The Zennist

Who takes refuge?

Who takes refuge in the Buddha, the Dharma and the Sangha, i.e., the triple-gem?  Is it the self (âtman) or is it the Five Aggregates which make up our human psychophysical organism?  Surely one of the two takes refuge.  

The Five Aggregates, which are impermanent and suffering, don’t seem a likely candidate to take refuge in the Buddha, to name the most important refuge, who is not the Five Aggregates according to the Lanakvatara Sutra.

“The Buddha is neither the personality-soul (pudgala), nor the personality aggregates (skandha); he is knowledge free from defilement(s).  Clearly perceiving (him) to be eternally serene, I take refuge (in him) (gacchami sarnam hi aham).”

It seems much more likely that the self takes refuge which is not part of the Five Aggregate package.  Oddly, there are some passages where the self is the refuge.

“Therefore, Ananda, stay as those who have the self as an island (attadîpâ), as those who have the self as refuge (attasaranâ), as those who have no other refuge; as those who have the dharma as an island, as those who have dhamma as refuge, as those who have no other refuge (D. ii. 100).

And from the Theragâthâ, 

“Like the surge of a great ocean, so also birth and old age will roll over you.  Do make a firm island for the self, since there is no other refuge to be found for you” (412).

All this implies that the Five Aggregates have no relationship whatsoever with the notion of refuge.  In addition, in the Buddhist canon there is no mention of the aggregates taking refuge or being a refuge.  Yet the self, which is not part of the aggregates according to the Buddha, is said to be a refuge.

It’s a strange Buddhism that claims the Buddha denied a self, then asks its followers to, essentially, say, “gacchâmi (I go) to the Buddha, the Dharma and the Sangha for refuge”!  What is it that, exactly, is going to these refuges?  It can’t be the Five Aggregates.  The Buddha rejects the aggregates.  They belong to Mara the Evil One.  They are illusory.

Without thinking about the implications of taking refuge, especially, who goes to the three refuges, those who triumphantly proclaim the Buddha denied the self are, in fact, proposing we accept a Buddhism that is frankly absurd, which is really suggesting, nothing takes refuge!

 

The shaman and Buddhism

Being raised in a modern household is hardly an advantage for a proper understanding of Buddhism.  I was lucky, I grew up in a family in which my father’s best friend was a Mexican shaman.  His name was Jesse and he was the real thing.  He worked as a grounds keeper at the University of the Pacific in California.  Students who were stressed out would often go to him.  He would take their pain away just by talking to them.  Within a few seconds, they became very peaceful often just standing in front of Jesse with their eyes closed.  

Being a shaman wasn’t all that good for Jesse.  He was often torn between his duty to mow lawns or help students who came to him.  It eventually cost him his job because more and more of the students at the university followed him around, seeking his help.  This didn’t set well with administration.  The last time I saw him, there was no less than a dozen students sitting on the grass, swaying back and forth in bliss, in front of Jesse.  As I passed behind the students, Jesse and I both smiled at each other.  That was the last time I saw Jesse.  It was my friend John who later informed me that Jesse had been fired.  This was over forty years ago. 

The word ‘spirit’ was a word commonly used in my family.  I would often see my father and Jesse quietly sitting together in the kitchen during the 1950s, when I was going to elementary school.  Several times I was asked to come into the kitchen.  Jesse would just look at me, then I was asked to leave.  

When I decided to become a Zen priest, I already understood that a spiritual transformation was supposed to happen.  I never doubted it because I understood, even as a small boy, that our spiritual being is the most important thing in the world.  I also understood that if I were to master Buddhism I would be called to do so by powerful spiritual omens.  This was later confirmed when I saw the Lankavatara Sutra glowing with a strange light much like aurora borealis only smaller.  I kept rubbing my eyes.  I thought there was something wrong with them.  It didn’t help.  So I decided to look at this phenomenon from different angles of the room.  But the light continued to radiate from the book on my desk.  I knew then I was to make this Sutra my study.  I could hardly understand a word of this profound Sutra.  But I grew to have more and more faith in its words which were affirmed every time I came to a profound realization during my many meditations.  

In a way, one has to have the heart of a shaman to fully understand Buddhism.  To be sure, one has to renounce Western nihilism which is centered on materialism and the accumulation of wealth.  Yes, the spiritual world is real.  Anyone who says it is not can never really know Buddhism.

 

A misapprehension of Buddhism

Generally speaking, Theravada sect of Buddhism promotes a positive doctrine of Anattâ or in Sanskirt Anatman (lit. not-the-self).  This means that there is no real Attâ or self that transcendes the Five Aggregates or pañca-khandha.  Man, essentially, has no self.  Each aggregate, if we carefully examine each one, contains no Attâ.  If I look within my psychophysical organism, according the Buddha, I will find nothing resembling a self of Attâ.  I am just a cluster of impermanence and suffering that has no real self.

