The Zennist

Awakening from the spell of rebirth

Last week Johannes Bronkhorst’s book The Two Traditions of Meditation in Ancient India (1993) finally arrived in the mail.  Scholarly, but certainly not difficult to read, it had some interesting material in it.  Here is one notable example I put an “X” next to with my trusty Ticonderoga pencil.

"The majority of versions of the long account of the enlightenment of the Buddha describe three insights:  memory of earlier lives; knowledge of the births and deaths of beings; knowledge regarding the destruction of the intoxicants.  Only the third insight has an obvious connection with liberation, which consists of the destruction of the intoxicants.  The first two insights make the impression of having been added to the text which underlay these versions, and which was therefore without these first two insights.

And indeed, one version of the long account of the Buddha’s liberation survives in which only the knowledge regarding the destruction of the intoxicants precedes final liberation:  a Sutra of the Sarvastivadins (MÂc p. 589c14-23).  A closer study of all these parallel versions—undertaken by Bareau (1963: 81f.)—confirms that the long account of the Buddha’s liberation originally made no mention of his earlier lives and the knowledge of the birth and deaths of beings” (pp. 119–120).

While it is probably true that the first two insights are later additions, this should not be construed to suggest that the Buddha rejected, altogether, rebirth/punarbhava.  Bronkhorst makes the point that the two were added “in order to press a point which was considered essential to the teaching of the Buddha” which “is the belief in transmigration determined by one’s earlier behaviour or state” (p. 120). 

The Buddha’s gnosis which came with the destruction of the intoxicants by which he beheld the absolute as distinguished from its phenomena contains the key to ending rebirth.  One can simply think of rebirth or punarbhava as ‘re-samsara’ or ‘again-samsara’ in which we are continually in bondage to phenomena which are always, without exception, impermanent, suffering, and not our self.  On this same note, when this psychophysical body of ours dissolves we, again, enter into samsara in some form to experience suffering, again, because we haven't broken the spell by which we are made slaves to our own phenomenalizations which are only the substance of pure Mind.  There is no end to this samsaric process except to awaken from it.

 

There are no sentient beings for a Bodhisattva to liberate

If one thinks about saving all living or sentient beings which a Bodhisattva tries to do, how is it possible since the psychophysical body, that is, the Five Aggregates are an illusion?  Since when is a Bodhisattva in the business of saving illusions?  Let’s look at how the Buddha describes each aggregate.

“Form is like a lump of foam, feeling like a water bubble; perception is like a mirage; volitions like a plantain trunk, and consciousness like an illusion, so explained the Kinsman of the Sun” (S. iii. 142).

I should add that there is no aggregate that is not also impermanent and suffering which is not also Mara the killer.  Again I ask, since when is a Bodhisattva in the business of saving illusions?  If I have a dream of seeing countless suffering people who are dying from a lack of water and food, when I wake up from this dream do I wish to go back to this dream, hoping to save them?  Of course not because the dream is an illusion.

A way to understand living beings (sattva) a Bodhisattva intends to save comes from Zen master Hui-hai who is known as ‘the Great Pearl’. 

“These nine classes of beings are all (latent) in our physical body; they are created according to our karmic deeds.  Thus, ignorance creates a being born from an egg; defilement (klesa) creates a being born from the womb; immersion in the love-fluid creates a being born from humidity; and the sudden arising of passion creates a being born of transformation.  When awakened, we are Buddhas; when deluded, we are (ordinary) sentient beings.  To a Bodhisattva, every thought arising in the mind is a living being.  If every thought is looked into clearly, the substance of the mind is found to be void, and this is called the deliverance of living beings.  The Illuminated man liberates his inner living beings even before they take shape in his own self; and, since their shapes therefore do not exist, it is clear that there are in reality no living beings to be liberated” ( Blofeld, The Zen Teachings of Hui Hai, pp. 126–127). (Italics are mine.)

