The Zennist

Loser sentient beings

One is a sentient being (sattva) in virtue of not recognizing Buddha-nature.  Such a life is one of confusion (samsara) desiring what is not Buddha-nature.  While potentially all sentient beings can recognize their Buddha-nature their delusions bind them to a wayward life of suffering.  Even those sentient beings who are desirous of realizing their Buddha-nature are limited by their delusions.  Such a burden amounts to mistaking what is not Buddha-nature for Buddha-nature.

From the beginning, sentient beings have not recognized their Buddha-nature.  As a result of this non-recognition or avidya, samsara is generated.  There is no escaping the fact that sentient beings have never known any other condition except samsara.  Still, it is almost impossible for us to accept that Buddha-nature is the fundamental nature of existence; more than our present way of life which is fictional.  It goes against all of our beliefs.

So what is Buddha-nature?  As the Tibetan Lamas tell us, it is utterly open.  We can think of it as a limitless, pure, open field or medium.  In addition, it is a dynamic—yet totally invisible and fundamentally empty.  It is luminous (prabhâsa) or the same, radiant.  Some call it clear light.  To experience it directly is to understand what compassion or karuna really means; seeing it mystically at work in the world trying to awaken the world.  By realizing it one no longer remains entangled with phenomena since phenomena do not actually exist.  Only this pristine nature or Mind-nature exists.

 

The discipline of a Bodhisattva

The discipline (vinaya) of a Bodhisattva is different than that of a worldling (prithagjana) including worldling monks and nuns, including even those who take the vow of a Bodhisattva since they have never had real Bodhicitta.  According to the Sutra, On Virtue and Discipline, in the larger Maharatnakuta Sutra (trans. Garma C.C. Chang) it is even different than that of a sravaka (disciple) who is at least a ‘stream winner’ (srotapanna); who has entered the supermundane path.    

“Even if Bodhisattvas enjoy the five sensuous pleasures with unrestricted freedom for kalpas as numerous as the sands of the Ganges, as long as they do not give up their bodhicitta, they are said not to break the precepts.  Why?  Because Bodhisattvas are skilled in protecting their bodhicitta, and dwell securely in it; they are not afflicted by any passions, even in dreams.  Further, they should gradually root out their defilements instead of exterminating them all in one lifetime.” (The italics are mine.)

Since Bodhicitta is enlightenment that isn’t yet fully developed, in the midst of things such as sensuous pleasures, the Bodhisattva has to stick with it, above all else.  It alone is free of defilements being no thing as compared with everything else which is transitory.  It is the Bodhisattva’s lodestar, in other words.  With it the Bodhisattva, like Siddhartha, will defeat Mara the Evil One and become a Buddha.  

With such a discipline, all things, eventually, become completely illusory because of the power of Bodhicitta.  Things are the same as space, empty and devoid of true reality (svabhâva).  In truth, there is only Mind.  The world we see has never actually existed.  Only Mind is real.

 

Buddhism will suffer the same fate as Christianity

Christianity in the West has been around far longer than Buddhism in the West.  It has undergone profound changes—and not good ones.  If fact, it can be argued that present day Christianity is not the same as early Christianity.  Eventually, Buddhism in the West will suffer the same fate.  It will not be the Buddhism of the Buddha but something quite different.  

Historically speaking, there are two important exegesis in Christianity.  The first is spiritual or commonly called “gnostic” which is related to the pneumatic man.  The second is antignostic with a strong this-worldliness emphasis (I hasten to add literalism and historicism as subcategories).  It is related to the psychic or animal man.  This is the Christianity that has survived being successful at eliminating the gnostic, often in a violent way.

Buddhism is also not without its own two important exegesis much like in Christianity.  There is the aryan or noble exegesis of the Buddha’s teachings and the common or prithagjana (P. puthujjana) exegesis.  In  his book, Divine Revelation in Pali Buddhism, Peter Masefield has done an excellent job of laying out the decisive differences between the aryan exegesis and the common (P. puthujjana).  Incidentally, of all the books in my small library, Masefield’s is the most underlined.