Such a view of the self is, however, wrong.  It serves to hide the Buddha’s real strategy: that we must not identify our Attâ or self with what is conditioned; with what is impermanent and suffering, this being the Five Aggregates that make up our psychophysical organism.  Keeping this before us, these words of the Buddha make perfect sense.

“But without clinging to what is impermanent, suffering, and subject to change, could one regard anything thus: 'This is mine, thing I am, this is my self.'

"No, venerable sir” (S. iii. 181-82).

The temporal nature of our psychophysical organism should preclude us from claiming it as our real self.  Although I am aware of the aggregates form, feeling, perception, habitual tendencies and consciousness, I also know that I am not anyone of them.  Of each one I reflect:  This is not mine, this I am not, this is not my self (na me so Attâ).”  This is underscored when the Buddha says the following:

“But monks, an instructed disciple of the pure ones...taking count of the true men...well trained in the dhamma of the true men, regards material shape as: ‘This is not mine, this am I not, this is not my self;’ he regards feeling as:  ‘This is not mine, this I am not, this is not my  self;’ he regards perception as:  ‘This is not mine, this I am not, this is not my  self;’ he regards the habitual tendencies as:  ‘This is not mine, this I am not, this is not my  self;’ he regards consciousness as:  ‘This is not mine, this I am not, this is not my  self.’  And also he regards whatever is see, heard, sensed, cognised, reached, looked for, pondered by the mind as:  ‘This is not mine, this I am not, this is not my  self’”(M. i. 136). 

Like this disciple, we can be aware of material shape or form.  But does our awareness of materialial shape, etc., mean there is no self as a witness to the aggregates?  According to the Buddha, 

“The self (in thee), man, knows what is true or false.  Surely the noble Witness, sir, the Self, you do misjudge, in that when sin is there you do conceal the Self within the self”  (A. i. 149, trans. I.B. Horner).

Only my Attâ or self, as the noble Witness, can know the aggregates are false.  It can also know that it is not anyone of them.  It is also fair to say that it is not the Five Aggregates that can know truth or falsity.  In addition, we learn from the Dhammapada (380) , the self is lord of the self (attâ hi attano natho); in addition, the self is the refuge of the self (attâ hi attano gati).  In this light, the Attâ is really independent or the same, relies on itself—not the Five Aggregates.

The Theravada sect, for the most part, has misapprehended the Buddha’s real teaching.  The Buddha did not teach a positive Anattâ or No-Self doctrine.

 

Buddhist perverse view

When some Western Buddhists encounter discourses (Suttas/Sutras) which contain the via negativa, their unconscious predisposition towards nihilism takes over.  They even refuse to admit that certain Buddhist discourses are sun-lit with the via negativa in which one sheds the conditioned to reach the unconditioned, i.e., nirvana.  Instead, for them there is only the conditioned not-self (i.e., the Five Aggregates); nothing beyond it; no other shore beyond the dismal ocean of samsara. 

So laden with nihilism are some Western Buddhists that they are unable to grasp anything the Buddha said, especially with regard to the self.  The only self such a person accepts is a provisional, temporal self which arises with the conditioned psychophysical body; then with its dissolution is no more.  This person regards his psychophysical body, which is impermanent, suffering and without a self to be all that there is.  This is really where many Western Buddhists are.

Turning to nirvana which in the canon is described as being eternal (accutam), the immortal (amata), transphenomenal (appapañca), beyond thought (acinteyya), etc. , Western Buddhists with a predisposition towards nihilism believe that nirvana is not experienceable insofar as it it a non-ens; moreover, an absence.  Such Buddhists are not completely rejecting nirvana, just that it is not experienceable in which transcendence becomes a reality and fully realized.  

It almost goes without saying, but nihilism is the psychological condition of materialism—and many modern Buddhists subscribe to materialism.  People who are materialists only believe in their senses—nothing beyond them.  It follows that they deny karma, the fruits of karma, cyclic existence and rebirth.  In Buddhism, according to Asanga in his Abhidharmasamuccya, this is called “perverse view.”

 

You really need to enter the stream

It almost goes without saying, but Western Buddhists are not, by and large, students of the Sutras (P., Suttas) hence all the freaking arguments that tend to erupt.  I suspect that most pop Buddhist writers haven’t studied but a handful of Sutras.  It is when debates arise over certain key doctrines such as Atman vs. no-self that Sutras become important. But they are also important for understanding meditation and the Five Aggregates (pañca-skandha) and their relationship to our self and why we are not these conditioned aggregates. 