The medicine Zen master Hui-hai gives us might be difficult for some Buddhists and most people to swallow.  Perhaps these people are extremely attached to the psychophysical body as being a sentient being.  They don’t see their psychophysical body as being fundamentally illusory.  Rather, they crave it; they follow it around, enslaved to it.  In this condition, it is impossible for them to see how beings are liberated.

 

Looking for our original face

Another nice “must have book” on Zen is Thomas Cleary’s book, The Original Face: An Anthology of Rinzai Zen (1978).  You can get a used copy cheap on Amazon for under a buck, plus postage. It deals with Japanese Rinzai Zen which is somewhat different than what is marketed by Western Soto Zennists who are generally secular materialists.  

When reading such books like The Original Face, if the student, especially a beginner, has not awakened to pure Mind there is a strong tendency to gloss over just how difficult such an awakening is—and how hyper-subtle Mind really is.  Although this book is rife with words about Mind, for example, that it is “originally pure” and it mentions other terms for the transcendent such as “original face,” “fundamental nature” and “Buddha nature” they are of little help if the student is not actively searching for pure Mind, being pushed to their wit's end until they have leaped beyond the pale of internal and external phenomena. 

When I bought this book back in the late 1970s (the pages have already faded to brown), and looking at it now after all of these years, it is a good reminder to me just how much I need to stress to those who read this blog that if you don’t awaken to pure Mind, even reading this great little book, you will most likely suffer from a misreading of Zen, missing the real message.  

Believe it or not, this anthology rests upon one single, profound intuition.  These Zen masters are trying, in their sermons and letters, to get their students to realize Mind’s true, pure nature.  We can call this intuition, Buddha Mind, Buddha-nature, Bodhicitta, Dharmakaya, tathata or Suchness, or our original face.  These terms are unimportant relative to the actual realization.  

Needless to say, one has to struggle to reach such an intuition in which Mind’s clear light becomes apparent!  Looking within our defiled, cloudy, and distorted mind for the pure Mind is like looking for a needle in a huge haystack.  Foremost, the student has to believe this Buddha Mind can be found, but it is not like hay!  The looking is extremely subtle.

 

A secular materialist bull in the China shop

Since the industrial revolution, to a certain extent, evil has been gradually denatured in which it becomes changed into something like acceptable, necessary evil in the examples of the Cold War, the destruction of the environment for the sake of the GDP and so on.  

Along with evil's denaturing has been, in recent memory, also the denaturing of materialism so that it is allowed to enter the front door of Buddhism.  As expected, mainstream Buddhists haven’t noticed that Buddhism, especially Western Buddhism, has embraced to a large degree features of secular materialism emphasizing that science and technology have given mankind the true picture of reality in addition to the instruments necessary to achieve the ‘good life’ which religion has been unable to do.  

Conspicuously absent, because of materialism’s influence, Buddhism’s strong mystical message of transcendence has been almost ignored.  With this, a modern Buddhist no longer seeks the transcendent.

This is not a pretty picture.  And anyone who says Buddhism is doing just fine, despite the somewhat obvious fact that Dharma centers no longer discuss Mind as absolute spirit or nirvana as immortality (amrita), needs to stop taking the blue pill (you remember the blue pill in the movie, The Matrix, right?).  Yes, secular materialism has entered the temple like a bull a China shop.

On a happy note, I am glad to see Alan Wallace, who defends the transcendent in Buddhism, kick Stephen Batchelor's backsides, who is a secular materialist by any measure.  Some bloggers, too, have joined Wallace by pointing out Batchelor’s Buddhism does not match at all the Buddhism found in the canon.  What should be obvious from all of this is that Stephen Batchelor and his supporters wish to turn the Buddha into a secular materialist. 

 

The return

If we, as the One Mind (ekacitta) or absolute spirit, were like pure water then the only thing we would be able to behold would be its configurations such as whirlpools, ripples, waves, etc.  This boils down to saying that Mind cannot directly behold Mind until it penetrates through its configurations.  This fact is lost sight of by Buddhists who are convinced that Mind has configured, determinate being.  The only determinate being Mind has is its phenomena which are never Mind, itself.  This is Mind's primordial ignorance which it has not overcome.  

