The Zennist

The dark clouds dissolve

Realizing pure Mind for the first time is something like seeing an overcast sky at night open up just long enough to see the moon, then closing.  The closing part is very important.  It represents the force of our old habits.  In spite of the fact that we just had a glimpse into pure Mind, the power of our habits to run contrary to such an awakening still strongly persist. 

Even if we have had absolute Bodhicitta (bodhicittotpada), which is quite rare, we still have to perfect it, that is, overcome our contrary habits which only serve to cover it.  As strange as it sounds, we have to reach a state of perfection, or paramita, such that our all-too-familiar world no longer exists for us.  What replaces it is our original glimpse into pure Mind that now never subsides because our old habits are no longer operative—they can’t cover the light, in other words.  We have prajñâ paramited them out of the way!  By continually focusing on pure Mind, again and again our habits, over time, gradually disappear.  What replaces them is the certainty of pure spirit that it is, indeed, the one true substance of all.

 

Different messages

This might not seem like much of a blog today.  I just want it to underscore the fact that translations of the same Pali text can often be quite different yielding a different message.

Here is a verse from the Dhammapada (367) that is being presented as an accurate translation which, in my opinion, doesn't bring forth the original sense of the Pali.

He who has no thought of "I" and "mine" whatever towards mind and body, he who grieves not for that which he has not, he is indeed called a Bhiksu.

This verse is clearly not very clear—as clear as it might be.  Here is how verse should read:

He, indeed, is a mendicant (bhikkhu) who not attached to any name and form (namarupasmim), who does not grieve for things which do not exist (asata ca na socati).

The phrase name and form, i.e., namarupa, according to the commentary, refers to the Five Aggregates, our psychophysical body, which the Buddha says, in many discourses, are not the self (anattâ).  On the same track, the canon informs us that the aggregates are considered to be illusory.  They also belong to Mara the Evil One.  

The Buddha is really saying in this verse, don’t get attached to your psychophysical body; don’t grieve for it because it really doesn’t exist.  Of course, this leads to the question of what does really exist.  This is your Buddha-nature.

 

The real doctrine of no-soul

 Buddhism, at times, seems split right down the middle between those who firmly believe the Buddha denied the self or âtman and those who insist he didn’t.  Buddhist scholars, for the most part, take the latter position to the extent that the Buddha did not unambiguously deny the self.  This, I hasten to add, is different than what Buddhist clergy teach who, more than often, tend to believe that the Buddha categorically denied the self.  There is no real, fundamental self, in other words.

In Pali and Sanskrit, anattâ and anâtman do not mean there is no self.  Far from it.  For example, when the Buddha says that form, which is the first of the Five Aggregates (P., khandhas; S., skandhas), is anattâ or anâtman, this means in English that form is not the self or the soul. In this respect, anattâ could well be an adjective insofar as what it is applied to, in the example of form or rûpa, lacks a soul or a self.  Essentially, what the Buddha is teaching us is we should not mistake our psychophysical body for our true self—it is not our soul (anâtman).

Understanding self or the soul in this way is much differnt than believing the Buddha taught there is no self.  When the Theravada monk Walpola Rahula asserts, in his book, What the Buddha Taught, “that the Buddha denied categorically, in unequivocal terms ... the existence of Âtman, Soul, Self, or Ego,” he is clearly wrong.  Instead, the Buddha did not teach there is no self, soul or âtman rather he taught that the Five Aggregates, which make up our psychophysical body, lack the âtman or the self.  Thus, if we wish to know our true nature or self, we should not look for it in our psychophysical being which is impermanent and suffering.  It is not there.  In fact, the Buddha said of each constitutent or aggregate such as form or feeling, “This is not mine, this am I not, this is not my self.”

Westerners and Asians who insist that the Buddha, in unequivocal terms, denied the self or the soul are really engaged in fraud if by fraud we mean intentional misrepresentation.  I am convinced that it is no accident that a concerted effort has been made by some Buddhists to give a misrepresentation of what the Buddha taught as regards the self or soul.  Here is an example of what I mean.  

Is any one of the five aggregates the self or soul (atta)? The Buddha's answer is "No." Then what remains to be called the self or the soul? As has been said above, apart from the five aggregates there remains nothing to be called the soul” (Kenneth W. Morgan, The Path of the Buddha, pp. 83–84).

