The Zennist

Natural born killers

 According to Zen master Bassui (1327–1387) the failure to see into our true nature, thus maintaing a deluded mind, is breaking the five precepts.  Of especial interest is the first precept, which is the precept not to take away life (prânâtipâta).  According to Bassui:

“The power from seeing into your own nature will extinguish all delusion and bring life to Buddha-nature.  This is the precept not to kill living things” (trans. Arthur Braverman).

On the other hand, by failing to realize Buddha Mind; being more interested in keeping a deluded mind in the belief it is otherwise, this is killing our own Buddha Mind or Buddha-nature.  In this sense we are natural born killers who are attached to the psychophysical body (skandhas) which the Buddha equates with a killer (S. iii. 189).

Lacking insight into our true nature, everyday becomes a day of killing for us since we are attached to a killing machine which obstructs our ability to see the deathless Buddha Mind which gives life (prânâ).

 

Supernormal powers

Bassui Zenji (1327–1387) had a profound way of explaining the six supermnatural powers, all of which derive from our inherent nature or the same, our Buddha-nature.  I have taken the answers to the questions from the book, Mud and Water: The Collected Teachings of Zen Master Bassui, which has been translated by Arthur Braverman. (Yep, it’s a good book to have in your Zen library.)  

What is clairvoyance?

“This infinite light shines of its own accord and watches over all.  It is nothingness; it is a wonder.  It is silent: it illumines.  Though forms can be seen, one is not deluded by them.  This is clairvoyance.”

What is clairaudience?

“Buddha-nature is pure and unstained.  When sounds are heard through the ears, the echo of vibrations is clearly discerned and yet there is no dependence on discriminating thoughts.  This is called clairaudence.”

What is mind-reading?

“When you clearly understand the nature of your own mind, you will realize the oneness of the minds of the buddhas of the three worlds, the ancestors and ordinary people of this world, and heavenly beings of other worlds.  This is the power of mind-reading.”

What is the power of knowing past lives?

“From the moment you realize your inherent nature, your mind will penetrate through aeons of emptiness that preceded creation through to the endless future.  Clear and independent, it will not attach itself to the changing phenomena of life and death, past and future, but will remain constant without obstructing doubts.  This is the power of knowing past lives.”

What is the power to fly through the air?

“When you understand the nature of your own mind, it will thoroughly light up the dark cave of ignorance and the original natural beauty will be manifest.  In an instant you will pass through the ten directions without stopping in the blue sky.  This is your inherent nature’s true power to fly through the air.”

What is the power to stop deluded thoughts?

“When you understand the r of your own mind, delusion will change into wisdom.  Because bodhi is your original inherent nature, it transcends delusion and enlightenment.  You won’t exist among saints and sinners and won’t be stained by the various phenomena.  This is power to stop deluded thoughts.”

One more thing, having gnosis of our true nature which is pure Mind, which is called everything from true nature to Buddha-nature, settles all the mysteries of Buddhism.  However, without this gnosis Buddhism shall forever remain an unsolved mystery.

What meditation is really about

Some practitioners of Zen believe that learning how to do zazen is all that is really necessary.  A nice side benefit, one doesn’t have to do a lot of book reading.  Just go to some Zen center and learn how to sit properly—that is the important part.

It would be nice if this were true, but it is not.  Given the fact that the transcendent part of us is interfacing with the part that is impermanent, suffering, and not really us, should give us pause to reflect that maybe there is more to meditation than meets the eye.  And certainly more than just sitting ramrod straight on a pillow. 

To really grasp what meditation is all about we first have to accept the fact that the transcendent part of us is mixed up with the finite part of us, or the Five Aggregates, thus, making it really difficult to see the transcendent and attain nirvana.  

In this mixed-up state (our normal state!), how do we distinguish something which is subtle, yet finite, from the highest state which is hyper subtle and transcendent?  The question is not easy to answer for obvious reasons.  Still, we have to take aim at the transcendent which is continually interfacing with a finite body, not to mention its temporal thoughts, internal dialogues, and anxieties.

What gives us both hope and help is knowing that we are fundamentally the deathless (amrita) absolute.  The only problem pressing in on us is we can’t seem to find our absoluteness in the riot of temporal finitude no matter how hard we look.  Nevertheless, looking for it is what meditation is really about. 

 

Nirvana and the self are essentially the same

The psychophysical Five Aggregates or pañca skandhas always fall into the category of the conditioned.  On the other hand, nirvana always falls into the category of the unconditioned (asamskrita) or t he transcendent which is beyond temporality.  But then, by implication, so does the self.  This is because in the Pali discourses the Buddha denies that his self is any one of the conditioned five aggregates consisting of form, feelings, perception, mental formations, and consciousness.  From this, we are forced to conclude that because both nirvana and the self fall into the category of the unconditioned, both are essentially the same.