The problem facing the novice is what do the specific terms mean as to their notion.  What is the specific notion of anâtman (lit., not the self) or pratityasamutpada (dependent origination), or dhyâna (meditation), or vijñâna (consciousness)?  What does nirvana mean?  Incidentally, even the best scholars have to make educated guesses when it comes to nirvana—not all agree with each other.  We see this in the book, The Buddhist Nirvana and Its Western Interpreters by Guy Richard Welbon.

Speaking from the vantage point of the Pali Nikayas, it is only when we have entered the stream or current (S., srotas), a kind of super spiritual  baptism, that we begin to understand the Buddha’s terms as they are meant to be understood.

Better than absolute sovereignty on the earth, better than going to heaven, better than lordship over all the worlds is the reward (phalam) of entering the stream (sotapatti)” (Dhammapada 178).

During this baptism, we get our first glimpse of nirvana.  In addition we begin to distinguish our psychophysical body from our true self. We also put away our doubts about the veracity of the Buddha's teachings because we now can see what he is aiming at. As a result, we no longer cling to ritualistic and moralistic practices which really amount to dead-ends. 

Short of this, our understanding of Buddhism is like that of a man born blind before his is cured by a physician.  He insists that his senses are correct (this was an argument the Buddha used against materialists). 

 

The real business of Zen

A young whippersnapper Zennist at twenty, I would have liked to meet and old dude like myself.  Meeting him would have saved me years of hearing so much Zen bullshit.  I could have gotten on with the real business of Zen much faster: realizing my true nature.  

I really feel sorry for modern Zennists, especially when they are fed stuff by Zen masters like Thich Nhat Hanh who said, “The basic practice recommended by the Buddha is to go home to the present moment.”  Sorry, but the Buddha never said anything like this.

Listen up—Buddhism is all about realizing the pure or luminous Mind. It comes by many different names, such as unborn Mind, Buddha Mind, One Mind, suchness, the Buddha-nature to mention just a few names. When you realize this Mind there is nothing subjective about it.  If your friends happen to be hanging around you during the manifestation of the Mind that is bodhi (S., bodhicittotpada) they will be so blissed out they can’t even stand up.  It is far greater than what the Christian Paul realized on the road to Damascus. 

Yet, the essence of this realization is quite simple:  one turned to that which animates their psychophysical body.  Of course, it is not easy to connect with that which animates us.  Even Einstein probably couldn’t do it.  But it can be done.  The payoff is to see, for the first time, what all things are really made of.  Yes, pure Mind.  This is also where the Buddha is really coming from.  The rest is bullshit. 

 

The self and the Tathagata are the same

In the Aggivacchagotta Sutta (M. i. 487–488), the Buddha tells Vaccha that material shape, feeling, perception, habitual tendencies and consciousness, in short, the Five Aggregates, “have been got rid of by the Tathagata, cut off at the root, made like a plam-tree stump that can come to no further existence and is not liable to arise again in the future.”

There are a few things we can learn from this particular passage.  First, like our self, the Tathagata is not to be identified with the Five Aggregates for “He is deep, immeasurable, unfathomable as is the great ocean.”  To be sure, the aggregates are not like the Tathagata.  For one thing, the aggregates belong to Mara the Evil One.  They are impermanent.  They are also synonymous with suffering.  Accordingly, we should not identify with any aggregate as being who we really are reflecting, instead, "This is not mine, I am not this, this is not my self (na meso attâ).” 

We can also state without fear of being wrong, that the self or attâ and Tathagata are the same by implication.  Modern Buddhists might find this to be heretical, given their strong attraction towards materialism, but it is logically consistent to say the self and Tathagata are the same since both are not to be found in the sphere of the Five Aggregates. 

 

Buddhism's concrete thinkers

Many Buddhists are by and large concrete thinkers.  Their thoughts and opinions, even their beliefs about Buddhism, are mainly derived from their senses or from sensory experiences.  Here’s an example. How do such Buddhists know their Zen teacher is capable of teaching koans?  The answer is, they can’t really answer because it would require of them to go beyond concrete thinking since the answer to koans is transcendent.  To answer for them, they believe their teacher is qualified to teach koans because he or she is wearing robes!  Now that is concrete!  In fact, the most concrete image of a perfect Buddhist teacher for an American or European Buddhist is an Asian wearing Buddhist robes. 

Truth be told, wearing robes means nothing nor does a certificate.  These are concrete items:  items for our senses.  Rituals, too, are concrete, along with Buddha statues, etc.  Mannerisms are also concrete.  None of this proves a particular teacher knows about koans or understands the Buddha’s discourses.

