The Zennist

Modern Buddhism, you suck

I confess, I got the idea for the title of this blog from Matt Taibbi, Rolling Stone's uncompromising enfant terrible.  In a nutshell he kicked Lara Logan's butt, who is the foreign news correspondent for CBS.  As I read his blog I kept seeing another blog superimposed over his:  a Buddhist blog that lambasts modern Buddhists—especially teachers—for trying to market chocolate coated bullshit in the name of Buddhism; which ends up really hiding the truth about Buddhism.

Maybe Tiabbi is really on to something.  The kernel of his blog is about journalists bending over backwards to please the wrong people who then become their pet stenographers, in effect saying, screw the public.  As I reshape this idea to fit within the text of modern Buddhism my concern is about teachers who bend over backwards to please the prejudices of their followers; who end up handing their followers bullshit which has little or nothing to do with authentic Buddhism.  The truth of the matter, Buddhism is supposed to challenge our asses not pamper them.  In the main it is supposed to destroy our fucking naive belief that we are this body while, at the same time, point to our true transcendent body.

It is not hard to read the Buddha’s discourses.  Most of them are on the Internet free of charge.  Unless you can’t read, the Buddha’s message is basically this temporal life really sucks.  But the good news, you’re not really this body that is a caldron of pain, you are much more which is immortal.  But right now you are dead asleep, in a state of deep oblivion clinging to the Five Aggregate machine of form, feeling, perception, volitional formations and consciousness.  

Taking the aforementioned to be the truth of the Buddha's teaching, why then do the so-called reputable Buddhist teachers of today, for the most part, ignore this stressing, instead, how to cope with samsara staying asleep?  They have their followers believing there is nothing transcendent about the Buddha's message; there is no real Self; and nothing immortal to attain (the Pali Nikayas tell us that immortality or amata, is an epithet for nirvana).

Maybe the reason so many modern Buddhist teachers hoodwink their students is that there is more money in teaching to their modern prejudices which certainly scout the transcendent or any idea of a spiritual body.  Let’s face it, most students are materialists or like the Japanese, hardcore phenomenalists.  They also want to have their egos stroked—not their fur rubbed the wrong way.  Most students are unwilling to put in a lot of sweat and tears making their own experiences chime with the Buddha’s discourses.  This might explain why they don’t study the Buddha's discourses, at least the ones they don’t understand (which tend to show them how stupid they really are).

Going down the road to nirvana

It almost goes without saying that the general notion of nirvana is difficult to get a hold of.  There has been, always it seems, a diversity of opinions as to its correct meaning.  Some Western scholars in the past have generally put nirvana into the camp of annihilation or extinction.  This, I must say, is rather odd; bordering on the laughable.  I can’t imagine a Buddhist monk working hard on effecting self-extinction, short of suicide, trying to annihilate his existence—whatever that means.  On the other hand, it would make more sense just to say this monk is trying to effect the extinction of all the necessary conditions that make rebirth, and with it suffering, inevitable.

It makes no sense to entertain the belief or the view that nirvana is a special kind of annihilation that ends in a state of complete oblivion, that is, absolute forgetfulness which seems to be on a par with the Western view of death.  Turning this around, it is from forgetting (avidya) our immortal true nature that we are in this present samsaric pickle from which we can't escape.  In light of this, the Buddha’s nirvana has to be a state that doesn’t oblivionize or extinguish us but, instead, leads us—fully awake—beyond our present dark world of samsara in which we are going around and around from one birth to another.

My own opinion, after reading Roger-Pol Droit's book, The Cult of Nothingness, is Western educated opinion about Buddhism, which includes nirvana, seems to be always heading in the direction of ‘mystical death’ in some form or other.  This might be in the direction of attained nihilism in which subject-object consciousness becomes absent; or it might be a kind of felicitous death with shades of Christian resurrection; or self-forgetting.  But this doesn’t come close to nirvana.  