Not wishing to waste the reader’s time, to put it bluntly, common Buddhism never gets off of the wheel of samsara—never.  Those who follow it are only capable of enjoying a “dung-like happiness” (M. i. 454) according to the Buddha, in addition to still being subject to the rule of Mara the Evil One.

Buddhists who attend Dharma or Zen centers, even including monks and nuns, fall into the general category of being followers of common Buddhism.  This Buddhism is far from being supermundane or lokuttara.  Such people wallow in ignorance and misdeeds continually giving rise the Five Aggregates (khandhas/skandhas) which means they see their Buddha-nature or true self in what is entirely empty of Buddha-nature.

Buddhism stands on more solid ground than Christianity when looking at spiritual exegesis or in Christianity, pneumatic exegesis.  Mahayana Buddhism, if we look into it for supermundane teachings is all supermundane or pneumatic.  The teachings contained in the more important Sutras of the Mahayana canon are given to Bodhisattvas or, the same, Buddhas-to-be.  All have attained the Mind that is awakened or Bodhicitta which is essentially Buddhahood only not fully and completely developed.  As much as it might offend the ordinary Buddhist, Mahayana teachings are not for common Buddhists.  These Buddhists  have no idea of what is going on.  

Unfortunately, the Buddhism of the West is probably going to end up like Christianity of the West which is dominated by the psychic or animal exegesis.  It is almost certain that those who become the teachers of Western Buddhism will ignore most of the Pali and Mahayana canon for obvious reasons.  They will twist the Buddha’s words to reflect a teaching which resonates with the common or animal man.  And finally, they will justify a kind of censorship—all in the name of good, naturally.  This all works to protect the status quo so that no real change occurs, that is, no real change from the common or animal man to the spiritual or pneumatic man. 

 

The west's careless reading of Buddhism

The notion of self is confusing for Western interpreters of Buddhism.  There is, in fact, a track record going back a least a hundred years of Westerners putting a negativistic spin on Buddhism.  Much of this spin either owes to a careless misreading of Buddhism or is intended to make Buddhism look bad in contrast with Christianity.

While there is no clear evidence that the Buddha made categorical statements regarding an Atman-theory, by the same token, there is certainly no evidence that self, as transcendent to all determinations, is not assumed in the Buddha’s discourses being the implicit centerpiece of his teaching (later this is brought out in Mahayana Buddhism where self becomes synonymous with Buddha-nature).  Positing a self and taking a transcendent self for granted are quite different things.  The former can lead to unsatisfying metaphysical speculation and debates whereas the latter is more promising; that can be described as the mystical path or the via negativa.

What is fairly consistent in the older canon is the Buddha teaching his followers not to mistake their true self or attâ for what not their self or anattâ.  If this sounds simple—well, it is.  How Westerners manage to botch it up is by latching on to what is not the self or anattâ, then assuming that this, in some way, is a straightforward denial of self.  But this is a careless reading of the text.  

What is, in fact, being denied is that our self has any connection with the psychophysical body other than an illusory one aggravated by our desire for what is not ours.  The psychophysical body is finite and unreal, being made up of attributes or skandhas.  Our self is not finite.  It is what we are, intrinsically, although it may not seem like it because we are so attached to this troublesome, transient psychophysical burden we have claimed to be ours.  

Westerners by rejecting the possibility of a real self or atman are forced to read Buddhism as either denying the self, completely, or admitting to a provisional self that is no more after death.  However, in both cases, the position is still one of annihilationism and can’t be passed off as anything else.  Holding on to such a position one has identified with contingent existence, itself, blindly seeing their ‘self in what is not self’ (anattani attânam).  This leads to unending rebirth and samsara.  Obviously, this is not what the Buddha taught.

 

The calling

I just got done watching the four-hour PBS documentry, The Calling.  The documentry follows Muslims, Catholics, Evangelical Christians and Jews.  (Where are the Asian religions?  Oops!).  

