The Zennist

Overcoming the now of samsara

Eckhart Tolle’s book, The Power of Now, should be retitled to read, The Power of Samsara, because this is exactly what the now is.  Using the analogy of a movie, the now is like one frame of samsara.  Whether the now is a frame at a time or an entire movie, the now can never be nirvana.  

Truth be told, there is no now when we awaken to our true nature. Such a nature cannot be squeezed into a now.  All the nows that have ever been are illusory.  

Before we are purified, enough to come to our first initial realization of pure Mind, we must first lose all faith in now, i.e., this moment.  It is not enlightenment.  

I can remember once when I gave myself up to cleaning out the Zen temple's garden being focused on the here and now as my teacher instructed.  Later, I realized that it wasn't any different than when my Zen teacher and I got drunk together on cheap beer (and I mean cheap).  The series of nows that made up my life pointed in one direction.  It was samsara—not awakening.  

Thanks to a few great mentors like Bishop Nippo Shaku, I sought to find the pure essence of my ordinary mind and its thoughts—an essence that was anything but ordinary or now.  Looking back to this time from my present vantage point I can say, with absolute surety that, primordially, we are the Buddha-nature or if your like we are the One Mind.  Unfortunately, if we don't recognize our Buddha-nature we remain stuck in the nows of suffering and rebirth.  

The real path we should be on goes beyond the now or the present moment.  This path is about a search for our true nature.  I can assure you that if we look hard enough, exhausting every possible avenue, eventually this true nature will discover us exactly when we  discover it.  There will be mutual recognition followed by what is called the light of Mahayana (mahâyana-prabhâsa).

 

The key to the code

Let us assume for a minute that all the discourses of the Buddha were composed in a mysterious kind of coded language.  If we really want to know what the Buddha was teaching we would first have to have the ‘key’ to unlock the code.  Without such a key we might read and understand the discourses of the Buddha the wrong way; coming up with ideas about Buddhism that are, frankly, wrong.

For the sake of argument, let’s assume the key for those electing to follow the teachings of the Buddha, as found in the Pali cannon, was becoming a ariya-savaka, that is, one who has attained stream-entry or right view.  In the Mahayana tradition it would be the attainment of bodhicittotpada, that is, the manifestation of the mind that is awakened after which commences the life of a Bodhisattva.  With this key, both the savakas and Bodhisattvas could understand the Buddha’s discourses eventually becoming Arhats and fully awakened Buddhas.

For a modern Buddhist this doesn’t sound right—they reject it.  Why should there be some kind of preliminary attainment required to fully understand the Buddha’s discourses?  Yet there is.  That is the incontestable fact.  Followers of Buddhism who have not entered the stream or have not had bodhicittotpada abide at the worldly level which means they really can’t understand the Buddha’s teachings.  They are still bound up with the psychophysical organism (skandha) which they can’t distinguish from their self.  

Faced with the problem of not having the key to unlocking the code of Buddhism the  mischief of some modern Buddhists knows no limits.  This might explain why they rely so much on the Kalama Sutta which they believe gives them the right to accept or reject the teachings of the Buddha, especially rebirth and karma.  But this is not what Buddhism is about.  Not in the slightest.  They lack the key to understand true Dharma (saddharma).

 

Getting a grip on nirvana

At times, I agree, it is much easier to describe nirvana (P., nibbana) in negative terms.  Ask anyone to describe freedom or liberty in positive terms.  It is extremely difficult.  The easier route is to explain these terms negatively.  Still, we shouldn’t draw the conclusion that nirvana is a form of annihilation or mystical death.  It is a mistake to adhere to a nihilistic interpretation of nirvana which, I admit, is easy to do. 

From the Pali canon we learn that nirvana has the nature of being unconditioned (P. asankhata) but on a positive side we also learn that it is the ultimate, the truth, the farther shore, the subtle, the stable, the peaceful, the excellent, the good, the security, the wonderful, the marvelous, the purity, the island, the cave, the protection, the refuge and the goal (cp. S. iv. 369–373).