Nirvana is certainly beyond death and, to be sure, mystical death in which case the Western mind has no way to even begin to approach Buddhism on Buddhism’s own terms.  This is understandable.  The modern West has very little in the way of traditions comparable with Buddhism by which it might understand Buddhism’s nirvana unlike the Chinese who had Taoism (Daoism).  A comparable Western tradition was put an end to around the 4th century by the Christian Church.  It is only in recent memory that the West learned about Plato and Plotinus because of the domination of the so-called Dark Ages which began with the end of classical antiquity.

However, Buddhism can be understood and nirvana won if one is willing to junk the Western mindset which bids us not to look too deep within.  A good dose of studying Greek philosophers from classical antiquity like Plato and Plotinus, just to name a few, are a helpful antidote, who were inspired by the Eleusinian Mysteries which in the last blog I touched upon.  Nor should we sell, Indian philosophy or Chinese Taoism short either.  Both are exceptional.  

Modern Buddhists who stubbornly wish to stick with the current Western path, which these days it seems is headed down an agnostic highway, would do well to consider that this highway is not going in the direction of nirvana, but quite opposite.  It is going nowhere.  As a result, such wayfarers will never reach nirvana the timeless, nirvana as ultimate reality (paramartha satya), nirvana the eternal, the changeless, or reach nirvana the immortal (amrita).  They will only reach samsara.

The Eleusinian Mysteries and Buddhism

 If we were to look at Hinayana, known as the small or lesser vehicle, and Mahayana, the great vehicle, from the perspective of the ancient Greek Eleusinian Mysteries or initiations, it might be easier for the average person to understand their role.

First of all, the Eleusinian Mysteries consisted of two general forms.  The lesser initiations and the greater initiations.  The lesser initiations were conducted on a yearly basis, the greater less often.  Perhaps once every five years.  The Eleusinian initiations continued for over two thousand years before the Christians put an end to them.  By every account the Mysteries were considered profound, the greater mysteries, of course, revealing ultimate reality to the adept who became henceforth a ‘seer’ (G., epoptês).

The lesser initiations or mysteries brought to the consciousness of the participant the condition of the unpurified soul which is bound or invested with a dense carnal body.  In this condition, there is no knowledge of what is truly real.  There is no soul or self to be found since it almost dies by its union with the physical body.  In this woeful state there is only again-generation (G., palingenesis) that is, rebirth for the soul which is its punishment.  Again-generation is no more than the equivalent of Buddhist samsara this being a life that is impermanent, woeful, and soulless.  

With only external differences, the aforementioned certainly resonates with Hinayana not to mention the life of the common, run of the mill follower called in Pali, puthujjana, who is not yet aryan or noble; who doesn't grasp the Four Aryan Truths or the Eightfold Aryan Path—and may never.  This being can only hope for a better rebirth into one of six realms, namely, the gods, demi-gods, humanoid, animal, demons, or hell beings.  What he truly is, as the Buddha-nature or the Self, he doesn't know. Because of his ignorance or avidya, he only experiences as his self or soul an aggregate body in one of these realms.

The Hinayana teaching is essentially learning about samsara or the same, suffering that befalls the ignorant.  By this vehicle or yana, we come to realize that our next life, if we have lived this life in ignorance, hatred and greed, will be one filled with much suffering.  It is by means of Hinayana that we learn, also, that rebirth is retribution for being unawakened to our true Buddha-nature; moreover, that we must always strive to purify our mind for fear of it becoming more impure than it is already which adds up to even greater suffering in the future.

Looking now at the greater initiations, while the lesser focused mainly on suffering because of our ignorance of true reality, or the higher incorporeal soul, in a nutshell, the greater initiations revealed to the adept life of a soul shorn of its impurities, impurities which came as a result of the soul coming into conjunction with the carnal body. Such a life revealed during the initiation, in which the soul realized itself to be naturally independent of the carnal body, was one of beholding pure, invisible light; this being who we really are. 