Buddhists who believe that the Buddha championed “no-self” as opposed to the unconditioned self (the one the Buddha said is not of the Five Aggregates which are always conditioned), I assume, must not be that familiar with the Pali canon.  Nowhere in the canon does the Buddha say the self is conditioned.  In fact, of the three marks of conditioned existence, the last after impermanence and suffering is absence of the self (anattâ).  

Putting this into clear English, the Buddha is saying that the three signs or marks of conditioned existence are impermanence, suffering and absence of the self.  It follows from this that the unconditioned, which is nirvana, is permanent, without suffering, and the self.

 

Zen's lineage story

Early and later forms of institutional Zen or Ch'an can be united and characterized by their lineage claims.  Supposedly, the Buddha was to have wordlessly transmitted the eye of the Dharma to his disciple Mahakasyapa who then wordlessly transmitted it to Ananda and so on down to the present generation.

The only problem with this lineage story is there is  no satisfactory evidence for it.  Examined historically, it is little more than a convenient Chinese invention, if not a fiction, by which Zen established supremacy over other Buddhist traditions they were competing with at the time. 

To be sure, there is no mention of this transmission in the Pali and Agama discourses and it is contradicted by the Avatamsaka Sutra which says the great disciples of the Buddha like Mahakasyapa “were not capable of perpetuating the lineage of Buddhas.”

In the Mahayana Mahaparinivana Sutra, before the Buddha passed away into parinirvana, he entrusted his teachings of Mahayana to Bodhisattvas that his teaching might long live.  

In the same Sutra just mentioned, with regard to the monks and nuns, the Buddha put Mahakasyapa in charge.  He told them that Mahakasyapa would be their refuge.  But being a monk or a nun is a far cry from being a Bodhisattva who has experienced Bodhicitta; who is advancing towards Buddhahood.  (Keep in mind, also, that the monastic sangha is not the Triple Gem Sangha made up of holy persons.)

 

Two wrong assumptions

The theist first assumes that God exists who has also convinced himself that God is necessary.  The naive realist first assumes the world is real.  Both are deluded from the perspective of Buddhism.  

While it may seem like God exists or I am real, as real as the forest outside my window, from the Buddhist standpoint, things are not as real as we imagine they are.

Our problem is that we are almost inescapably bound up with phenomena which happens to be impermanent.  From the theist perspective, such an impermanent phenomenal world is God’s creation ableit one of great uncertainty and suffering where seldom does he show love for all his creatures.  For the naive realist what we perceive, which is never without change being impermanent, is all there is.  Neither position is really transcendent.  Neither attain the real which is beyond phenomena.  

Being so bound up with phenomena we are unable to see that it does not exist in the way we imagine it does.  In fact, it does not exist at all.  This is what illusion means:  seemingly to be real but not real.  In this sense our world is also a fiction.  The real is never there.  This tells the theist that no creator god actually exists while telling the naive realist, nothing is as it seems.

Until both positions accept the unreality of their positions they will never know the truth.

 

Laid-back approach to Zen

Bankei (1622–1693) might not make it too well as a modern Zen teacher.  For one thing, he didn't rely on koans.  Another oddity, if we can call it that, he didn't insist on formal meditation:  maintaining a ramrod straight sitting posture with leg crossed for a certain length of time.  For Bankei, meditation went beyond just physical sitting.  Buddha Mind was just as present in zazen as it was in standing or walking.  For Bankei, even if a monk dozed off during zazen, that was okay.  According to Bankei sleeping doesn't obscure the Buddha Mind anymore than being awake automatically makes it manifest.  

This reminds me of one of my friends, Dennis, who used to sit in zazen when Shunyru Suzuki was Abbot at the San Francisco Zen Center, just before he died.  During zazen, Dennis had to take a piss, he just got up and did his business then sat back down on the zafu.  Old Suzuki never said a word although some of his student were—to put it mildly—flabbergasted.  Dennis, looking back, was following Bankei, who said, "Around here, if somebody has something to do while they're sitting, they're free to get up and do it; it's up to them, whatever they have a mind to do" (trans. Stephen Hodge). 

I like the laid-back approach.  For example, using a slant board, instead of sitting ramrod straight, and drinking Jasmine tea to stay awake are not unknown to Zen.  Pouring over Sutras are not unknown either.  Still, all this is insufficient to get us to an immediate glimpse of the unborn Mind.  We still have exhaust our presuppositions; to go to our wit’s end where there is nothing more to use or hang on to.  This is where the ox wanders.

 

Trying to clear away thoughts

Once a layman asked Zen master Bankei:  “When I try to clear away thoughts from my mind another appears.  Thoughts keep appearing endlessly.  What do I do about these thoughts?

Bankei gives the layman this answer:  “Trying to clear away thoughts is like washing blood off with blood.  Although you’ve wiped away the first bloodstain the blood you just used to wipe it away remains.  No matter how much you wash, blood still remains.”