Nirvana has more to do with realizing the true substance or suchness (tathatâ) of phenomena.  By doing so, one is forever liberated from the delusion that phenomena are something real in themselves, furthermore, that there is nothing beyond phenomena.  By analogy it is like understanding that waves are merely the undulation of water and nothing in themselves.  The attainment of nirvana puts one, not in the conditioned world but beyond it in the unconditioned which is thoroughly real, more real in fact that anything conditioned.  As a result, the thrist to possess conditioned reality ceases including all it implies, including our temporal bodies.

Interestingly enough, one “attains utter nibbana in his very self” (paccattamyeva parinibbâyati) and nowhere else (cp. M. i. 255-256). The self, in this sense, is nothing less than ultimate reality which remains unrealized by those who have not attained nirvana.  Without nirvana, ordinary beings or prithagjana are only able to see composed, conditioned reality; not the unconditioned from which it is made.  In Mahayana Buddhism the self or atman is nirvana.

Kâshyapa, accordingly at the time one becomes a Tathagata, a Buddha, he is in nirvana, and is referred to as “permanent” “steadfast”, “calm”, “eternal” and “atman” (Mahâbherîhâraka Sutra).

 

The origin of Zen

The origin of Zen really begins with the awakening of Gautama when he became a Buddha sitting under the Bodhi-tree, having achieved his awakening by means of dhyana which in Japanese is “Zen.”  Zen is not so much enlightenment or in Sanskrit, anuttara-samyak-sambodhi but the true middle way that leads to enlightenment, or the same, awakening.  The true middle way lies between sensory indulgence and sensory denial or asceticism.  On his spiritual journey, Gautama rejected both for dhyana. 

We could easily just call Zen, Dhyana which in Pali is jhana instead of using the Japanese term.  This might take some of the confusion out of what Zen is really about.  Basically, dhyana is an introspective process that sets aside all mental phenomena, no matter how subtle.  This setting aside even includes sensory consciousness; even the most hyper subtle fluctuations of our mind.  What dhyana is really aiming at is the very substance of mentation or suchness (tathatâ).

In the West it is difficult for us to imagine that our thoughts are composed of a ‘spiritual mind substance’ which in Buddhism is called by such names as ‘pure Mind’, ‘clear light Mind’, the ‘unborn Mind’, ‘true Mind’, the ‘One Mind’, or ‘Buddha Mind’.  When Gautama awakened, that is, became a Buddha, he directly beheld Mind devoid of all disturbances, perturbations, and imagery.  It was Mind purely itself, free of all dependence, without support, absolute and singular.

The later institutions of Zen in China, Korea and Japan tried not to hide the fact that the goal of Zen or dhyana was directly to apperceive pure Mind by having abandoned all mind fluctuations in whatever form.  In this regard, Zen has never abandoned the means Gautama used to become the Buddha who called dhyana the “path to enlightenment” (Lalitavistara Sutra).

 

The best way

Sure, I agree that the food a menu list is not the same as eating real food, or a finger pointing to the moon is not the real moon.  And so it goes with books about the Buddha’s wisdom.  They cannot present actual enlightenment to us even if the words come from the mouth of Gautama.  

So what is the best way to deal with this problem?  Should we ignore such books and just sit in zazen?  But what if doing zazen is like pretending to be sitting in a restaurant believing we just had a great meal or are about to be served?  

What if the real goal of Zen is to realize the most fundamental stuff or tathata of the universe from which even our thoughts and emotions are composed which is also pure Mind?  How do we go about that?  Surely ‘just sitting’ or shikantaza will not take us there.  Posture does not equate with awakening to the most fundamental stuff of the universe.  Still, I suppose some Zennists believe that ‘sitting Zen’ or zazen is the answer.

Zen, itself, or dhyâna is not the practice of positioning oneself into a sitting posture.  Zen has nothing whatsoever to do with sitting upright.  Dhyâna, itself, is about transcending our entire mental life which results in direct union with pure Mind which is radiant and like clear light.  For the first time we see that all phenomena, including mental phenomena are dependent originations which depend on pure Mind or tathata.  This is the supreme truth, in other words.