Mahayana, like the greater initiations, commences with a revelation of our true nature which is not of the body.  Mahayana begins with the manifestation of the awakened Mind (bodhicittotpada) at which point one becomes a Bodhisattva who then, over time, perfects this insight becoming eventually a Buddha.  This Mind that the Mahayana adept beholds is luminous and transcendent.  This same Mind is naturally free of the body when it is completely purified, but not so when defiled having become completely involved in samsara.  Like with the greater mystery, the Bodhisattva, who is no longer an ordinary being, eventually ascends to the complete perfection.

I have only touched on a few of the parallels between the Eleusinian Mysteries and Buddhism, with its two pillars, Hinayana and Mahayana.  The major differences between the two really concern terminology.  The Eleusinian Mysteries are couched in a special kind of language consisting of fables which contain under-meanings.  Persephone, for example, is the immature soul.  Hades who rapes her and takes her to his underworld to be his queen, is matter.  His act symbolizes the soul being violently conjoined with matter.  Buddhism is more straightforward in its description of how rebirth into the body takes place which leads to samsara and suffering.  Nevertheless, both the mysteries and Buddhism have much in common.

Zen without beliefs

First of all, what is belief?  We assume too much when we assume that we know what belief means or what its notion really is.  Especially, with regard to Zen Buddhism, we have to have a pretty good idea what the notion of belief brings with it before we look at Zen minus beliefs.  We cannot just chuck parts of it away that we don’t believe in which, incidentally, seems to be the habit of some Western Buddhists (I have in mind Stephen Batchelor who is a great chucker).

Now it is true that much of what we believe in eventually turns out to be false.  For example, many humans once believed that all the planets and the sun orbited the Earth.  In other cases, some things we believed would never happen later happened.  Lord Kelvin once said that “Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible.”  He also said, “X-rays will prove to be a hoax.”  

Much of modern science and our advances in technology depend, at first, on belief in the face of sometimes almost impossible odds.  Medicine, for example, strongly believes that one day it will find a complete cure for all kinds of cancer so it will become a thing of the past.  So far this hasn’t happened.  But there is no stopping the belief of many researchers.  We would not want these researchers to turn into agnostics.

When we have a particular belief, we have to remember that it is first a proposition that is capable of being either true or false.  At the time when Robert Milikan, Nobel Laureate in Physics, 1923, said, “There is no likelihood man can ever tap the power of the atom” based on the data at hand at the time, he judged that the power of the atom could never be harnessed.  But then the data changed a few years later.  The atom was eventually split.  Milikan’s belief, later on, turned out to be incorrect while in 1923 it seemed true.

New data certainly plays a major role in overturning various beliefs.  In this regard, the relation between my mind and the data certainly has a significant impact on my judgments.  If the data changes, my mind, if I am a reasonable person, will change, accordingly.  If my mind becomes much more open and mature, I may eventually discover new data hitherto hidden (this is always the case with a child developing).

Unfortunately, there is a growing tendency in modern Buddhism and Zen to discard beliefs, altogether, and with it valued tenets such as rebirth, karma, and a number of other beliefs.  This shift is based on the belief, ironically, that what I cannot empirically discern is probably false.  Analogously, this is like a blind man who believes that color doesn’t exist as it is described to him by his friends.  His judgement is true enough for him because there is no data to suggest otherwise.  And no amount of proof by his friends will convince him to change his mind.  But nevertheless, he is wrong.  On this same thread, Buddhists who don’t believe in karma, for example, are no different than Einstein who once believed, “There is not the slightest indication that nuclear energy will ever be obtainable.”

Not only Zen but much of Tibetan Buddhism rests upon a very real intuition of Mind or citta sometimes referred to as Bodhicitta.  It is the basis of all koans.  It also goes beyond belief.  This intuition is the fundamental starting place of the life of the Bodhisattva—not otherwise.  And going back to the Pali Nikayas, nirvana boils down to Mind’s purification and release from its previous condition of bondage.  

Given the extraordinary difficulty of such an intuition, an intuition neither a beginner nor even a veteran of twenty years is likely to accomplish, are we to dismiss Mind because it is probably based on a false belief, being entirely a subjective state?  It would seem so by some of the standards of modern Zen teachers who have placed Zen enlightenment on a par with learning how to just live in the immediacy of the here and now.  By the way this, too, is a belief—the belief that Chinese Zen master’s awakening simply consisted in a recognition that just being was all the Buddha realized.