In this quote the author should know that in many, many examples found in the Pali Nikayas the Buddha wants his followers to reject the Five Aggregates as being who they really are. The Buddha then goes on to say of each aggregate: This is not mine, I am not this, this is not my self.”  In other words, the Buddha invites his disciples to cease identifying with what is not their true being or soul, namely, the aggregate form, feeling, conceptualization, volitions and consciousness. These aggregates or khandhas may seem to belong to me but they are not my true self.  Thus, the teaching of anâtman is not intended to deny the self or soul.  Its only purpose is to call on us to reject the Five Aggregates as being our soul. What I truly am as a self or a soul transcends the aggregates.

 

The continuity of spirit

Many of the ancient Jataka stories of Buddhism pronounce the same refrain, “at that time and place it was not another, I was ‘that person’.”  This strongly implies spiritual continuity of the Bodhisat (S., bodhisattva) who transcends birth and death.  These stories serve to illustrate spirit’s unchanging continuation through diverse forms of being which are always changing.  In Buddhism, spirit has many names such as Buddha-nature, self, pure Mind, tathatâ, etc..  In all examples, spirit is never a created thing (sankhara).  It is always increate (asankhara).  We are this increate spirit but don’t realize it to its fullest extent as Gautama the Buddha did.  Instead, our ignorance dooms us to countless rebirths.

All through the Buddhist canon we are taught by the Buddha that our self or atman is not the psychophysical body which is born and which will eventually die.  Again, this implies spiritual continuity.  From the canon we also learn that “he attains to complete nirvana in the very self” (S. iii. 53-54).  Indeed, how else might nirvana, i.e., liberation, be attained if not in the self?  To be sure, nirvana is not something the psychophysical organism (skandha) can apprehend as if nirvana were a sensory object.  The willed-out, created psychophysical organism has no ability to attain nirvana which is increate.  

According to the Buddha the psychophysical organism is made up of three components: A discarnate spirit or gandhabba which is re-linking consciousness (patisandhi-viññâna), the sperm and the ovum.  This re-linking consciousness is directly interfacing with the psychophysical organism partaking in its existence as if it were truly itself.  Fundamentally, this consciousness is spirit which is suffering from a great delusion, believing that it is a psychophysical organism thinking this is mine, I am this, this is my self.  Yet, this spirit has never truly been born into any creature—nor has it ever truly died.  It is like the Bodhisattva of the Jataka stories: a spiritual continuity.

There is a great danger in taking Buddhism as a non-spiritual teaching in which we are taught to accept as final, impermanence, suffering, and insubstantiality.  By doing so we are not really studying Buddhism rather we are studying nihilism.  The Buddha really wants us, as spirit, to see the spirit which we have always been; which is not a psychophysical organism; which above all is increate.  But few can accomplish this.  Almost everyone is caught up in their willed-out, created psychophysical body.  They are like people watching a movie who are so deeply involved with the movie’s characters that, for an hour or so, they forgot who they were. 

 

Where secular Buddhism is coming from

Pinning down the definition of "secular Buddhism" is not easy. If you've ever done some eel fishing it is a bit like trying to grab hold of an eel (my cousin and I used to fish for eels in the San Francisco bay).  

First, it is important to get one definition of secular Buddhism out of the way.  It is not about teaching Buddhism in a secular setting.  If that were the case there would be no need for the adjective "secular" which is used by secular Buddhists to separate Buddhism, which is spiritual and religious, from Buddhism that is worldly.

The term 'secular' originally meant religious clergy who were not bound to the rules of a particular order; who were living in the world rather than in monastic seclusion.  Not quite an oxymoron, but there were, in fact, secular clergy. 

Turning to the formal notion of 'secularism', which is born in the 19th century, it opposes itself to anything spiritual or religious.  Secularism believes that the nature of man and his moral duty can be deduced from man's temporal life which, by implication, includes his biological life.  It is in some respects a kind of humanism except that it wants to exclude religion from society.  In this respect, secularism is not without its ideological underpinnings.  We get a taste of this from a quote by the National Secular Society founded by G.J. Holyoake in 1866 who coined the term "secularism": "We assert that supernaturalism is based upon ignorance and is the historic enemy of progress."

