) first noble or aryan truth is usually that of suffering or duhkha.  But in the Digha-Nikaya, in the Samaññaphala Sutta (D. i. 84), we also learn that the âsavas (S., âsrava) or perturbations (also disturbances would work) can be substituted for suffering, hence the âsavas, the âsavas’ origin, their cessation, and the path leading to their cessation.  

Of course with the cessation or destruction (khaya) of the âsavas the mind or citta is released from the former perturbations associated with sense desire, the will to live (bhava), wrong views, and ignorance.  This release is, in essence, nirvana.  Here the Sutta describes the mind necessary to realize the destruction of the perturbations.

“And he with mind concentrated, purified and cleansed, unblemished, free from impurities, malleable, workable, established and having gained imperturbability, applies and directs his mind to the knowledge of the destruction of the corruptions [âsrava]” (trans. Maurice Walshe).

Not until the mind is released from these perturbations which cause its dispersion and non-concentrativeness, is there any chance that we can experience deliverance from suffering, including the Five Aggregates, which are synonymous with suffering, consisting of form, feeling, perception, volitional formations, and sensory consciousness which make up our temporal, psychophysical body.

I should mention that to translate âsava by an English word which is good for all seasons is all but impossible.  I should mention, too, the term was in use before the Buddha, mainly by the Jains.  Speaking more about this difficulty, in his book, Buddhist Phenomenology, Dan Lusthaus elaborates better than I.

“Âsava (S. âsrava)—a term that has been subjected to numerous misleading translations, such as cankers, outflows, etc.—cannot be easily translated. The Buddhists borrowed the terms from the Jains, who used it to describe the flow of karmic particles that stuck to the obstructed jîvas (omniscient life-forces), blocking their omniscience.  Since Buddhists rejected the quasi-materialist karmic theory of Jainism, the term âsava—which for Jains denoted the flow of particles that were attracted by certain types of actions—never fit comfortably into Buddhism's own karmic theories.  Instead the term functioned in Buddhism as an evocative emblem for the most fundamental karmic problems: given âsvas, one continues to act in such a way as to remain bound in samsara; one becomes free from samsara only by eliminating or ‘destroying’ (khaya) these âsvas" (p. 126).

Right now I am toying with the idea that Patanjali’s Yogas citta-vrtti-nirodhah, in his Yoga Sutra, aphorism number two, gives us a better idea what âsava means.  Translated, Patanjali’s aphorism reads: Yoga is the stopping (nirodha) of the modifications (vritti) of mind (citta).  We could say that âsava is a mind-disturbance or modification which ties us into samsara.

Meditation on Mind

Imagine you are going to a Dharma lecture by a great teacher or Lama.  He is fully fluent in English and naturally comes across as very empathetic and humorous.  For those of us at this lecture he begins with the following.

“Ah, so many people today. And you are all interested in true Dharma.  I can tell this by your smiles.  Okay, the first thing I want you to do is close your eyes.  Yes, close them.  What you will see now is the back of your eyelids.  It is not exactly black, but not white either.  Okay, still keeping your eyelids shut, imagine a golden triangle or if you prefer a  seated Buddha—not very large—made of very pure gold.  Next, in the center of this  envision a tiny dot.  Now hold it steady, real steady.”

After everyone is focusing for a while, the Lama continues his lecture.

“Now, I want you to think about this.  What made the image of this golden triangle, and the point, and did the focusing?  Can you describe it?  Does it have a color or size, itself? What senses can see it?  Frankly, you don't know!  The senses can’t see it either.  We will get back to what this is later.  

Now, using your imagination I want you to imagine a fish tank made of pure glass so pure you can hardly see it.  Now, fill this tank up with pure water.  Visualize this water as being so pure that you can’t easily distinguish between the glass and the water.  Next, I want you to take a handful of imaginary dirt and put it into this tank.  Stir it up good.  Now look into this tank.  Can you still see this pure water?  If not, is the water all gone or is it still there but obscured by the presence of the dirt?  Think about this—really think about it.