I guess one can describe all of them as having been called by God to do his work.  The calling for each, however, appears to be subjective this calling going no further than the religious culture each elects to follow which is hardly ‘spiritual’.

Let’s face it, the followers of the major religions of today generally use religion for other than its intended purpose, its intended purposed being to realize one’s true nature which is absolute spirit.   A historical case in point.  The Christian Paul said that the New Covenant is one of spirit (pneuma); not one based upon letters.  Paul even says that the Lord is spirit ((O de kyrios to pneuma estin).  It is safe to say from Paul’s letters that those who take Christianity at a literal level belong to the Old Covenant which keeps the spiritual covenant veiled.    

But the obvious references to spirit or “pneuma” in Paul’s letters, as we know, did not stop the followers of Christianity from making a counterfeit Christianity which is arguably, anti-spiritual; which has been used primarily as a means of social control—mainly to keep the rich, rich and the poor, poor.  As a result of many years of being despiritualized, the Christian ministry, itself, has been transformed into a “ministry of condemnation” (II. Corinthians 3:9).  Does all this sound familiar dear Buddhists?  It should.

The same mind that made a counterfeit Christianity is busy destroying Buddhism; turing it into something which is spiritually dead.  It always seems to be the case that what emerges after the flowering of true religion, over time, paradoxically turns into a system which destroys true religion, making the soil for its growth and development, barren.  Thus religion eventually becomes its own hangman.  What is originally spirit, over time, becomes veiled.  The clergy not only become the guardians of the veil, they also become overseers and guardians of herd values, values which insure the veil will never be lifted!

Buddhism is the last stronghold of true religion which is still growing in the soil of mysticism which includes shamanism.  But its destruction is likely given the fact that it is being rapidly “westernized” which is to say, it is being turned into a religion that celebrates herd values; that, in addition, makes the profane man (prithagjana) the great hero despite the fact that this man’s history in recent memory has been one of genocide and the destruction of earth’s biosphere.

 

Will the real Buddhist sangha stand up

Buddhism’s gradual transformation into a more monk dominated religion after the Buddha’s parinirvana at Kusinara was a change from what I shall term a “spiritual sangha” into an “episcopal sangha” in which the monastic community played the role of overseer (G., episkopos) not only guiding the sangha but molding Buddhism to fit the special needs of the monastic sangha and, indirectly, the lay Buddhist population. 

For anyone who has been involved with the monastic sangha it is a complex bureaucracy in many respects.  Those at the top oversee those on the bottom.  The monastic structure, in this regard, is rather totemic.  What is generally unknown by the monastic community and especially the Buddhist lay community is that the monastic sangha is not the same as the Triple Gem sangha (P., ti-ratana).  They are quite different.  Walpola Sri Rahula writes:

"The Sangha of the Triple-Jewel whcih is called sâvaka-sangha ("the Community of Disciples"), consisting of those eight holy persons indiscriminately from all four categories of the Buddha's disciples, both lay and monastic, male and female, may be considered as the "Spiritual Sangha".  This is not an organized body controlled by a set of rules.  This “Holy Community” exists in the world of the Dhamma, in the spiritual realm of our world.  This is the Sangha of the Triple-Jewel in the purest and the highest sense” (World Buddhism, Vol. XII, No. 11, July 1974, p. 330)

Monks who are not ariya-sâvakas (S., arya-sravaka) are naturally, puthujjanas, or worldlings.  They have not entered the stream, that is, seen nirvana.  

I have gone over this before in more detail in the blog: A sangha beyond the monastic sangha.  Much of it is based on what I found in the World Buddhism publication.  Edmund F. Perry & Shanta Ratnayaka did a great two article piece entitled, The Sangha of the Ti-Ratana appearing in the 1974 June and July World Buddhism publication.  To my knowledge the work of Perry and Ratnayaka, and even Rahula’s previously cited article, have been all but ignored.  This is not altogether amazing when we take into consideration the enormous power the Buddhist monastic sangha has over the minds of the lay population and especially the media.

