The Zennist

Dead Dharma teachers and their dead words

Some errant Zennists really have it in for learning anything from what they call, in so many words, the works of dead Dharma teachers.  They believe that only practicing with a living Zen master, face to face, will take them to yonder shore.  But this is a fallacy, a fallacy for the reason that reading the works of dead Dharma teachers is not just book learning, and not all so-called Zen masters are awakened to the nature of Mind who are, therefore, unreliable.

From where exactly these Zennists get such hare brain opinions is beyond me.  I suspect they have their genesis in the fact that reading the works of dead Dharma teachers is not easy for them.  It is much easier to join some Zen center; putting one’s fate into the hands of some person whom they’ve never met before; assuming by the robes they’re wearing they’re pretty much Lord Buddha!  Well, this is called credulity.  It is more likely the result of karma—bad karma—because such people lack the capacity to sense the sublime.

We should not begrudge those with a good nose who can pick up the faint scent of the sublime in the dead words of dead Dharma teachers.  Their dead words, we need to bear in mind, have never stopped pointing to the undying—unlike many of today’s living teachers whose words point to the dead.  For example, even though Zen master Joshu is dead, that which animated him to utter Mu still lives on.  It is in every sentient being—it cannot die.  It moves our hands and feet according to the dead teacher, Bodhidharma.  It teaches even now.

This brings me to the matter of today’s zazen or practice which amounts to what Zen master Hakuin called “dead sitting” in which the object contemplated is a dying body together with its dying breaths and thoughts.  To be sure, there is nothing undying in this degenerate practice!  Does the adept who sits in zazen see  “this field” as Zen master Hongzhi, of silent illumination (mozhao) Zen, named it where “birth and death do not appear”?  Hongzhi further described the field this way.

"The field of boundless emptiness is what exists from the very beginning.  You must purify, cure, grind down, or brush away all the tendencies you have fabricated into apparent habits.  Then you can reside in the clear circle of brightness" (Cultivating the Empty Field, p. 24).

And, 

“We all have the clear, wondrously bright field from the beginning.  Many lifetimes of misunderstanding come only from distrust, hindrance, and screens of confusion that we create in a scenario of isolation” (ibid, p. 25).

The dead Dharma teachers of the past like Zen master Hongzhi and Zen master Hakuin also pointed to the undying which could be seen within us if we were persistent enough in looking for it—not just expecting it to show up out of the blue the longer we sit.

There is nothing wrong with studying with dead Dharma teachers and reading their dead words which still point to our undying Buddha-nature.  What should be avoided is  studying with living Dharma teachers who point to the dead; who fundamentally teach samsara—not nirvana. 

 

SOYA Zen

Western Zen has basically turned into SOYA ZEN (sit on your ass Zen) and for a plausible reason.  Western Zen traditions, for the most part, really do not understand the bulk of Chinese Zen literature, including koans, because they do not understand what Mind actually means.  In light of this, many Western Zen teachers, who might be deeply sincere, are basically useless bags of shit.  Until Mind is taught in Zen, what we have is not real Zen—let's call it SOYA Zen. 

SOYA Zen is somewhat like climbing a simulated rock face in a climbing gym.  If you’ve ever done rock climbing (and I have) climbing in the environment of a gym and in Yosemite, for example, are quite different.  What most people don’t realize is that when you climb on granite faces, huge rocks are daily exfoliated from the surface of the face (we used to call them “flakes”!).  Some of the rocks are in the tons!  On my last climb years ago, a granite rock the size of a ‘55 Chevy missed me by several feet (not yards).  My climbing helmet back then consisted of one beret with padding in it (my socks).  After that, I realized that real climbing demanded nerves of steel—nerves that I didn’t have (yeah, I quit climbing—then I took up bicycle racing).