What we can gather from all of this is that belief is relative.  Depending on the data at the time I believe this is true.  But it could all change.  So now to the original question of Zen without beliefs.  It is only possible that full enlightenment is without beliefs.  Thus, Zen without beliefs really means final knowledge.  It is also impossible, short of enlightenment, to be without beliefs as if to say, “I don’t believe in x, y, or z.”  In fact, to imagine you are without beliefs is, short of final enlightenment, a belief.  For example, “I don’t believe in x, y, or z but I believe in a, b, and c.” 

Those who proclaim Buddhism or Zen should be without beliefs are probably hucksters.  What they are really saying is, “I am making good money off of Buddhism but I don’t really accept any of its tenets or teachings because I have other, better beliefs that I really, really believe in.” 

In the province of intuition

I have found it often to be true that the average person who first intellectually engages with Buddhism often likes to take its spiritual contents and bring them into sensuous forms and relations (I tried to do this in the beginning—yep 1964).  This has the effect of profoundly altering Buddhism if not killing its message.  It does this by taking Buddhism away from the province of intuition placing it, instead, into a doctrinal form where arguments pro or con can arise which often lead to a very sophisticated, cerebral version of Whac-A-Mole (as evinced by the late Buddhist forum, E-Sangha and before it, Buddha-L).

Living in such a Whac-A-Mole world, it is difficult to see on every page of the Buddhist canon that the Buddha possesses a very profound intuition who is trying to point us in the direction of his unique insight which he understands is beyond the ken of our conventional thought and knowledge.  In the meantime, before we realize this fact, that a profound intuition is required of us, we have wasted maybe a good twenty years or more of our lives getting nowhere—all in earnest of course.

For those who have had the good fortune to find this blog my central aim is to point out this intuition in as much detail as I can, and it goes without saying, show the reader how it fits into the canon.  If this means that I am suggesting I have had a profound intuition well to be honest, I have. It is sufficient to permit me to see where the Buddha is leading his followers—and it ain't about coping with the mundane world, sitting in zazen, or running a temple—far from it.  

I can only say that Buddhism is truly an amazing religion but one, however, in the hands of some modern Buddhists, is almost like placing something of great value into the hands of a barbarian who will either use it for kindling, feed it to his cows, or wear it as an ornament.  Of course, I just said a “no, no”—I mean I just said that basically some modern Buddhists have little or no respect for what is contained on the pages of the Buddhist canon in the way of a finger pointing to the moon of enlightenment. 

Judging by what sells as Buddhism these days in a bookstore, I don't believe I am too far off the mark in suggesting that Buddhism, in most cases, is in the hands of almost barbarians who don’t recognize its spiritual content.  In light of this, this blog, The Zennist, must be irritating to some.  Such a reaction, I must say, has always been puzzling.  It will never cease to amaze me that the bulk of mankind is not at all interested in the transcendent.  In fact, they are frightened to death of it.  But then when has Buddhism every been for the common person (prithagjana)?  If anyone troubles to read even a small portion of the canon, the Buddha makes a clear distinction between the common, run of the mill person (prithagjana) and the spiritual or aryan person which includes Arhats and Bodhisattvas.

Well, this is enough blogging for the day.

The universe is a dependent origination

Surendranath Dasgupta was correct when he said "The term paticcasamuppada or pratifyasamutpada has been differently interpreted in later Buddhist literature."  How true!  I would only add to this and say the term is almost protean.  Today, we recognize this term as "dependent origination" or "conditioned origination" just to mention two forms.

Looking over the Sanskrit, samutpada generally means an appearance, an arising or origin, in the sense of making visible or manifest (prâdurbhâva).  Pratitya is not so easy to define.  I tend to go with Franklin Edgerton's definition (Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit Dictionary, p. 373).  He defines pratitya accordingly: dependent on, based on.  One example I especially like which he offers is, on the basis [pratitya] of muñja or valvaja (grass), a rope is produced.

