I am beginning to believe, with the exception of the Buddhist academic world, that most Buddhist practitioners (not all!) are intellectually lazy—I mean why bother with the Pali or the Mahayana canon? Here is something I found on Zen Forum International which fits with what I just said. By the way, the brackets are mine.
“Anatman [lit. not the self] is an antidote the the assumption of a subjective essence. The assumption that there is an ultimate experiencer of experiences is deeply rooted. Anatman is an antidote to that. Anatman is used up in resolving this erroneous assumption. Anatman and Atman are both dropped in practice”
The author misses the essence of the Buddha’s teaching by a nautical mile. Anatman is not an antidote for the assumption of a subjective essence; it is the fact that what is impermanent and suffering, such as the Five Aggregates, is not the self or the same, not our true self. Nor should we assume that the Buddha denied the self.
Above all, the Buddha didn’t want us to mistake the Five Aggregates or skandhas, with our true self—this is what anatman is about, namely, the skandhas are not the atman. What else might explain why the Buddha, looking at each aggregate, said: “This is not mine, this am I not, this is not my self.” Obviously, the self or atman of the Buddha was not identified with any aggregate!
It is also a fact that in the Pali canon and the Mahayana canon we can find no clear evidence that the Buddha denied the true essence of reality otherwise known as nirvana, Suchness, luminous Mind, Dharmakaya, Tathagatagarbha, Buddha-nature, the unborn, the true-self, etc.
As for the phrase “subjective essence” this is obviously a modern term with its own peculiar meaning. If the author intends it to mean a Buddhist practitioner who sets out to realize nirvana cannot realize it because his realization of it would make it a subjective essence, then the author is wrong. The author’s intention doesn’t tally with this passage from the Majjhima-Nikaya:
“He [thus] dwelling contemplating impermanence in those feelings, contemplating dispassion, contemplating cessation, contemplating renunciation, does not grasp at anything in the world, and not grasping he is not perturbed, not being perturbed he attains utter nibbana in his very self (paccatta.myeva parinibbâyati)” (M. i. 255).
In the above it is obvious that the subjective experiencer is not grasping at anything in the phenomenal, samsaric world. Yet he attains transcendent nirvana in his very self (paccatta) which is beyond his carnal body, which makes him not of the body! Oh, but this is not Buddhism. Well, yes it is Buddhism.
And what about terms like pratya-atma which is rendered as “self-realization” found in the Lankavatara Sutra or other terms like praty-atma-arya-jñâna? When the Buddha says in the Lankavatara Sutra, a Sutra that formed the basis of early Zen: "Now, Mahamati, the highest Reality is the state of inner Self-realization (pratyatma) by means of Noble Wisdom (aryajñâna)" are we not to take this as a personal religious experience when beholding ultimate reality? Certainly, we as a subject of many experiences can also experience a higher reality that transcends our carnal body. In fact, intrinsically, we are this higher reality—we just don’t remember or recognize it because we are suffering from spiritual amnesia (avidya).
Here is how the passage should read, if the author spent more time with the canon of Buddhism.
Anatman, which literally means “not the self” always means, do not identify your self with what is impermanent and suffering such as the Five Aggregates. Anatman is not telling us there is no self or atman but that what we have identified our self with is not our true self. Fundamentally, we are the ultimate experiencer and true self but an experiencer who has not yet recognized and awakened to their true self, who continually identifies their true self with something that is impermanent and suffering in the example of their corporeal body and its world.
from the Lankavatara Sutra, Chapter 7 Self-Realization:
Mahamati then asked the Blessed One, saying: Pray tell us, Blessed One, what clear understandings an earnest disciple should have if he is to be successful in the discipline that leads to self-realization?
The Blessed One replied: There are four things by the fulfilling of which an earnest disciple may gain self-realization of Noble Wisdom and become and Bodhisattva-Mahasattva: First, he must have a clear understanding that all things are only manifestations of the mind itself; second, he must discard the notion of birth, abiding and disappearance; third, he must clearly understand the ego-less-ness of both things and persons; and fourth, he must have a true conception of what constitutes self-realization of Noble Wisdom, provided with these four understandings, earnest disciples may become Bodhisattvas and attain Transcendental Intelligence.
As to the first; he must recognize and be fully convinced that this triple world is nothing but a complex manifestation of one’s mental activities; that it is devoid of selfness and its belongings; that there are no strivings, no comings, no goings. He must recognize and accept the fact that this triple world is manifested and imagined as real only under the influence of habit-energy that has been accumulated since the beginning-less past by reason of memory, false-imagination, false-reasoning, and attachments to the multiplicities of objects and reactions in close relationship and in conformity to ideas of body-property-and-abode.
As the to second; he must recognize and be convinced that all things are to be regarded as forms seen in a vision and a dream, empty of substance, un-born and without self-nature; that all things exist only by reason of a complicated network of causation which owes its rise to the discrimination and attachment and which eventuates in the rise of the mind-system and its belongings and evolvements.
As to the third, he must recognize and patiently accept the fact that his own mind and personality is also mind-constructed, that it is empty of substance, unborn and ego-less. With these three things clearly in mind, the Bodhisattva will be able to enter into the truth of image-lessness.
As to the fourth, he must have a true conception of what constitutes self-realization of Noble Wisdom. First, it is not comparable to the perceptions attained by the sense-mind, and neither is it comparable to the cognition of the discriminating and intellectual-mind. Both of these presuppose a difference between self and not self and the knowledge so attained is characterized by individuality and generality. Self-realization is based on identity and oneness; there is nothing to be discriminated nor predicated concerning it. But to enter into it the Bodhisattva must be free from all presuppositions and attachments to things, ideas and selfness.
The Lankavatara Sutra, translated by D.T. Suzuki
published by the American Zen Buddhist Sangha
Posted by: clyde | January 31, 2011 at 03:21 AM