Don’t get me wrong, joining a climbing gym is beneficial—such climbing is great exercise after you get over the initial headache (the eyes are constantly looking upwards which strain the muscles).  This leads me to say that SOYA Zen is beneficial, too, which is really Bonpu Zen intended for the common person (prithagjana) who is only interested in using meditation to improve their mental health.  SOYA Zen can help to stabilize the monkey mind which is helpful for everyone from a hard charging U.S. Marine to a parent trying to deal with their toddler.  But it will not open the door—not even slightly—to Buddha Mind.

Like real rock climbing, real Zen is a whole different world.  Just like a real rock climber has to be adaptive and open to the unexpected and, yes, prepare for the catastrophic—that one killer flake—the Zennist has to, also, enter the world of the unexpected where their whole being is put on the line.  By trial and error, the Zennist must adapt to Mind in order to behold Mind.  And since we do not know the exact nature of Mind in our quest, this proves a difficult ascent.

For those unwilling to meet and adapt to Mind’s challenging demands there is SOYA Zen just like a climbing gym is there for those who have no intention of ever climbing the north wall of the Eiger in Switzerland where killer flakes fall on a regular basis.

 

Does early Zen really belong to Zen?

The question is really this:  Was there Zen or dhyana in China before Bodhidharma came to China?  To answer this question with a “yes” means, or should mean, that Zen or dhyana was not a school or tradition (tsung) as we know Zen today.  Rather Zen was Buddhist meditation that made possible gnosis or jñâna in which the adept awakened to their true nature or the same, awakened to the luminous nature of Mind.

In the Biographies of eminent Buddhist Teachers (Nanjio, No. 1490; Taishô, No. 2059) completed in 519 A.D. there were listed 21 Zen or dhyana masters “in which the name of Bodhidharma is not included” (Encyclopaedia of Buddhism Volume III, p. 201).  In a later biography compiled in 645 A.D., “the name of 135 dhyana experts are found including a few of the immediate disciples of Bodhiharma” (ibid).  During this period of time there were Zen masters but no school or tradition in the way we think of Zen today.  More importantly, if Bodhidharma came to Southern China around 475 as the founder of Zen or dhyana why isn’t he mentioned in these two biographies?  This is an astonishing omission.

From this we can tentatively conclude that the early phase of Zen was pure Zen:  it was Zen that hadn’t been institutionalized; turned into to 'funeral Zen" which is what it is in Japan.  Also it was Zen without a lineage (tsung).  It was taught by Zen masters like Buddhabhadra (398–421) and others.  It is only much later that Zen became a school/lineage—the Zen that we recognize today which is arguably a different Zen than early Zen.

 

The broken link of the Zen lineage

Going behind Zen’s literary veil, most notably its transmission literature such as Record of the Transmission of the Lamp (Ching-te ch'uan teng lu) compiled in 1004, we learn mainly that this elaborate work was, in a nutshell, an attempt to legitimize Zen’s  (C., Ch’an) authority.  What must have been an impressive document at one time, the Record of the Transmission of the Lamp shows a lineal succession beginning when the Dharma-eye of the Buddha is transmitted or entrusted to Mahakashyapa who then entrusts it to Ananda who later entrusts it to Shanavasa, and so on down the line where this eye eventually finds its way to China through Bodhidharma.

Such a lineage, however, is only as strong as its weakest link.  First of all, there is no mention of such a lineage in the Pali canon which is quite old.  We read in the Gopakamoggallana Sutta (M. iii. 7) that after the Buddha died (i.e., passed into parinirvana) the brahman Gopak-Moggallana asked Ananda the following question:

"Is there even one monk, Ananda, who is possessed in every way and in every part of all those things of which the good Gotama, perfected one, fully Self-Awakened One, was possessed?"

Here is Ananda's reply which is quite interesting in light of Zen's lineage claims.

"There is not even one monk, brahman, who is possessed in every way and in every part of all those things of which the Lord was possessed, perfected one, fully Self-Awakened One." 

Adding to this, Mahakashyapa is not altogether a worthy spiritual heir accoding to the Avatamsaka Sutra who Zennists believe was the first person the Buddha transmitted to.