In Mahayana Buddhism, from the Avatamsaka Sutra, we find pratitya-samutpada used this way: "The twelve links of dependent origination (praitityasamutpada) are all dependent on the One Mind (ekacitta)."  This means that the twelve links or nidânas beginning with ignorance (i.e., Mind's ignorance of itself) and ending with old age and death (jarâmârana) are Mind phenomena or the same, illusory and empty (shunya).  In fact, we might say that every arising or samutpada is based on Mind in the same way, as earlier mentioned, rope, the product or arising, is based on muñja or valvaja grass.

We would not be wrong to believe that Siddhartha, upon becoming a Buddha (i.e., the awakened), awakened to Mind and by this awakening, saw the former phenomenal world of birth and death to be now like a fantastic illusion in which nothing actually exists (apart from Mind, that is).  

The world Siddhartha saw before he became a Buddha was the world of samsara; a world of misery in which all suffered to one degree.  After Siddhartha awakened, the world he saw, as a Buddha, was a dependent origination (pratityasamutpada) of absolute Mind!  In this regard, it really did not exist—and all sentient beings were saved. 

Will sitting make me a Buddha?

 Doing zazen (lit., sit down meditation) will not open the door to enlightenment.  Only mind can do that.  In fact, zazen is almost counterproductive since enlightenment is independent of whatever condition the body is in, sitting or standing.  This perhaps explains why Zen master Ma-tsu said that “Not cultivation and not sitting is the Tathagata's pure meditation.”

The heavy emphasis on zazen can be attributed to Zen master Hung-chih who established the teaching of ‘silent illumination’ which Dogen brought back to Japan in 1227.  Dogen named his brand of silent illumination, shikantaza, meaning “just sitting.”  Incidentally, the method of silent illumination was opposed by Zen master Ta-hui who popularized the kung-an (J., koan).  

One of the early accounts of zazen is given by Zen master Tsung-mi.  However, it is clear that zazen doesn't stand alone as in just sitting.  During the ordination ceremony, which Tsung-mi describes, the ordinands are ordered to sit in zazen and practice mindfulness of breathing in and out (P., anapanasati) in which mindfulness (sati) is established completely before (parimukha) or prior to the in and out breath.  The point of this practice is to distinguish between the non-breathing absolute and the temporal body of birth and death.

Enlightenment goes quite beyond physical practices (and even the breath).  It is certainly true that if you sit all day in a Dharma center or a Zen temple you will eventually master sitting—but not enlightenment.  With enough practice, you might become an accomplished sitter like Ram Bahadur Bomjon, more popularly known as “Buddha Boy” whose ability to sit is astonishing, which is not overstating his ability.

While there are benefits to zazen or even the practice of hatha yoga, the benefits don’t disclose ultimate reality.  But both zazen and yoga can help us cope with the stresses of the everyday world.  Sitting still in a quiet place recharges our batteries so to speak.  When I used to sit in zazen in an abandoned mine on my ranch (especially during the summer when it was hot outside), it seemed like more of me calmed down as compared with doing zazen in a group.  It was as if my body became the surroundings—in this case a dark, quiet, cool mine.

Especially in modern Western Zen, there is still the belief, although for the most part unstated, that zazen and shikantaza are sufficient unto themselves to get us to yonder shore of nirvana.  But if this were actually the case, then every time a person did zazen, the Lankavatara or the Avatamsaka Sutra would become clearer.  Every Sutra would eventually make perfect sense. But this is not the case.  The most important part of Buddhism for the beginner and the experienced practitioner is studying what the Buddha said; who is trying to explain to us how to see ultimate reality which is beyond birth and death.

Dogen a forger? Come on!

Dogen arrived at a port in central China in April of 1223.  In June of 1225 Dogen meets his teacher Ju-ching (1163–1228).  Dogen studied with Ju-ching for just over two years.  He eventually receives shisho zu (document of transmission) from Ju-ching in the spring of 1227. Dogen spends a little more than four years in China, returning to Japan in 1227. 