We really shouldn’t rely on concrete thinking when we come to the temple door of Buddhism.  Yet, most of modern Buddhism seems tied to degrees of concrete thinking.  Its practitioners, for the most part, strive to live concretely, at a here and now level.  They believe the Buddha taught that living in the present moment is essentially what enlightenment is about.  They can’t get beyond this.  Nevertheless, persistence in such thinking is abnormal.  While for us it may seem practical at times, stuck in concrete thinking, we can’t get into higher realms of thought (e.g., theoretical thinking) certainly not dhyâna (contemplation) or absolute knowing.  

Ironically, concrete thinking is not thinking, that is, thinking theoretically and/or creatively.  Perhaps more importantly, the difference between concrete thinking and theoretical thinking is the latter is psychical whereas the former is always related to the physical senses and sensory experiences.  Connected with this, in Buddhism the psychical is understood to be potentially transcendent.  It is where the transcendent is to be sought for.  Not so with the sensory.  

One final word, like concrete thinking, which is generally learned from the ages of 6 to 11, theoretical thinking also has to be learned as we mature.  In Buddhism we have to learn yonishomanasikâra (philosophical attention or inquiry).  This also includes dhyâna or contemplation which is a means to samadhi and liberation (vimukta).  To keep yonishomanasikâra and dhyâna at a concrete level will not take the serious Buddhist student very far.  To ignore the many subtle implications that are contained in the Buddha’s discourses which ride on theoretical thinking will, certainly, not get the beginner very far either. 

 

Internet meditation

It almost goes without saying that prostrations and seated meditation don’t work well on the Internet.  Both are very much physical practices.  The more pertinent question is, can meditation be taught on the Internet assuming that meditation or dhyâna is not really about sitting?  The answer is, of course, yes.

The point I wish to make is that real meditation is not posture dependent which means that learning about it on the Internet is always possible.  We have to keep in mind that meditation is a hyper subtle introspective process by means of which we leave the mundane territory of our all-too-human mental world and enter into the transcendent, connecting with true reality for the first time.  

In whatever way we decide to position our body, whether sitting or standing, doesn’t make the transcendent more or less accessible to us.  It is naive to believe that sitting ramrod straight on a zafu suddenly catapults us into the world of the Buddhas.  To sit, which in Sanskrit is nishad, can also mean to sink down, as in depth, or to repose.  Thus, zazen can mean, besides sitting, to repose or rest in dhyâna.

Incidentally, many of the enlightenment or satori stories found in Zen did not take place during seated meditation in the example of Hsiang-yen (d. 898) who, when sweeping the ground, caused a pebble to strike some bamboo. He awakened upon hearing the sound.  Certainly there are other like accounts such as Hakuin’s and even before him, Hui-neng’s awakening.

Unfortunately, there are other problems with disseminating Buddhism on the Internet but learning about dhyâna is not one of the main ones.

 

Is my body eternal?

Eternalism in Buddhism (shâshvata) is not meant to suggest that the Buddha denied the self or atman.  In plain, words, eternalism is not just belief in a self or atman.  More specifically, an eternalist is one who believes that the Five Aggregates (khandhas/skandha) are eternal.  For example, an eternalist believes the first aggregate, material form or rupa, is the self and the world, both of which are eternal.  This passage clarifies eternalism.   

“They declare material form to be the self and the world, stating such to be not only the self and the world but also eternal; they declare sensation ... perception ... the formations ... consciousness to be the self and the world, stating such to be not only the self and the world but also eternal” (trans. Masefiled, The Udana Commentary, p. 882).

This is not a rejection of self, not in the context of how we are rightly to regard our self and the Five Aggregates.  Above all, the Buddha doesn’t want us to believe that our self is an aggregate.  As he teaches, all the Five Aggregates are, in fact, not the self or in Pali, anattâ.

Monks, form is not the self (anattâ).  What is not the self should be see as it really is with correct wisdom thus:  ‘This is not mine, this I am not, this is not my self (attâ).’  Feeling is not the self ... Perception is not the self ... Habitual tendencies are not the self ... Consciousness is not the self.  What is not the self should be seen as it really is with correct wisdom:  ‘This is not mine, this I am not, this is not my  self’” (S. iii. 22-23).

The eternalist rejects this.  For the eternalist, form is the self or atman including the world both being eternal.  The eternalist is really saying, in regards to the aggregates, this is mine, I am this, this is my self.  This is much different from the usual spin of some Buddhists who want their followers to believe the Buddha denied the self calling those who believed in the self, eternalists.  It is not that simple.  The Buddha’s teaching was against those who believed the self was the Five Aggregates and those who believed there is no self or nattha attâ, who were the annihilationists.