We learn from the Avatamsaka Sutra (I am using Cleary's translation, The Flower Ornament Scripture, page 1146) that great disciples like Shariputra, Mahakashyapa and others, “did not see the transfiguration of the Buddha in the Jeta grove, the adornments of the Buddha, the majesty of the Buddha, the freedom of the Buddha, the magic of the Buddha, the mastery of the Buddha, the miracle performed by the Buddha, the light of the Buddha, the power of the Buddha, or the Buddha's purification of the land...” 

The person these great disciples saw in the Jeta grove was not the transfigured Buddha with his Mind radiant, like an invisible sun.  Who they saw we can say was a grumpy old dude!

“They had gathered in the Jeta grove and were sitting there, in front of, behind, and to the left and right of the Buddha, in his presence, yet they did not see the miracles of the Buddha in the Jeta grove” (p. 1147).

Why these great disciples couldn’t see all this is because they lacked “roots of goodness”; moreover, their emancipation was that of hearers (sravaka) (p. 1147).  Had these great disciples accumulated the proper roots of goodness they would have seen the transfiguration of the Buddha.  In that case, they would have been worthy to carry on the Buddha lineage.  But because of this notable lack, "they were not capable of perpetuating the lineage of buddhas" (p. 1146).  Whoops!  There goes Zen’s lineage.

We can only guess that in compiling and fabricating the Record of the Transmission of the Lamp some Zennist didn’t do a thorough reading of the Avatamasaka—in other words, he goofed.  But this doesn’t mean that we should live with this error.  The only thing that counts in Zen and for that matter Buddhism is awakening to pure Mind.  We all have the capacity to do this.  Awakening to Mind is the true Mind to Mind transmission of Zen.  It doesn't depend on literary fiction.

 

Real meditation and rest room meditation

Dhyana (P., jhâna) comes in different forms depending upon the religion.  Mainly, dhyana or meditation (or contemplation) is concerned with helping us overcome the power of samsara.  Through it we try to overcome mental confusion by concentrating on a single object which, ideally, if we are sitting, should be done for up to forty-eight minutes (it might take some practice to get up to this level).  

In itself, dhyana is not gnosis but it can help us achieve it which in turn leads to liberation which is the direct beholding of the pure luminous Mind minus its defiling distortion waves.  What I am trying to say is that we don’t automatically awaken to absolute Mind just by sitting in meditation.  Dhyana is, however, very helpful.  

In advanced dhyana we must first understand what the real target is.  Perhaps oversimplified, it is looking for pure Mind in our ordinary, maculate minds (in the ten oxherding pictures of Zen it is picture number one, searching for the ox).  This does take some concentration and a lot of patience!  Such a Mind is there, but not in the way we imagine it to be which then becomes a positive hindrance.  This Mind, I would add, is completely empty just like a jar or a cup would be called empty because it contains nothing except itself.  To engage with such a Mind that is signless and empty is to realize what the term luminous (S., prabhâsvara) means.  

Short of real dhyana, and for those who still want to pursue the joys they believe the world of samsara still has to offer, is Zen master Shunryu Suzuki’s rest room dhyana.

"In our everyday life, we eat many things, good and bad, fancy and simple, tasty and not so tasty. Later we need to go to the rest room. Similarly after filling our mind, we practice zazen.  Otherwise our thinking will eventually become unhealthy.  It is necessary for us to make our mind clear before we study something” (Not Always So, p. 43).

To carry Suzuki’s rest room dhyana or zazen one step further, while sitting on the toilet also practice zazen and visualize the defiled mind being evacuated along with last night’s pizza or hamburger.  The pure Mind we might also envision as the clean water filling up the toilet bowl after we flush away the odious, defiled contents.  What a delightful image!

 

The little war going on in Zen

Over the years I have noticed that, generally speaking, there are two types of people who take up Zen Buddhism; who, almost as a rule, don’t get along.  Borrowing from Michael A. Gilbert’s book, Coalescent Argumentation, the two types are the visceral and the kisceral.  