Part of the reason modern Buddhism seems to be drifting towards secular materialism is that its spiritual side is being actively suppressed (along with the spiritual sangha) by some who wear the robe; who make up the monastic sangha.  They should be better educated but apparently they aren’t or don’t wish to be.  Chinese Buddhist monks and nuns, on the  other hand, seem to understand that after so many years of being a robe coat hanger they  have to go into retreat if they are truly seeking enlightenment.  Only by doing this can they hope to join the spiritual sangha.

 

The Bodhisattva sees differently

By whatever term we wish to call it such as pure Mind, tathata/suchness, or Dharmakaya, the absolute substance from which things are composed is impossible to detect by untrained worldlings. However, unlike worldlings (prithagjana), the Bodhisattva can distinguish (prajñâ) the substance from its insubstantial, phenomenal configurations.  We can liken this substance to the coating of a mirror which reflects objects so that what appears are phenomenal forms, not the substance itself.  The substance, if we wish to see it, must be seen in its own nature (svabhava).

Using an illustration a little more down to earth let’s imagine we are on a hiking trip. When we look at the scenery facing us, seeing the forest and the mountains rising up from behind it, we can see nothing else other than this sensory array.  In other words, we can’t see the luminous substance or Mind which makes this all possible.  Likewise, when we look at our thoughts we can’t detect anything like pure Mind or tathata.  Still, the Bodhisattva can see this amazing substance—the worldling cannot.  The Bodhisattva  is in samadhi with it constantly.  But he is also, at the same time, giving up past habits which made the luminious substance seem impossible to detect.

Unfortunately, when the Buddha speaks of pure Mind, the first thing a worldling does is try to conceive of it—he might even imagine it is awareness!  The worldling doesn’t understand that directly beholding pure Mind is a much different matter than conceiving it.

Admittedly, this is pretty subtle stuff.  In the first place, it is hard for the worldling to believe that their physical body with its huge, complex system of mentation and the world it perceives via the senses, is really just an aggregation of name and form (namarupa) composed from pure Mind or tathata.  But this is the gist of the Buddha’s awakening.  This especially brought out in Mahayana Buddhism which sees the temporal world as fictive and certainly not the true world which is supermundane.

 

Buddhism from the old canon

To end suffering from the standpoint of the Pali Nikayas presupposes certain things, one important one being that we are fundamentally independent of our psychophysical body.  An aside, this independence in the Mahayana canon is Buddha-nature.  All beings have this independent nature but haven’t yet realized it.  

It would be wrong to imagine that the psychophysical body is, in some mysterious way, inherently pain free and potentially connected with nirvana.  This is not the case in the Nikayas.  The psychophysical body (khandha) is suffering (D. ii. 305).  Every part of it is impermanent from its material shape to consciousness.  The constant refrain in the Nikayas is always: what is impermanent such as material shape (rupa) is suffering (S. iii. 45). There is no exception to this.

Faced with the problem man’s only escape from suffering is to detach, or the same, unbind himself from the psychophysical body by seeing that which precisely transcends it.  This direct acquaintance with what transcends the psychophysical body is called nirvana.  It is the beginning of the noble eightfold path which functions in an expansionary way for the path taker, who can eventually become fully awake like the Buddha—not partially awake—as is the case with a stream winner who has just seen nirvana, attaining right view. 

 

This is a lot of rubbish

Much of the Zen found in the West is Soto Zen.  More specifically it is Dogen’s Soto Zen.  It is important for beginners to know that Dogen’s Zen is not the Zen of China or Korea which are more congruent with Mahayana Buddhism and certainly not far away from the Pali canon (Nikayas/Agamas).

In a nutshell, the Soto teachings of Dogen believes that the ultimate meaning of Buddhism lies in the practice of zazen (lit. “seated meditation”), that is, just sitting.  On this same track, this means that for Dogen, Buddhism and zazen are fundamentally the same thing.  Zazen is Buddhism.  Buddhism is zazen.  