On the other hand, if we attach to any mental phenomenon or ritual practice such as zazen or chanting we shall never accomplish the highest dhyâna.  Such practices can deceive us insofar as we believe they will somehow lead to a direct intuition of pure Mind. 

 

What's your practice?

Not too long ago somebody asked what my ‘practice’ was. I had the suspicion that they were asking me if I did zazen, as if zazen is the only legitimate Buddhist practice—which it isn’t.  I answered by saying that I constantly engage with pure Mind and left it at that.

I remember reading that Ajahn Chah Thera said, “Our practice is simply to see the Original Mind” which I thought was about as good as it gets when it comes to describing what the true practice of Zen is.  Zen should really be named the Buddha Mind School because it is all about realizing pure Mind which is what made Gautama the Buddha or awakened one.

We can think of other kinds of practice such as doing rituals or the practice of morality and wisdom.  We can include, also, the practice of awareness.  Of course seated meditation or zazen in another practice, or doing thousands of prostrations.  I forgot to mention there is also the practice of invoking the Buddha’s name which is a very old practice in Zen going back to the East Mountain Dharma Gate tradition.  

In the Noble Lineage Sutra (Arya Gotra Sutra) it says, “Where there is neither restraint nor rules, there is neither practice nor the practice which is no practice”!  This lineage is obviously the Buddha Mind which transcends all practices that can be performed by body, speech and thought. 

 

A huge impasse

In Mahayana Buddhism it is said the true Mind is empty which means it is absent of disturbances or oscillations.  In contrast to this Mind, the mind we are ordinarily familiar with is adventitious.  It is not the original or essential Mind (ekacitta).  Mahayana Buddhism also describes the true Mind to be like empty space in which nothing determinate is present but is real, nevertheless.  This is extremely difficult for Westerners to understand who expect to see Mind as something determinate; who believe an indeterminate absolute is nonsense.

The typical habit, especially on the part of Western Buddhists, is to take true Mind as something determinate.  This creates a huge impasse.  Such a impasse is certainly demonstrated by the enigmatic koan.  When Western Buddhists attempt to unravel a koan they are always expecting the answer to lie somewhere in the world of determinate being.  But it doesn’t.  

Making the task even more difficult is the problem Western Buddhist have with understanding that for Buddhism, Mind is causal, never caused.  Mind, in other words, doesn’t spring from biological matter.  The difficulty of thinking this way  is partly due to Western science’s influence which is mechanistic and atomistic; which champions materialism.  For Western science, the universe cannot be the appearance and expression of a mind substance.  It has even closed its mind off to the possibility that it could be seriously wrong.  Nevertheless the West has had it own share of unsung heroes like the English mathematician and philosopher William Kingdon Clifford (1845–1879) who wrote:

“The universe, then, consists entirely of mind-stuff.  Some of this is woven into the complex form of human minds containing imperfect representations of the mind-stuff outside of them, and of themselves also, as a mirror reflects its own image in another mirror, ad infinitum.  Such an imperfect representation is called a material universe.  It is a picture in man's mind of the real universe of mind-stuff.”

For me, it is much easier to see the world as a representation of mind-stuff.  When I had my first awakening to Mind I was thoroughly amazed that something so pure and invisible could express itself as a world with all of its complexity beauty and terror.  But it did.

 

The descent

From my own previous spiritual experiences I learned that we are not  easily drawn to seek the truth rather, to use a line from the English poet Wordsworth, “We are more like a man / Flying from something he dreads.”  It is in this flying that some of us imagine we are seeking something profound.  

The heights to which we fly only cause our fears to grow when looking down we see beneath us a frightening and growing void.  How strange!  But descend into it we must if it is truth we are seeking.  The upward flight is only more of the same.  It is samsara.

My earliest recollection of my meditation was to slowly allow myself to descend into this void, into a place I did not know, passing through my hesitation and anxiety.