The visceral type is the physically oriented practitioner; not intellectual, who leans to the sensory and external forms of validation (Gilbert includes “territorial claims, power, and hierarchy relationships, intimacy, and sexual communications”).  Those, for example, drawn to the priestly vestiture of Zen, its ceremonies, authority, with its artificial hierarchies, etc., are almost always visceral types.  

The kisceral (‘ki’ taken from the Japanese term for psychic energy) covers the intuitive including, in Gilbert’s words, “the mystical, religious, supernatural and extrasensory” (p. 79).  The kisceral Zennist, for example, is drawn to koans or mystical texts which point to the transcendent requiring gnosis in contrast with the visceral Zennist who prefers to sit in meditation (zazen) absorbed in the immediacy of the physical presence. 

There is little that both agree upon, which should not be surprising, since the orientations are so different and conflicting.  The kisceral Zennist might envision the ideal Zen teacher to live in a retreat, perhaps in a cave (they still do in China).  The visceral type prefers the external side of Zen:  its pomp and circumstance and formalisms.  But more, the visceral type is drawn to power, itself, and its administration in which the Zen master is the final authority—a Buddha.  Going along with this, there is somewhat of a covert martial attitude that finds its way in viscerally oriented Zen.  

If one makes a general comparison of Chinese Zen with Japanese Zen, the latter ostensibly has a visceral orientation with the kisceral marginalized.  Westerners expecting to find a rigid Zen lineage tradition in China akin to the Japanese in which the external transmission of authority is all important, will be disappointed.  Chinese Zen is far too subtle for the viscerally oriented Western Zennist.

The adoption and dominance of viscerally oriented Zen in the West is not by accident.  It is a reflection of the values of Western materialism.  The Western Zennist and for that matter, the Western Buddhist, in general, is uneasy with the mystical literature of Chinese Zen.  While this Zennist might outwardly admire the heart of Chinese Zen, it is from an imported Japanese tradition that he admires it.

 

Can I do Zen without a teacher?

Perhaps the real question (somewhat exaggerated) is this: “Do I need to depend on one teacher for the rest of my life to become enlightened?”  The answer is, of course, a big NO, unless the questioner is looking for someone, so to speak, to plow their field for them (being spiritually lazy).  (Believe it or not a lot of people who are interested in Buddhism are looking for someone to plow their field believing that if they find the right teacher he or she will enlighten them—plus, remove their suffering!  This is rubbish.)

Yes, we do need teachers with the Buddha being the foremost of teachers.  Teachers can be an inspiration, acting more like a good coach to help us on our spiritual journey.  But we don’t need to find one—just one—who is suited for us.  This is crazy.  We may require several teachers, in fact.  Keep in mind that Siddhartha had several teachers before he became the Buddha.  But we also need to keep in mind that Bodhidharma said that “one person in a million becomes enlightened without a teacher’s help” which if you are an American adds up to 310 enlightened beings who are presently living in the U.S. who became enlightened without a teacher!  In India there are 1,190 enlightened beings all of whom became enlightened without a teacher.  This is amazing!

The best advice I can give on this subject is to first learn self-reliance then study with many teachers which can be done in a variety of ways in addition to studying what the Buddha actually said (remember, he is our foremost teacher).  

There are Buddhist lectures on the Internet that are given by reasonably competent teachers which are of help (check out YouTube), in addition to a huge amount of great reading material.  Recently, I found a correspondence course offered by Lama Shenpen Hookham Click here .

Buddhism, we should be thankful, is not in the hands of only one teacher, let’s say some Zen master who mainly learned how to sit on a zafu for long periods of time; who is convinced that the more and individual sits the wiser they will become.  These teachers, I am afraid to say, are better suited for shallow practitioners.  For anyone with a normal spiritual IQ, they should be avoided like a fast-food restaurant.  