 The only way for the Buddhist adept to engage with pure Mind is to penetrate through Mind’s contrasting phenomenal veil which amounts to a return to itself and equally the overcoming of Mind’s original ignorance of itself or avidya.

 With such a return the adept then knows that all phenomena are compositions of Mind substance.  This knowing or gnosis (jñâna) is not to be confused with intellectual knowing which is abstract.  It is knowing that is more like a baptism; as plunging fully into absolute spirit (ekacitta); to directly behold the absolute medium, itself, passing beyond all of its countless configurations.

 

Sagely wisdom or prajna

Most people don’t know what wisdom actually means.  In Buddhism wisdom or prajñâ is a very important term.  If one fails to grasp its essence they will always be moving contrary to wisdom and Buddhism.

In a nutshell, wisdom is the capacity to distinguish or discern between right and wrong, or, in the Buddhist sense of the term prajñâ, to discern between the absolute and non-absolute.  A sage, we can say, is wise because he is able to distinguish between right and wrong actions and ultimately, true reality from illusion.  From the Catusparisat Sutra we can see wisdom at work in distinguishing the first aggregate of the Five Aggregates, material form (rupa), from our self thus knowing that material form is not my self.

"Therefore then, O monks, whatever material form there is, past, future or present, inside or outside, gross or subtle, low or eminent, far or near, “all this is not mine, I am not this, it is not my self”.  In this way it must be seen, in truth, by means of correct discriminative knowledge (prajñâ)." 

By the application of wisdom, a sage avoids taking up material form, feelings, perception, habitual tendencies, and sensory consciousness as being their self or atma.  Said again, a sage avoids taking up the psychophysical body as being who they really are.  The sage by wisdom or prajñâ knows that it is by clinging to the psychophysical body, which is suffering, that one is plunged into suffering.  In other words, I become the sufferant in proportion as I cling to this suffering body of my birth.  Also, the failure to discern what is beyond suffering, that is, nirvana plunges one into suffering since there is nothing other than a world of suffering for those who have not attained nirvana.  This brings us to the fact that nirvana is the highest happiness such that there is “nothing beyond the happiness of nirvana/nibbana” (Therigatha 476).  In addition, the “mortal who delights in nirvana is freed from all suffering” (S. ii. 278).

Wisdom in Buddhism also implies that one has really comprehended the absolute, i.e., attained nirvana.  It is not just a metaphysical notion.  By this comprehension one easily discerns the true from the false; true reality from the empty world of illusion.  This leads to Prajna-paramaita, that is, the perfection of wisdom in which the distinction between the true substance of reality and its phenomena is clear and perfect, but this is another blog.

 

The big storm and Stephen Batchelor goes weird

I just got back online.  We had a big storm that came in from Alabama late Monday night and did some damage.  In my neighborhood an oak tree fell over the power and cable lines knocking out our electricity and cable/internet and half of Emory University's power.  It was quite a furious storm.  The wind was really strong.  I was watching out for hail expecting a tornado.  Luckily, none came.  Just wind, rain and high level lightning like huge flashbulbs going off all the time. The next day this is what I found just around the corner.

Just wanted you to know what happened.  I have been working on blogs since early this morning. Lucky for me the power came back on (but no internet).

Here is one I just finished.  It's about my archenemy  Stephen Batchleor.

Stephen Batchelor, who is the vanguard of secular Buddhism (at least most would regard him as such) has authored two very influential books, Buddhism Without Beliefs (1997) and Confession of a Buddhist Atheist (2010).  What I find astonishing about the author is apparently he is no longer an agnostic Buddhist but has became, instead, an atheist since first he put pen to paper writing, Confession of a Buddhist Atheist,

I bring this up because on page 19 of Buddhism Without Beliefs, the author writes:

An agnostic Buddhist eschews atheism as much as theism, and is as reluctant to regard the universe as devoid of meaning as endowed with meaning.  For to deny either God or meaning is simply the antithesis of affirming them.  Yet such an agnostic stance is not based on disinterest.  It is founded on a passionate recognition that I do not know.  (Bold emphasis is mine.)