At the time, I did not see or know that by descending into this void, I was gradually passing beyond my psychophysical organism which was a container of anguish (duhkha).  As I meditated more and more like this I become more comfortable descending into this voidness.  It was maybe two months later that I had my first direct glimpse into pure Mind having come to the limit of this voidness, or should I say, having come to the limit of this barrenness. 

It was as if I bored a tiny hole through the phenomenal field in front of me, including even my thoughts.  Only pure light came through this tiny hole, a light I could only sense as the power to animate by temporal body which it did to an astonishing degree.  Hitherto, my world was one of darkness insofar as temporality is barren and void.  The world we perceive is like an echo or a shadow.  It has no depth.  It’s only a configuration of pure Mind and nothing in itself.

 

Experiencing only itself

The Buddhist in me has always been attracted by this paragraph from the book Fields of Force by William Berkson.

“Helmholtz proved that once a vortex is put into a perfect fluid, it is eternal: there is no way the fluid's action alone could destroy it.  William Thomson suggested that perhaps all atoms are vortex atoms.  A vortex atom is something like a smoke ring in shape and behaviour, and it followed from Helmholtz's theorem that once such a vortex ring had been created, it could not be destroyed.”

From this we can reason that in addition to the vortex being eternal, so is the fluid  from which it arises.  Taking one more step in reasoning, this fluid or medium is made of what Buddhists who follow the Lankavatra Sutra refer to as Mind-only or the same pure Mind (cittamatra).

Given that we are fundamentally this Mind and the phenomenal world is its unlimited expression, all that we have to overcome is our blindness which binds us to the ever changing display of phenomena.  Put another way, we have to overcome the illusion that the enlightened nature, or pure Mind, does not exist—which is no simple undertaking.  (Especially for the materialist or physicalist, there is no pure spirit like Mind.  All comes from matter.)

The only way to accomplish this realization is by, let us say, attending to the zero phase of phenomenality which again, I must say, is no simple undertaking.  When our Mind links up with Mind which opens to us in the zero phase of phenomenality—wham!  One instantly steps into the Buddha’s world.  Our former world is recognized to be a continually moving and unfolding expression of absolute Mind (ekacitta) like waves are to water.

From this vantage point, whatever Mind perceives or experiences is really only itself just as the vortex is an expression of the eternal fluid. 

 

Not aiming for the pith

The pith (sâra) or the essential part of Buddhism is given to us in the Culasaropama Sutta (lit. lesser-pith-simile sutta):

"So it is brahman, this holy life (brahmacariya) is not undertaken for advantage in gains, offerings and fame.  It is not for advantage in the consummation of moral habit.  It is not for for the advantage in concentration.  It is not done for advantage in knowledge and vision.  That brahman which is the immovable liberation of mind (citta), this is the goal, brahman of the holy life, this is the heartwood (sâra), this the culmination” (M. i. 204–205).

To be very brief, in the simile (upama) the Buddha tells the brahman Pingalokoccha, in regard to deluded religious practitioners, it is like a man walking around aiming at the pith of a great tree which would be its hardwood.  But instead of coming away with the pith or the hardwood, the man carries off what is not the hardwood such as the bark or the branches and leaves.  He is  firmly convinced that what he possesses is the pith or hardwood.  Obviously, the guy can’t distinguish hardwood from the branches or leaves of this great tree!

In the same way, those who are convinced they are practicing Buddhism by doing other than aiming for its pith or essence, which is the immovable liberation of mind are deluding themselves.  They are so deluded they believe they’re not deluded.

The Buddha, probably more than any religious teacher in the past, was well aware of the  difficulties of trying to teach those who were yet unawakened.  To be sure, he had no magic wand by which he could get rid of their ignorance.  Even those closest to him often didn’t get it.  Although he had high hopes that a few of his followers might realize pure Mind; that it is fundamentally transcendent with regard to any and all phenomena, he also understood that precious few could become enlightened.  They were simply too bogged down in samsara to be able to even consider the importance of mind that when purified, it would reveal the truth.