Other teachers to study with are those who teach in a university.  I was introduced to Zen by a professor was the personal friend of D.T. Suzuki.  He was a wonderful, inspiring human being whose coaching caused me to read Suzuki’s books which I couldn’t get enough of even though I understood zero about Zen after reading them!  Still, I wanted to really understand Zen Buddhism.  And then there was a wonderful Nichiren Bishop (also a professor) who taught me where to look to find the pure Mind within myself.  And then there was my official Soto Zen abbot teacher who taught me what Zen was not and what teachers to avoid like the plague, especially those who like to consume cheap beer and say stupid things like, “I am the Tathagata.”

 

The voidness of our holodeck world

Okay, here is an important question. It pertains to those new to Buddhism and even some old timers.  How do they understand the following passage below which is taken from the Heart Sutra?  

Here, Sariputra, form is voidness and the very voidness is form; voidness does not differ from form, form does not differ from voidness; whatever is form, that is voidness, whatever is voidness, that is form, the same is true of feelings, perceptions, impulses and consciousness.

Ding dong!  Time is up.  They grasp this particular voidness in either one of three ways:  1) voidness is fundamentally apart to the five skandhas begining with form and ending with consciousness; 2) voidness negates things; 3) voidness is something determinate.  But all that this tells us is that they have reified voidness.  In plain English, the abstract term ‘void’ has been made into a reality in its own right.  But this is wrong.  

The voidness of the five skandhas mentioned in the Heart Sutra, namely, the voidness of form, feelings, perceptions, impulses and consciousness, according to Vimalamitra’s commentary (Arya-Prajnaparamita-tika), is likened to the voidness of the ‘city of gandharvas’ including the voidness of a dream, the moon in the water, etc. (Lancaster, Prajnaparamita and Related Systems (1977), p. 142).  Essentially, this means that voidness stands for illusion.  

Form, the first skandha, is then an illusion as are the rest of the skandhas.  Turning to the older Pali canon form is, by the Buddha, likened to foam, feeling to a bubble, perception to a mirage, impulses to a hollow plantain trunk, and consciousness to a magician’s illusion (S. iii. 142).  Judging from this, not a single skandha is other than insubstantial.  It is through these skandha that our world comes into view, a world that is like a holodeck simulation to use a great image from the television series Star Trek.

 

Universal thusness

Not the only samadhi mentioned in the Avatamsaka Sutra (Flower Ornament Sutra) the Ocean Seal Samadhi (S., sâgramudrâ samâdhi) it is certainly important to the Hua-yen school.  In this treatise Fa-tsang explain it as follows:

“Ocean Seal is the original enlightenment of true suchness.  When all falsehood is extinguished the mind becomes clear and still, so that the myriad images equally appear in it.  It is like the great ocean on whose surface waves appear because of wind; when the wind ceases, the water of the ocean becomes clear and still, so that there are no images that are not reflected in it” (Cheng Chien, Manifestation of the Tathagata, p. 155).

Here is another explanation that adds a few more details.

"Seal" refers to the stamp of genuineness, also found for mudra, a meditative gesture or position.  It is said that the ocean seal samadhi is the consciousness from which Buddha spoke the Flower Ornament Sutra.  A Huayan commentary says:  "The 'ocean seal' is the fundamental mental awareness of true thusness.  When delusion ends, the mind is clear and myriad forms simultaneously appear.  It is like the ocean.  Due to wind there arise waves; if the wind stops the ocean is calm and all images can reflect in it (Leighton, Cultivating the Empty Field, p. 97).

Thusness or the true substance of reality, which is also pure Mind, is certainly oceanic and universal!  This vast universe of which we are in awe is actually only the substance of Mind.  But ordinary beings are unable to see it this way who are under the domination of long standing habits which run contrary to the Buddha’s sublime teachings.  

Taking a line from the Lankavatara Sutra “the waves of the mind-ocean are stirred uninterruptedly by the wind of objectivity” such that ordinary beings cannot see the water-thusness or substance which pure Mind.  Thus, they are unable to enter the Ocean Seal Samadhi which the Buddha was in when he delivered the Avatamsaka Sutra.  The world of waves is too much with ordinary beings, in other words.  But it doesn’t have to be.  