Before Dogen met Ju-ching he traveled through the Five Mountains (Wu-shan) area.  He was permitted to look at five Zen transmission certificates.  All this took about two years, from the fall of 1223 to 1225 when he met his teacher, Ju-ching.

So why did Dogen feel the need to look at five Zen transmission certificates, spending perhaps two years doing so?  Judging from the fact that one transmission document is smuggled out so Dogen might look at it, it would seem that these documents were of great importance to Dogen.  It strikes me odd, however, that Dogen, on a spiritual quest, would elect to spend half of his time in China looking at transmission documents!

Supposedly what spurred Dogen to go to China was the question that if all beings have the Buddha-nature, then why do Buddhas and Bodhisattvas arouse the longing for enlightenment and engage in ascetic practice?  In other words, Dogen couldn’t resolve the problem of innate versus acquired enlightenment.  Dogen did not realize that even though all beings possess the Buddha-nature, it is only potentially so, in the way cream is potentially butter—through not actually butter.  

While all beings potentially have the Buddha-nature, according to the Buddha, sentient beings are “reigned over by greed, lust, anger, and ignorance” which means they don’t know what this nature looks like.  It follows from this, they need help in uncovering it which must begin with manifesting the Bodhi Mind (bodhicittotpada) and its development by means of the Bodhisattva path.  Can’t we say that Dogen hoped to find someone to help him with his journey to Buddhahood?

Again, it seems odd that Dogen spent so much time looking at transmission documents when, during this time, there was no guarantee that he would find a suitable teacher—which could take many years.  If anything, Dogen from the moment he set foot in China, should have been trying to find the right teacher one who might help him to understand why sentient beings must first arouse the Bodhi Mind then engage in the practices of a Bodhisattva even though they are potentially Buddhas.

Dogen’s works, for the most part, seem not to show that he ever completely resolved the earlier problem between innate enlightenment (potential Buddha-nature) and accomplished Buddha-nature, i.e., enlightenment.  Dogen, who never lost his faith in Tendai Buddhism, seemed to accept its cardinal notion that the appearances of things are the attributes of the Buddha which to be frank, is nonsense.  In the Avatamsaka Sutra, for example, it says that “The Buddha’s body is formless, free from all defilements” and “The Buddha-body is inconceivable.”  

It is more plausible that the first two years Dogen spent in China looking at five transmission documents was to gain enough information about their construction and composition to be able to eventually forge one when he got back to Japan.  Dogen even claimed that he returned literally “empty-handed” (kûshu genkyo) except with the  ashes of Myozen.  Dogen returned to Japan with no Sutras, sacred images—and certainly no transmission document.  It has now been determined that Dogen's transmission document “most certainly is a medieval forgery” (Steven Heine, Japanese Journal of Religious studies 30.102 [Spring 2003], p. 32).

Calling all dupes

The ‘halo effect’ still remains one of the great examples of research done in social psychology.  Trying to simplify it, the halo effect is the natural inclination on our part to form an overall impression of a person based on one or more superficial traits.  Without being aware of it, we may have formed a favorable impression of someone based, simply, on a person’s good looks or the fact that they are wearing the robes of a Buddhist priest.  This really amounts to a special kind of bias, as if it is always true that good looking men and woman or even religious people wearing robes, tend always to be intelligent, good natured, and wise.  

It is also worth pointing out negative traits also affect our impression of someone such as missing or unequal teeth or in the description of Stevenson’s Mr. Hyde, someone who is “pale and dwarfish” unlike Dr. Jekyll who was “attractive.” 

The obvious place to look for a solid demonstration of the effectiveness of the halo effect is in our evaluation of Hollywood stars.  We believe that because a movie star, for example, looks strong or masculine, who has a can do attitude in the example of Arnold Schwarzenegger, that such a movie star would also make an excellent governor which for Californians, good or bad, is now a reality—which happened before with Ronald Reagan.

For a closer look at the halo effect let’s consider the study done by Nisbett and Wilson who investigated the effectiveness of the halo effect on people’s judgments; how in particular their judgments were based on how they felt about a person.