Assuming that by 2010 Mr. Batchelor had become an atheist, no longer eschewing atheism, does this mean that he’s rejected his previous agnostic role?  At least, we can safely conclude that Mr. Batchelor now knows that there is no God.  I mean, after all, he is a self-confessed atheist.  I assume, too, that he knows the Buddha did not attain anything transcendent like the immortal (P., amata), etc.

I have no idea why Batchelor switched from being an agnostic Buddhist to now being a Buddhist atheist, but I suspect it has a lot to do with making a lot of dough.  In the future, I would not be surprised to see other Buddhist books by Batchelor such as, Buddhism With Meat or Confession of a Dialectical Materialist Buddhist.

 

 

The glitter and glitz of modern Zen

Without realizing it, almost all beginners are attracted to Zen because of the glitter and glitz in the way of robes, rituals, and culture (e.g., Japan’s culture superimposed on Zen).  However, all this is only the surface that in many cases has almost little if any depth.  In fact, this only serves to hide the core of Zen.

It is not until we study the early, classical literature of Zen, including Mahayana and the Agama literature which coincides with the Pali Suttas, that the real heart of Zen begins to emerge.  It is in these works that we discover the golden thread of the Buddha’s true teaching that points to his liberating insight.

All the glitter and glitz seen in Zen is not really Zen.  Those who are stuck here, bewitched by the pomp and ceremony, are far from entering the stream.  In their lifetimes they will never come close to what Zen is really about.  Meditation and koans will always remain an enigma.

One of the failings of human beings—and especially beginners—is their susceptibility to deception or inversion (S., viparyasa).  For example, what is taken to be the core of Zen is really only its surface.  Again, what is taken to be good and true (shubha) is really evil and false (ashubha).  This inversion even extends to teachers.  Those whom we believe to be the best teachers are more than likely the worst, and what they teach as being Zen is not Zen at all.

Going back to my earlier comment that it is not until we study the classical literature of Zen that the real heart of Zen begins to emerge.  This is so because the early literature of Zen is composed around the intuition of Mind.  For those who are under the spell of inversion they will find the door of Zen almost impossible to open, especially when it comes to koans since they are based on Mind.  They fail, time and time again, to see that pure Mind is at the heart of every koan and every sermon delivered by Zen masters of old.  As far as modern Zennist are concerned they remain totally clueless as to what Mind is.  They imagine it is psychological when in fact it is not.

I remember when I first began my study of Zen at twenty.  It took me some seven years to reject the Zen of glitter and glitz thereby to begin my search for Zen’s true essence when one night in 1969 I caught a glimpse of pure Mind after being able to do one-pointedness of mind.  This was the key that opened the gate of Zen for me which was also my rejection of the Zen of glitter and glitz, including the new age malarky about the here and now or just being aware. 

 

Realists are always sucked into illusion

The problem with naïve realism and to a certain extent direct realism is the problem with the Five Aggregates.  Under the rule of the aggregates, realists cannot distinguish between illusory reality and veridical reality (paramartha).  The realists firmly believe the patch of blue is veridical reality when clearly it is not.  It is a composition of the Five Aggregates.  Moreover, the realist is clueless as to what is the substance of veridical reality.  They have never connected with it in the way a Buddha does.

 We can draw from this that things are not as they are perceived by us, that is, they are not veridical reality.  This includes the sensory moment, even the here and now.  The world of the naïve realist and the direct realist arises from the apparatus of the psychophysical body which they are hesitant to admit.  

 The psychophysical body, as a matter of fact, like a dark cloud, veils the sun of veridical reality.  The only way out of the trap of realism, which can’t distinguish illusion from veridical reality, is to transcend it, finding another means, other than through the Five Aggregates or the same, the psychophysical body.  This means the Buddhist adept must directly penetrate into the absolute medium, itself, from which illusory things emerge and return.  

 Since Buddhism understands that one is implicitly this absolute medium or substance, then the adept’s return to it only involves setting aside the medium’s illusory formations sufficient to behold it purely and veridically.