All beings can, if they set their mind to it, have this samadhi.  It is certainly a spectacular samadhi—that all we see in the way of phenomena, including even our thoughts, is just a configuration of Mind or thusness.  But wishing or imagining it were so will not make it so nor will intellectual understanding.  Sitting in zazen engaged in nonthinking will not make it so either; or wearing robes, or chanting, or a thousand other so-called practices.  In a way, these are detours until we gain the courage to look within for this thusness, the pure substance of even our thoughts.  It is certainly present but not in the way we envision it.

 

First get Bodhicitta then perfect wisdom

Here is some general advice.  If anyone decides to read Edward Conze’s translation, The Perfection of Wisdom in Eight Thousand Lines & its Verse Summary pay particular attention to whom the instructions are of especial importance.  They are for the benefit of Bodhisattvas, particularly how the Bodhisattvas go forth into perfect wisdom who have Bodhicitta.  

This Sutra provides us with some important information about the Bodhisattva which falls into the general category of the esoteric.  Taking no pride in the attainment of Bodhicitta, even though it is the beginning of Buddhahood, the adept begins his career as an authentic Bodhisattva.  This Mind (that is Bodhicitta) is no-mind (acitta) meaning it is non-discriminating (avikalpa); moreover, its essential original nature is luminous (prabhasvara).  

Right away this should tell us that the Bodhisattva is no ordinary person (prithagjana)—not with a Mind like this.  Nor are the instructions in this Sutra for ordinary people.  Why is that?  Because ordinary people lack Bodhicitta.  Their karma is still insufficient for the task of the perfection of wisdom.  Yet, without Bodhicitta the perfection of wisdom is not possible which leads to perfect Buddhahood (anuttara samyak-sambodhi).  

What the ordinary person, who lacks Bodhicitta, should be working on, instead of reading this difficult Sutra, is Bodhicitta.  So, what is Bodhicitta?  This might help, it is from the Mahavairocana Sutra.

"The Buddha said:  The mind of Enlightenment (bodhicitta) is the cause, the great compassion (mahakaruna) is the root, and the expedient (upaya) of deliverance is the ultimate.  Oh master of mysteries, what is Enlightenment (bodhi)?  That is to know one’s own mind as it really is.  Oh master of mysteries, the least part of supreme and right Enlightenment (anuttara samyak-sambodhi) cannot be obtained by the intellect.  Why is it so?  The bodhi has the form of space, which nobody knows, nobody understands.  Why is it so?  Because the bodhi has no form, oh master of mysteries, the dharmas have no form.  Bodhi has the form of space."

And this passage is also helpful.

"The Buddha said:  Oh master of mysteries, one’s own mind will look for bodhi and omniscience.  Why is it so?  Because the original nature of mind is pure.  The mind is not inside, nor outside, it is not to be obtained between the two.  Oh master of mysteries, the Tathagata Samyaksambuddha is not blue, nor yellow, nor red, nor white, nor purple, nor crystalline, nor long, nor short, nor round, nor square, nor bright, nor dark, nor man, nor woman, nor asexual."

If ordinary people think of the pure Mind as being continuously distorted, the distortions never once fully subsiding, which is the condition of the defiled mind, they might be better able to come to an understanding of the difficulty of seeing the pure undistorted Mind which is intrinsically luminous; which begins the life of a Bodhisattva.  

Imagine now living during the time of the Buddha and hearing about him then deciding to go an meet this luminous fellow.  As we approach the tree under which he is sitting with many people gathered around him, we all of a sudden feel something unexplainable, a strange power.  We can’t describe it—yet, we are beginning to feel a presence move us.  All of a sudden we seem to ‘light up’.  Now the energy circulating in our body is quite strong and blissful but as we look at the Buddha we realize the source of all that is happening to us is emanating from him.  It dawns on us that he is showing everyone the effective power of Mind that is pure and undistorted, although we cannot comprehend it, try as we might.