I believe it is in the context of Holyoake's idea of 'secularism' that we are to understand the thrust of secular Buddhism which certainly has a kinship with materialism and the belief in the omnipotence of the physical sciences.  Given this bent, secular Buddhism, when we examine the literary output of its popular advocates is engaged in the work of revising Buddhism to such an extent that the Buddha’s message seems to be anti-religious and anti-spiritual.  To be sure, secular Buddhists run far away from Frederick Heiler’s observation that Buddhism is the only really consistent form of mysticism.

The broader aim of secular Buddhist propaganda is to teach the moral teachings of the Buddha while, at the same time, leaving out his spiritual teachings when it comes to the subject of nirvana, for example.  If we can imagine a secular Buddhist cannon it would be quite small as compared with its present size.  All this assumes, in addition, that Asian and Indian Buddhists have been wrong ever since the Buddha died.  But thanks to Westerners like Stephen Batchelor and John Peacock, true Buddhism has been rediscovered which naturally is secular (wink...wink...). 

 

The great disease of western culture

A watershed moment took place around the early 1960s that did serious damage to the pollyanna picture that propagandists had painted of the United States.  During this time several very important books were published that had a huge impact on popular culture.  There was Paul Goodman's book, Growing Up Absurd (1960), Oscar Lewis's book, Children of Sanchez (1961), and Michael Harrington's book, The Other America (1962) which was about the hidden poverty in America which argued that 25 percent of the nation was living in poverty.

These books and others before them such as John Kenneth Galbraith’s book, The Affluent Society (1958), served to educate many Americans that the United States portrayed as a happy, affluent, suburban, middle-class society was a sham.  This happiness only existed in the media in such television series as Leave It to Beaver or before that, Father Knows Best, which had its beginning in radio back in the 1940s.  

The pollyanna image of America was carefully crafted by media savvy propagandists who then spoon fed it to the bewildered masses via their televisions.  By the way, let's not forget what propaganda means.  It is an important term.  According to Edward L. Bernays, in his book entitled Propaganda (1928), "Propaganda is the executive arm of the invisible government."  In particular, propaganda is, “The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses.”

With this painful analysis that revealed America’s seamy side, not too much attention was, however, being paid to the great disease of Western culture, itself.  It was the wave of nihilism that had been spreading over Europe and America since the middle of the 19th century which a devitalized Christianity was trying to smooth over, if not hide with the rise of fundamentalism.  This problem seemed to be set in the historical fact that Western materialism and science had almost destroyed the older notion of religious faith thus leaving mankind with nothing in its place.  

Facing the rise of nihilism, Western materialism and science soon found itself to be incapable of successfully dealing with the first person sense of a growing spiritual voidness even with its new forms of psychology.  The need to fill this spiritual vacuum fell naturally upon philosophy, for example, existentialism, and religion from which grew the popularity of Buddhism and more specifically Zen.  Importantly, too, came the birth of a Western Hinduism, with Yoga and Vedanta.

Growing up in a culture that unconsciously encourages nihilism to flourish, obviously,  has a number of unintended consequences that constantly beset it. Paradoxically, in dealing with these unintended consequences, such a culture tries even more to crush mankind’s inner sense of anxiety which is the direct result of spirit’s absence or, the same, its suppression.  Naturally, this gives rise to an escalating kind of psychological rebelliousness if not a general discontent or boredom with everything from which the individual’s will is unconsciously trying to escape. 

Despite what appears to be, also, a growing sense of hopelessness, the West’s limited embrace of Buddhism has given it what it needs to overcome its nihilism together with the spiritual emptiness it is continually aware of at a first person level.  This is because Buddhism directly links man’s suffering with his attachment to and his obsession with materiality as if the substance of the material world is only material.  Thus, it is not recognized that both the world and the body that man is thrown into are a phenomenalization (pratityasamutpada) of spirit or suchness.

This lack of recognition is the bane of the West insofar as it unconsciously assumes that the substance of phenomena must always be determinate and material when it is apparent for the living person that a true substance is always living and vital.

Those who wage war against spirit do so for undisclosed and often concealed reasons.  The rise of Western materialism and science doesn’t come with any psychological insight into why some people object to reincarnation, Near Death Experiences (NDE), the presence of ghosts, or life after death, all of which concern the survival of spirit.  Even Western Buddhists have to fight an uphill battle with so-called Western “secular Buddhists” who deny that the Buddha taught the direct recognition and survivability of spirit which is eternal.  In this sense they are crypto-nihilists.  