What the layman doesn’t understand is the nature of Mind.  Each thought that arises is only a shape of pure Mind or tathata, just like a pot is the shape of clay, clay being the true nature or substance of the pot.  It is the same with a gold bracelet or a gold ring or Fa-tsang’s gold  lion.  They arise from gold.  While appearances deceive us we will never see the nature of Mind by trying to clear them away.  

If the layman had directly been able to connect with the substance of his thoughts, which is unborn, he would have become enlightened (bodhi) realizing that pure Mind is clear light.  From that moment on, the power of his former thoughts to deceive him would have come to a close.  

Fundamentally, we are pure Mind or the same, we have Buddha-nature.  But because it is so pure we cannot see it (which means we can’t see our self).  We only see it in its composed state which then becomes something determinate for us, like a thought.  This composed state is samsara:  A world of appearances and rebirth.

If we are able to penetrate through the barrier of our thoughts, to cognize (bodhi) pure Mind, this amounts to a return-to-self or the same, Mind-returning-to-itself which is like the Buddha anointing us.  This is also prajñâ because Mind can now distinguish itself from its infinite variety of forms whereas before it couldn’t.

 

Six things to watch out for

There are six and maybe more things that could negatively impact your ability to understand the message of the Buddha as it relates to Zen.

1. Your teacher insofar as he might not really understand Buddhism.
2. Doing a lot of zazen as a substitute for study may actually be counterproductive.  
3. Not reading many of the discourses of the Pali canon.
4. Reading only the Heart Sutra and Diamond Sutra thereby neglecting the more important Sutras such as the Lankavatara and others.
5. Reading only the works of Dogen Zenji and his followers. 
6. Not comprehending what a Bodhisattva really is and what it takes to become one.

This list is meant to strike fear, uncertainty, and doubt into the reader.  It's an OUCH!  The Zennist blog as more or less covered all these points over the years. Some are more important than others.  Still, it is not a bad list (I am sure readers could add more).

Taking up the first point, anyone who decides to study Zen can't simply rely on the word of some teacher because he or she said that they're transmitted in a line of Dharma heirs going back to the Buddha. Traditional Buddhism doesn't mention any sort of lineage.  A teacher is only as good as they fully understand the message of the Buddha based on the canon—not on a dubious certificate.

Zazen, the second point, is a major concern as I see it.  Too much emphasis is placed on 'just sitting' to the neglect of meditation (dhyana) which is wholly introspective having nothing to do with posture.  The four traditional meditations (P., jhana; S., dhyana), which are only a means to an end—not the end—are for fully realizing pure Mind which, I hasten to add, even transcends sitting.

Zennists, are especially guilty of not reading the older canon (the Pali and the Agamas).  So how can they know what the Buddha really taught?  Their grasp of the Heart Sutra and Diamond Sutra is almost puerile.  They don't understand that these Sutras are meant only for Bodhisattvas of which they know very little about (the sixth point).

I should mention (the 5th point) that just reading Dogen's works only delays the Zennist's understanding of real Zen and Buddhism.

 

Doing Soto Zen

Soto Zen is easy.  I mean just sit.  After you get done sitting you can choose to read Dogen Zenji's Shobogenzo which involves a lot of reading.  But if reading his magnum opus doesn't interest you—just sit.  That should do it.  

But before you take up sitting seriously, first find a Soto Zen temple near you.  You will need instructions on how to sit, formally and properly, the Soto Zen way.  It is also important to find a certified Soto Zen teacher.  This is extremely important.  When you meet your prospective teacher ask to see his transmission certificate.  Remember, that Dogen did this when he arrived in China in 1223 to begin his itinerant travels.

As a matter of fact, Dogen viewed five transmission certificates beginning in 1223.  One transmission certificate was even smuggled out so Dogen could view it carefully noting that it was magnificently adorned.  This was in 1224.  The last transmission certificate he examined was in 1225 considering it a rare privilege to view it.  It was also in the fifth month of 1225 when Dogen met T'ien-t'ung Ju-ching (1163–1228), his teacher, and afterwards became enlightened, experiencing shinjin datsuraku, sloughing off body and mind.

Finally, Dogen receives his  transmission certificate (shisho) from Ju-ching in 1227.  He then returns to Japan “empty handed” (kushu-genkyo).  

“Emptyt handed”? but what about the transmission certificate?  It turns out that Dogen’s transmission certificate is a medieval forgery (Steven Heine, Did Dogen Go To China?, 260) which helps to explain why he spent so much time viewing five transmission certificates when he was in China, even having one smuggled out so he could view it closely. 

If you are one of the Soto Zen sitters, my advice to you is to seriously study other Buddhist traditions before you get much older.  Keep in mind, too, that Bodhidharma never made too much of zazen.  His meditation was pi-kuan which literally means “wall-contemplation/vipasyana” which is a state of transcendence.