Now listen carefully.  When pure Mind is discussed in Buddhism it is both active and the substance of everything.  I illustrated the active side of Mind by having you visualize a small golden triangle—or a Buddha—with a tiny dot in its center.  Turning to the substance of Mind, the fish tank filled with pure water symbolized it.  Putting the dirt in the tank was meant to illustrate how difficult it is the see the pure Mind through its obstructing phenomenalizations.

For a good Yogi [Bodhisattva] this meditation is no sweat.  He can clearly distinguish pure Mind from its fluctuations which work to obscure Mind’s immaculate nature.  When he looks into his own body he can distinguish the muddy body from the pure unbodied Mind.  He can also direct his pure Mind to any place.  In one sense, this is the very act of compassion (karuna).

Okay, enough of this.  Let’s now meditate.  Here is your task.  I want you to try and connect the pure activity of Mind with its pure substance.  Remember the illustrations I just gave.  They can help you.  If you succeed, you will be engulfed by a mysterious energy.  This is your temporal body’s reaction to being in the presence of the Buddha.

Now let’s begin.”

There are a number of ways to present Mind or Mind’s nature to those who are in the dark; who cling to what has come into phenomenal being and will surely, in time, cease to be.  What is important is that we make our acquaintance with pure Mind so that we can learn to distinguish it from its phenomena.  This, by the way, is called wisdom which in Sanskrit is prajñâ.

Right now, we are stuck gazing upon the dirt in the fish tank unable to see the pure water; and unable to wield the power of Mind’s pristine active nature even though, paradoxically, we wield it all the time, but as desire.  We are drowning in ignorance, in other words.  We are also too lazy to do anything about it.

Tis the gift to be simple

There has to be a little of Ockkham’s Razor or the principle simplicity in each of us when we review what the Buddha said or did not say about self both in the Pali canon and the Mahayana canon.  Needless to say, I have seen a lot of anti-self Buddhists, in an attempt to cover their arses, go in a direction opposite of Ockkham’s Razor.  They will use any number of needless entities to explain why the Buddha denied the self (when in fact he did not).

However, the simplest explanation is the best one, I am convinced.  It dipicts the real teaching of the Buddha, in fact.  In the Pali canon, the Buddha taught his followers not to mistake the Five Aggregates for their true self or atman (P., attâ), these aggregates being rife with impermanence and pain (nothing is mentioned about the self being impermanent or painful).  In the Brahmajala Sutta, which teaches what Buddhism is not consisting of 62 wrong views, the teaching of atman is not once mentioned.  In his book, The History of Buddhist Thought Edward J. Thomas, right out in front states:

“But even in the Brahmajala- sutta, where all the heresies are supposed to be included, there is no denial of an atman” (p. 98). 

It is not to hard to imainge the Buddha telling his followers one day that the corporeal body (i.e., the Five Aggregates) is like a prison and those who tenaciously cling to it will never be able to realize nirvana by doing so escape from samsara.  Certainly, the Buddha never once said that if we reject the self, thereby affirming what is not the self (anatman), we shall attain nirvana!

Frankly, it takes an odd kind of psychological frame of mind to believe that the Buddha really denied the self.  In addition, while doing this, a great deal of time is being wasted.  We are not working on what really needs to be dumped and done away with (which has nothing to do with the self).  

By taking the position of being against the self (anatman) one is really refusing to decouple from the Five Aggregates, assuming first of all, that death will do the job, eventually.  This is total rubbish.  Death is only a radical transformation of the being who takes up Five Aggregates again.  In point of fact, we are born into the aggregates, live in them and, at death, recouple with new ones.  Our desires for the aggregated life keeps the ancient wheel of samsara turning!  But then maybe some of us like complexity and not simplicity.

To see for ourselves

In typical religious knowledge we might imagine it to be somewhat like Moses receiving the Ten Commandments from God (or some say the angels) atop Mount Sinai who then shares it with others below, i.e., the Israelites, who have not had this close encounter with God.  It doesn’t matter how strong our belief is that this actually happened, this can never qualify as scientific knowledge.  For all we know, Moses might be hallucinating from having been in the sun too long.  