“Participants watched different videotapes of a college instructor who spoke with a pronounced Belgian accent. On one videotape, seen by half the participants, the instructor came across as warm, engaging, and likable. On a second videotape, seen by the remaining participants, he came across as cold, aloof, and unsympathetic. All participants then rated how appealing they found three specific features of the instructor: his appearance, mannerisms, and accent. Note that these specific features remained the same regardless of his general demeanor (warm or cold). Nevertheless, participants regarded the instructor's appearance, mannerisms, and accent more favorably when his general demeanor was pleasant than when it was unpleasant. Moreover, participants were completely unaware that the instructor’s general demeanor had shaped their opinion of his specific features. In fact, they reported exactly the opposite, that his specific features had shaped their opinion of his general demeanor" (Robert P. Abelson, Kurt P. Frey, & Aiden P. Gregg, Experiments with People: Revelations from Social Psychology, p. 9).

It can be summed up that the pleasant demeanor of the college instructor influenced the overall positive impression the participants had of the instructor.  What is more, the participants lacked any introspective capacity to realize how irrational their judgment had been—moreover, that they were biased against anyone who lacked other than a pleasant demeanor.  

If we conducted the same experiment with a Zen teacher who, for one group, smiled a lot so that he came across as being very warm, and for another group didn't smile, the first group would give the teacher high marks while the second group would not have a favorable impression of the teacher who didn’t smile.  This may also apply with a teacher who wears Buddhist robes for the first group but not for the second group.  Odds are the first group would rate the robe wearing teacher higher than the second.  This would mean, of course, that the robes had a halo effect.  There would also be an additional halo effect if the first group saw a picture of the teacher standing next to the Dalai Lama (Photoshopped of course).

Especially in Buddhism, the halo effect can tip the beginner's decision to go with the Buddhist teacher who smiles a lot; who also wears robes, etc.  On the other hand, if a serious beginner were to read the works of a prospective teacher comparing them with the canon, both the Nikayas and the Mahayana, such a beginner might delay their decision.  Those who might argue with this approach saying it is better to see the man than study his works are setting themselves up to be duped and eventually betrayed.  Seeing the man should come after a careful study of his works—not before.  But then it is ever true that we never learn from experience.  We are always being duped. 

Fear and violence

 In the Sutta-Nipata (Attandanda Sutta) the Buddha said that “fear (bhayam) comes (jâtam) from violence (attandanda)” which could be expanded to suggest that fear aries (jâtam) from the threat or suggestion of violence such as a man carrying a stick (attandanda).  I should add, the term “attandanda” is not easy to render into English, clearly.  Depending on the translator, it is sometimes translated as violence, misery, seized a stick, arming oneself, etc.  

If asked to imagine fearful events, most of us can conjure up plenty of them.  Depending on the intensity of my own fears, as an example, I might decide to buy a handgun foreseeing the possibility that I might be assaulted one night without any means of defense.  If we multiply this, it is easy to imagine everyone running out and buying a handgun or several.  

Everyone's afraid of being assaulted or having some horrible violence done to them.  Others are just afraid for no reason; who see the potential for violence all around them.  This is especially the case in many areas of the U.S. which are unsafe. Depending where you live in the U.S., violence is a very real factor.  But violence also happens to children on almost a daily basis from physical violence to verbal threats of future punishment.  Children often live in terror.

For the Buddha this is no way to live, being trapped in a world of fear which is born from all kinds of threats (attandanda), both real or imaginary.  At a deeper level, the natural world is also a threat to us: it is always changing and unsafe.  It is a cause of fear as is this temporal body of ours which is fragile and short-lived. 

Looking at this world with its violence, the Buddha said “there is nothing in this world that...is changeless.”  Only in nirvana is the changeless and the calm to be found which is free from all violence.  But are we ready for this?  Why of course not—not the huge majority who in some way cling to attandanda.  The Buddha said they are like so many fish struggling and writhing in shallow water with hatred against one another.  The only escape for us is to turn away from the world these struggling fish are hankering after.