There will always be watershed moments in America and, of course, Europe which expose the seamy side of so-called Western civilization which has lost its spiritual core to such a degree that it is almost a taboo to discuss this loss.  Likewise, the depth of nihilism will continue to reveal itself in what Nicholas F. Grier has called “technological Titanism” which amounts to extreme secular humanism insofar as man believes himself to be the ‘measure of all things’ (Protagoras) which leads to relative truths and thus to no truth adding fuel to the fire of nihilism.  

 

The lies of some modern day Zen masters

Some modern day Zen masters teach that in Buddhism there is no further existence or rebirth after death.  But if this is true why, for example, in some of the older discourses of the Buddha, the Buddha says that a “fool who has not lived the holy life for the complete destruction of suffering....with the breakup of the body, the fool fares on to another body” (S. ii. 24)? 

Besides this, it is said that the Buddha could remember his former existences  prior to becoming a Buddha.  Therefore, how might this ability to recall one’s former existences be accomplished if death is just death without rebirth? Practically the whole point of Buddhism is to end the cycles of rebirth—again birth and again death.   

As regards Zen, if there is no life after death then why did Bodhidharma say the following?

“The Buddha said people are deluded. This is why when they act they fall into the River of Endless Rebirth. And when they try to get out, they only sink deeper. And all because they don't see their nature.”

I haven’t a clue as to why some Zen masters peddle this inaccurate view of Buddhism that there is no re-existence after death.  Is it just to attract Western followers who believe death is final?  It almost goes without saying that the Western view of death is, bluntly, brutish.  

The power which organizes the body and keeps its from disintegrating is greater than the sum of the body’s anatomical parts.  This passage from the Buddha in the Maharatnakuta Sutra sheds some light on this.

“From consciousness the body arises, and consciousness covers all the body and limbs.  When we look for consciousness in the body, we cannot find it anywhere; yet without consciousness, the body cannot live.” 

In this Sutra, consciousness (citta/vijnana) is prior to the corporeal body in which the body is being, figuratively speaking, is submerged in the pure medium of consciousness.  Given that consciousness is always prior, the body is ever posterior always being subject to death.  Thus, when death comes to the body, it doesn’t reach as far as consciousness.  Again, citing from the Maharatnakuta Sutra, the Buddha says:

"Just as a silkworm makes a cocoon in which to wrap itself and then leaves the cocoon behind, so consciousness produces a body to envelop itself and then leaves that body to undergo other karmic results in a new body."

According to the Buddha, we must keep in mind that our temporal body, which is made up of biological tissue, “is not yours, nor does it belong to others.  It should be regarded as previous karma effected through what has has been willed and felt” (S. ii. 65).  In his regard, it is implied that we are, as consciousness, fundamentally deathless.  It is only when consciousness finds support in biological tissue “is the genesis of the whole mass of suffering” (S. ii. 65).  Were consciousness not to glom into such embryonic tissue, for example, there would not be the mass of suffering.  Nor would there follow old age and death.

Backpacking Zen

What a great adventure to travel for several months backpacking all through Nepal and then find a way into Tibet!  But is this an effort to look within or just spiritual tourism?  At the risk of offending everyone with a backpack and the lust to travel to Nepal, there are journeys that can be both outside and inside.

One might also go backpacking into the mountains for a few days which are a few hours drive  away (for example Tuolumne Meadows in Yosemite).  There is no need to spend thousands of dollars for travel expenses.  On the hike, besides the normal provisions, some inspiring books and Sutras might be included also with some Buddhist art.  The Buddhist hiker could make a temporary retreat in order to  meditate, read, and hopefully experience more than a hungry bear nosing around for food.  But wait a minute. This would mean really being alone!

For anyone who has done this, especially when they are in the flower of their youth, being alone is much more difficult than gadding about Nepal.  What, in fact, we are facing by being alone in the mountains for the first time is our all-too-human monkey mind that is almost impossible to control.  But for anyone who wishes to make it through a ‘Buddhism for dummies course’, this mind has to be controlled if we are to make it to Buddha Mind.

What a person in this condition doesn’t see or understand is that their mind is widened out in a totally unconcentrative mode of being.  It other words, the mind is literally outwardized.  However, for the mind to realize its own intrinsic power it must be able to inwardize itself.  Also, it has to be able to become point-like and steady.  The sense of this is like steadying a glass lens on a piece of dry wood trying to kindle it.  Only by using our mind this way will we be able eventually to intuit mind’s pure animative nature, i.e., Buddha Mind.  But when the mind is outwardized and diffused, this is not possible.