We might even go so far as to say that such religious knowledge rests entirely on faith than on actual direct knowing.  In addition, there is an exclusion factor.  We, the followers, cannot become a Moses, a Jesus or a Mohammed.  In short, we the followers are often the victims.  

By comparison, Buddhism’s knowledge is more scientific.  What the Buddha realized introspectively can be realized by anyone.  Unlike with the example of Moses, in which the Israelites had no way of verifying the religious claims of Moses, any follower of the Buddha can hope to eventually see what the Buddha saw thus verifying the correctness of his teaching or Dharma.  This is evident in this passage from the Majjhima-Nikaya.  (Italics mine.)

“Well explained has been the Dhamma by the Blessed One, the Dhamma that bears fruit here and now, not subject to time [for results], that invites every man to come and see for himself, leading to the highest good, to be experienced by the wise in their very self” (M. i. 265). 

In other words, Buddhism teaches a means or a path that can lead directly to what Siddhartha, the Bodhisattva, experienced when he awakened and thus became Buddha.  Looking at Buddhist scripture, its importance and value depends, entirely, on whether or not it helps us to become, eventually, Buddhas or awakened ones.  Said another way, we can all become a Moses or a Jesus or a Mohammed.  Incidentally, this is the difference between Buddhist scripture and the scripture of other religions.  The scripture of other religions doesn't teach their followers how to become a Moses, a Jesus or a Mohammed.  Such religions in their practice demand obedience and that one follows a creed.  There is no awakening.

Everything about Buddhism is really designed to help us see, spiritually, our true nature which is beyond the influence of samsara, that is, beyond the influence of the phenomenal world and this fragile temporal body.  This seeing is also a knowing or gnosis that for the seer is quite real and earth shaking—and certainly not subjective.  It is just becoming aware of a super reality that we live in but in the past lacked any knowledge of.

The blood and incest of samsara

In the Pali discourse entitled Thirty Bhikkhus (S. ii. 187) the Buddha decides to teach some monks or bhikkhus in such a way that their minds will be released from their bonds.  What we, as the reader, learn is samsara is without beginning so that we have always been transmigrating from one life to the next “hindered by ignorance and fettered by craving.”  The Buddha goes on to say,

“The stream of blood that you have shed as you roamed and wandered on through this long course—this alone is more than the water in the four great oceans.  For a long time, bhikkhus, you have been cows, and when as cows you were beheaded, the stream of blood that you shed is greater than the waters in the four great oceans.  For a long time you have been buffalo, sheep, goats, deer, chickens, and pigs....  For a long time you have been arrested as burglars, highwaymen, and adulterers, and when you were beheaded, the stream of blood that you shed is greater than the water in the four great oceans.  For what reason?  Because, bhikkhus, this samsara is without discoverable beginning....  It is enough to be liberated from them.” (trans. Bhikkhu Bodhi)

A gory illustration, nevertheless, the Buddha drives the point home that since we have never been liberated from the cycle of samsara it stands to reason that we have had our blood shed for an incalculably long time.

Supposedly, at the end of this particular discourse, the monks were delighted and their minds became released.  What we can gather from this is that as spirit (sattva), and unbeknownst to us, we crave the samsaric life thereby becoming continually trapped in its coils.  Until a Buddha comes along and teaches us how to decouple ourselves from the world of samsara, we live a pretty bloody life.

Following this particular discourse is another one entitled the Mother (Mata).  If the last one was gory, this one has some strange implications.  The Buddha says,

“It is not easy, bhikkhus, to find a being who is in this long course has not previously been your mother ... your father ... your brother ... your sister ... your son ... your daughter.” (trans. Bhikkhu Bodhi)

This is so for the same reason as given in the last discourse.  In brief, we have been transmigrating in samsara, seemingly, forever without a break.  From this it stands to reason that our wife or husband we dearly love could have been our mother or father at one time!  This is incest on a huge scale, in other words.

