I thought that I had mentioned this book, Zen Dawn, in earlier blogs. Oops—guess I didn’t. Anyway, J.C. Cleary’s translation of early Zen texts discovered at Tun Huang is a good buy. So break your piggy bank and get a copy.
In Cleary’s book, fairly often, one comes across nice stuff like this:
The Lankavatara Sutra says: “Inherent Mind manifests objects appearing everywhere amid the five phenomena accord to kind.” What are the five phenomena? Names, forms, false thinking, true wisdom, and thusness. For this reason, all things are nameless: they are named by mind. Just be mindless oneself, and there are no names and forms. Then it is called true wisdom and thusness. The Dharmapada Sutra says: “The dense array of myraid images is the impression of One Reality” (p. 21).
Cleary’s translations spill a lot of ink on Mind, Buddha-nature, and other terms for the transcendent, of which we really are, but don’t yet fully realize it. Personally, I have to bow to Cleary for his steadfast dedication to keeping Zen and true Buddhism alive which, I dare say, is slowly being snuffed out by people like Stephen Batchelor who just don’t get Buddhism or Zen.
I should mention that when Batchelor was a Zen monk studying under the Korean Zen master Kusan Sunim. Sunim, like all good traditional Zen teachers, especially in China and Korea, put all of his efforts into getting his students to obtain a glimpse into pure Mind because realizing Buddha or the awakened Mind is pivotal to Zen. Without this awakening—no Zen, no Buddhism. Period.
Astonishingly, among the many things we learn about Mr. Batchelor from his new book, Confession of a Buddhist Atheist, is that he essentially said Zen is stupid and quit. In a nutshell, he refused to have anything to do with gaining an insight into Mind. He writes:
“I had difficulties with much of the underlying philosophy of Kusan Sunim’s teaching. I struggled with his view that the “this” of “What is this?” denoted a transcendent Mind, which he also called the “Master of the body.” When I consulted the Chinese text where the question “What is this?” first appears, it made no mention of Mind or a Master of the body, but simply said: “What is this thing, and how did it get here?” I liked the blunt earthiness of “thing,” since it offered little scope for metaphysical elaboration. But this is how Kusan Sunim explained what we were doing: “The purpose of Zen meditation is to awaken to the Mind....There is a Master who rules this body who is neither the label ‘mind,’ the Buddha, a material thing, nor empty space. Having negated these four possibilities, a question will arise as to what this Master really is. If you continue inquiring in this way, the question will become more intense. Finally, when the mass of questioning enlarges to a critical point, it will suddenly burst. The entire universe will be shattered and only you original nature will appear before you. In this way you will awaken” (pp. 67–68).
Despite all the Buddhist literature on Mind (and believe me there is a lot of it), Batchelor refused to accept Sunim’s teaching about Mind. He said of it—in particular about Mind—, “Once again, I found myself confronted by the specter of a disembodied spirit” (p. 68).
In light of Batchelor’s complete rejection of Buddha Mind (i.e., his term “disembodied spirit”), I suspect, that he would be the last person to read Cleary’s book, Zen Dawn, since the transcendent is discussed on virtually every page.
Back to the beginning of this blog. Please buy Cleary’s book Zen Dawn before the Batchelors of secular Buddhism start a bonfire and toss Zen Dawn and other books into the flames which speak of Mind.
Ordered one of 3 remaining copies. Thank you for the reminder. Any Cleary book is a gem.
Posted by: emanuel | April 25, 2011 at 10:04 AM