Especially in Zen, the elementary part of training consists in learning how to control the monkey mind which involves centralizing it on the immediate actions, at hand, not allowing the mind to wander and to widen out in the example of day dreaming or staring off into space.  By training this way we are gradually magnifying the power of mind.

Backpacking and staying alone in the mountains is a nice way to begin to learn the practice of Zen, especially, learning to keep one’s attention on all of their physical actions.  Every step on the trail must call upon mind to concentrate on the body.  Everything the hiker does must make the mind focus on the task at hand.  The more this practice is repeated, the better the mind is able to control and be controlled which eventually leads to the higher Buddha Mind.

 

Suddenly it all made sense

In 1965, when I first began to study Buddhism I read several important books on Zen and Buddhism in general.  I even tried to read D.T. Suzuki’s translation of the Lankavatara Sutra.  Reflecting back on this time in my life it was all like listening to a song a hundred times over the radio but somehow the meaning of it eluded me.

I have met Buddhists who claim to have read John Blofeld’s translation of Huang-po’s sermons published as The Zen Teaching of Huang Po.  To be frank, these people don’t get the meaning of One Mind.  And I have to admit, neither did I when I first read Huang Po.  Yes, it was exactly like listening to a song a hundred times or more being clueless as to what the artist was driving at.

Nothing I read during that period of my life was sinking in.  No matter how profound the work, it just wasn’t getting through to me.  By going through a tremendous spiritual crisis then, as a result, having a glimpse of pure Mind for the first time, I was able to begin to see what Buddhism was really all about.  You could say, suddenly the lyrics of the song made sense!  I came to realize there wasn’t anything hidden about Buddhism or Zen.  However, if a person doesn’t catch a glimpse of pure Mind, which could take a spiritual crisis to do so, they will never understand where Zen is really coming from.

 

The substance of the universe

The Sanskrit term for the absolute substance is tathatâ which is often translated by 'suchness'.  Modern Buddhists, at times, seem to be running away from the fact that Buddhism has a unique substance theory that is verified with the attainment of absolute Bodhicitta which only happens through meditation (dhyana).  

With the attainment of absolute Bodhicitta, this substance is realized to be the stuff from which everything is composed including our thoughts.  In itself, it is completely empty and indeterminate but nevertheless real and dynamic.  But this is also the very nature of pure Mind which, when beheld, is Bodhicitta.  

"For example, he [Buddhaguhya] defines emptiness (shunyata) as suchness (tathata) and says that suchness is the intrinsic nature (svabhava) of the mind which is Enlightenment (bodhicitta)" (Stephen Hodge, The Maha-Vairocana-Abhisambodhi Tantra: With Buddhaguhya's Commentary, 32).

Along this same line the Mahayanasraddhotpadasastra (lit. Awakening of Faith Treatise) says the following:

“The revelation of the true meaning [of the principle of Mahayana can be achieved] by [unfolding the doctrine] that the principle of One Mind has two aspects.  One is the aspect of Mind in terms of the Absolute (tathata; Suchness), and the other is the aspect of Mind in terms of phenomena (samsâra; birth and death).  Each of these two aspects embraces all states of existence.  Why? Because these two aspects are mutually inclusive.”

Turning to emptiness the Mahayanasraddhotpadasastra says:

“[Suchness is empty] because from the beginning it has never been related to any defiled states of existence, it is free from all marks of individual distinctions of things, and it has nothing to do with thoughts conceived by a deluded mind.”

And with regard to the nonempty it says:

“Since it has been made clear that the essence of all things is empty, i.e., devoid of illusions, the true Mind is eternal, permanent, immutable, pure, and self-sufficient; therefore, it is called “nonempty.”  And also there is no trace of particular marks to be noted in it, as it is the sphere that transcends thoughts and is in harmony with enlightenment alone.”

I hope the reader can see that at a very practical, down to earth level, we intuit this substance at the precise moment our temporal thoughts have, briefly, stopped.  It is like looking at a pond with ripples caused by the wind. Then suddenly the wind stops.  We see the water as it is without it being disturbed by the wind.  For the Zennist the universe stops for a split second.  We’ve arrived at tathatâ or the same, pure Mind.