As long as mind, which is spiritual, remains deeply attached to its phenomenalizations, caught up in each life and subsequent lives, it partakes of every possible existence.  There is no way it can win nirvana and avoid suffering once and for all. 

Letting the aggregates and nonself go

It can be reasonably argued that the Pali canon only attests to an “I am not these five psychophysical aggregates (skandhas)” realization of the self—not the self’s negation.  There is little evidence in the early Pali Buddhist scriptures that the Buddha was out to destroy the Upanishadic notion of Atman.  Almost the opposite seems to be the case.  The Buddha’s teaching is meant to make a radical distinction between Atman and the non-atman, the latter being the five psychophysical aggregates (which I have mentioned in other blogs belongs to Mara the Buddhist devil). 

Perhaps more pertinent, in the Buddhist canon, what can be said of each psychophysical aggregate such as form (rupa) or consciousness (vijñâna), for example, which is quite negative, can be said also of the nonself (anattâ, lit. not-the-self).  The nonself is not only suffering, it is something unworthy that we should not cling to.  If you have the understanding that the Buddha taught a doctrine of nonself, you're wrong.  Nowhere in the Pali canon can be found an explicit doctrine of nonself.  Concluding bluntly, the nonself is evil along with the psychophysical aggregates.

Worth adding, many times the Buddha will point out to the monks that the psychophysical aggregates which are nonself, should be correctly discerned as “This [aggregate] is not mine, this [aggregate] I am not, this [aggregate] is not my self (attâ/atmâ) (S. iii. 22).  He is basically saying, also, this nonself is not mine, I am not this nonself, this nonself is not my self.  This is a rejection of not only the five psychophysical aggregates but also the nonself.  But the modern teaching of Buddhism would have us believe otherwise, which is frankly stupid.

It truly counts as one of the most astonishing screwups fuckups in all of religion, that the followers of the Buddha should proclaim as his authentic teaching what he was dead set against.  I need to say, at this point, that the ramifications of such a screwup are far-reaching and may, in fact, limit Buddhism’s marketability in the twenty-first century or limit its appeal only to nihilists.  Perhaps this screwup is what helped to bring Buddhism to an end in the land of its birth.  It is remarkable that when Buddhism went to China and became popular, the No-Self doctrine didn’t make much of an impresson.  In fact, a Sutra of great popularity was the Mahaparinirvana Sutra which teaches that the Tathagata is the Atman.  Other Sutras, too, like the Lanakavatara Sutra taught the Atman as did still other Mahayana Sutras.

One final thought.  To understand the way the Buddha saw the Atman we need to imagine that we are nothing more or less than pure water.  As this pure water when we look into ourself we see no-thing—nor even ourself.  Agitating ourself we finally see something determinate.  But what we see is not ourself (anatman).  What we see, instead, is a form.  Then we feel something; then we perceive; have inclinations and become conscious (all these are the five psychophysical aggregates).  But as pure water we do not apperceive ourself.  We only see the pure water’s ripples or wave-forms.  Holding this thought before us, if we wished, as pure water, to see ourself should we cling to our agitations?  Could we say that we are specifically not these agitations?  And finally, what would happen if one night we let them go just for a brief second?  What would we behold?

Killing Buddhism

Neuroscientist, champion of secularism, author, and religious critic, Sam Harris wrote a piece entitled "Killing the Buddha" in the Shambhala Sun.  He said, "I propose that we take Lin Chi's admonishment rather seriously.  As students of the Buddha, we should dispense with Buddhism."  Okay, what did Zen master Lin Chi exactly say besides "kill the Buddha"?

"If you meet a Buddha, kill the Buddha.  If you meet a patriarch, kill the patriarch.  If you meet an arhat, kill the arahat, if you meet your parents, kill your parents.  If you meet your kinfolk, kill your kinfolk" (Watson, The Zen Teachings of Master Lin-chi, p. 52).