For anyone who has studied the Buddhist canon, Dogen’s Zen is quite a radical and unsupported.  Neither the Mahayana canon nor the  Pali canon provide any good evidence for his view when, for example, he claims that “birth and death’ is nirvana.”  Both canons essentially teach the realization of nirvana which is transcendent; which is beyond the pale of samsara in which the cycle of birth and death take place.  A passage from the Mahâprajñâpâramitashâstra describes nirvana in more concise terms: “Nirvana is the unborn, unextinct dharma; it is the ultimate reality, the supreme end.”  Such a realization requires more than sitting in a full or half lotus posture.  

Dogen’s own enlightenment in China, which he believed to be quite profound, helped him to realize that we need not search for anything, especially enlightenment or Buddhahood, since we are already Buddhas—in fact, everything is the nature of Buddha.  Dogen imagined by just sitting, like the Buddha did supposedly after he left the five ascetics, we too can realize that everything, just as it is, is perfect.  This means that zazen is, itself, the practice of perfectly realized truth.  It is the gate to the real world.  

Dogen basically wants us to understand that when we just sit, or the same, practice zazen we are abiding in Buddha reality itself.  In zazen we are as we are and the external world is as it is which means that both are one—the oneness of reality.  But this is a lot of rubbish.

On a personal note, many years ago when I studied Soto Zen with my teacher, I remember how I enjoyed just the pure act of sitting in our small zendo.  I was told sometime later that this was enlightenment/practice.  But something deep down inside of me said this is not the Buddha’s enlightenment.  It was hard to believe that just sitting was the Buddha’s enlightenment given the other material that I had read.  At the time, I had read all the books in the temple’s small library which I was put in charge of.  Apparently, what good karma I had smiled upon me and delivered me from this den of crazies!  (During this same time I had discovered D.T. Suzuki’s translation of the Lankavatara Sutra which helped to make my departure from Soto easy.  There was no comparison between the two, one wasn’t Buddhism, the other was.) 

 

How do I get right view and bodhicitta?

Oddly, I am not aware that the Pali canon makes any explicit mention of how to realize right view (sammâditthi) of the noble eightfold path which is necessary if one wishes to become an Arahant (S., arhat).  Without a doubt, the ariyatthangikamagga or noble eightfold path commences with right view—it leads the way.  This view, it is important to add, is transcendent or supermundane (lokuttara); one not shared by the worldlings (puthujjana) (cp. M. i. 323).  

“He is called, monks, an ariyasavaka who possess (right) view, who possesses vision, who has come to this true Dhamma, who sees this true Dhamma, who is endowed with the knowledge (ñânena) of the sekha (i.e., a sotapanna, sakadagamin or anagamin), who is endowed with the wisdom (vijjaya) of the sekha, who has attained the Dhamma-ear, who  has the ariyan insight of revulsion, who stands having arrived at the door to the Deathless” (S.  ii. 43 = 44 = 58 = 79; cp S. ii. 80) (trans. Peter Masefiled).

On the same score, I am not aware that the Mahayana canon makes any explicit mention of how, exactly, to realize Bodhicitta (S., bodhicittotpada) = bodhi mind arising).  We would not be wrong to say that faith, worship (anuttarapuja) and confession are important factors.  But this doesn’t help us much.  We only know that the life (bhumi) of the Bodhisattva commences with real Bodhicitta—not its aspiration or strong desire for.  Nor is some ceremony of taking the vows of a Bodhisattva at a Buddhist temple, which is the common practice, make one a genuine Bodhisattva.  An important Sutra in this regard, the Dashabhumika states that the citta-utpada (the arising of Mind) is the first step in the life of a Bodhisattva.

The bulk of the Buddha’s teachings are given to special initiates, that is, to those who have attained supermundane right view and Bodhicitta.  The profane or worldlings (prithagjana), unless a Buddha shows up, can only dream and hope of realizing nirvana.  Not even the Buddhist clergy can be of help which is made up of worldlings.  Becoming a monk or a nun has nothing whatsoever to do with right view or Bodhicitta (the difference between the Triple Gem sangha and the monastic sangha is discussed in the blog, A sangha beyond the monastic sangha, and other blogs).