I think to be consistent with Lin-chi's thought we need to kill a lot more.  Oh, wait a minute, we can't kill our parents or our kinfolk or even Sam Harris—we can only kill the Buddha who is already dead.  After all the Buddha, his memory and his teachings, are more trouble than they are worth preserving.  

In place of all religion we need good old modern secularism which will help us dispense with Buddhism!  Yes, that will do fine.  And marching together with the neuroscientists of the world, like Sam, arm in arm, reminiscent of old Communist poster depictions, we will arrive at utopia!  Okay, I am just kidding.

On a more serious note, we need ask what is the standard dictionary meaning of "secularism"?  The Oxford English Dictionary informs us that secularism means:

"The doctrine that morality should be based solely on regard to the well-being of mankind in the present life, to the exclusion of all considerations drawn from belief in God or in a future state."

The above doesn't appear to exclude Buddhism (or kill it), even with its huge canon.  Secularism also seems inclusive enough except that it is not interested in belief in God or Jesus, or belief in some future heaven on earth after the wicked have been thoroughly judged and annihilated.  It doesn't seem to be interested in displacing religion either.  What appears to be the jewel on the crown of secularism is that human beings are unconditionally important.  I mean where would we be without human beings?  

More fundamental, secularism is the basis upon which differing religions can rest assured that they will not be slaughtered by their competition since the well-being of the individual is paramount even if he or she is a Jew or a Muslim or even a Baptist.  In this respect, secularism is freedom from coercion by a particular religion.

Although Sam Harris espouses secularism, his writing is nevertheless tinged with an anti-religious attitude.  On this note, why should Buddhists dispense with Buddhism? There is nothing in Buddhism that goes against secularism.

Buddhism and gnosticism

Both Buddhism and gnosticism (gnosticism as a typological category) see our phenomenal world as a deception (maya) insofar as it is not what it appears to be.  Worse still, at bottom, it only gives suffering to its subjects who cling to it.  In the final analysis, nothing is signified by the phenomenal world except its nothingness as an illusion.  Said another way, there is a radical discontinuity between phenomenal reality and spiritual reality in both Buddhism and gnosticism (even in the Gospel of John, which is not considered to be a gnostic text, we find the gnostic theme of light and darkness clearly established in the first chapter).  

For the average person this seems unimportant.  But then for Buddhism and gnosticism, the average person is spiritually asleep or dead who does not see the peril in clinging to the phenomenal world.  For example, during our adult years, try as we might to secure a sure foundation for ourselves so that we might enjoy some measure of happiness, sooner or later misfortune strikes us.  Our life must now face the sardonic grin of death but not finality since there is rebirth back into this oppressive system after death.

In light of this, gnosticism like Buddhism has a rather deprecatory view of the creator God and his creative handiwork which is vexing and certainly not what it is cracked up to be.  As one might expect from this, at the heart of gnosticism is the revelation of a hidden escape route, a gnosis (in Sanskrit jñâna), which if perfected will liberate us from our bondage to this world, that is, an evil world that is the creation of a demiurgic God.  This, in essence, is no different than the Buddha's insistence that we distinguish (prajñâ) between the psychophysical body (skandha) and our true self which is not psychophysical.  Only then can we attain liberation or nirvana.  This psychophyscial body, the Buddha goes on to explain in his discourses, belongs to none other than Mara, the Evil One who is Buddhism's devil.  

Both Buddhism and gnosticism, it needs pointing out, draw a sharp distinction between “inner perception” of gnosis/jñâna/prajñâ and sensory perception by means of which we reinforce our connection with the false world of the demiurgic God “whose hand,” the Buddha says, “is so rarely spread to bless.”  Such a sharp distinction finds itself even in the history of religion although it is not apparent at first sight.  The history of Christianity reveals that there were the gnostic Christians and those Christians who refuted gnosticism.  This is likewise found in Buddhism, perhaps in the difference between those who follow the small vehicle (hinayana) and those who follow the great vehicle (mahayana).  The former deny that there is anything like a self or atman beyond the psychophysical body whereas the latter affirms the self as the Buddha-nature even calling those who deny the self, essentially, heretics who are to be shunned!