The Zennist

Novice Buddhists (yuck)

There are several grades of Buddhists which might range from novice to expert.  Most Western Buddhists are in the category of novice.  A novice, for example, is confused between the second skandha, feeling, and bliss or sukha.  He is convinced that bliss is like feeling.  But if this person had actually experienced bliss, instead of guessing, he would understand that even in pain, bliss does not subside for the reason that it is different than feeling.

On the subject of nirvana (P., nibbana), the novice unconsciously assumes that nirvana is conditioned like other things.  It never dawns on him that his psychophysical body, which is completely conditioned, is incapable of being an apt instrument by which to connect with the unconditioned, that is, nirvana. Yet, he never shuts up trying to explain nirvana by way of conditions.  This novice is even clueless as to the role of meditation in penetrating through the rind of the conditioned to attain nirvana, which in the Pali canon is called the Deathless Great Nibbana.

This same novice doesn’t comprehend how nirvana can be the end of suffering (duhkha).  It never dawns on him that only the conditioned suffers, and since nirvana is unconditioned (P., asankhatma) suffering is impossible!

Competent Buddhists who have actually read a great deal of the Buddhist canon don’t make too many mistakes like the novice who walks down the path of delusion, hatred, and sensuality.  This is why good teachers demand of beginners to STFU zip their lips until they’ve spent at least three to four years reading and studying the discourses of the Buddha.  Of course, for those at a rank below novice (dimwits?) there is always learning to do zazen—just sit and sit and sit.

 

Safeguarding the words

Having been raised in what can only be described as a shaman household, I literally sat on the laps of mystics, soothsayers, and the Mexican shaman Jesse.  When I became a Buddhist I could see spirituality written on every page of text that I read.  

From deep within me emerged the drive to seek enlightenment.  It was not a negative drive born of fear or desperation; it was rather very positive.  I simply loved to study Buddhism and think about it all the time.  It was like being in love with the most beautiful and dearest person imaginable.  It was a magnificent obsession. Everything else was boring if not frankly stupid. (I later discovered that being bored is the hangover from drinking the whiskey of materialism.)

To be on such a spiritual quest—and that is what it is—requires of one to safeguard (anurakkhati) the words of the Buddha; not to dismiss them.  Even if the adept doesn’t understand 99% of what they read in the Buddha’s discourses the seeker must safeguard these words because as they mature, the Buddha’s discourses will start to make sense.  If the words of the Buddha are not safeguarded nothing but confusion will arise.

While we may believe that we pretty much understand what the Buddha was teaching, we eventually will  discover that we were greatly mistaken.  So that’s why we safeguard the words of the Buddha.  This old dude was the greatest genius ever. 

 

A growing internecine conflict in modern Buddhism

It is becoming more recognized that an internecine conflict has developed in Buddhism between interpretations of Buddhism that rely on the Buddhist canon and  secular Buddhist interpretations which ignore much of the Buddhist canon.

Key to understanding secular Buddhism, judging from its various sources, is secular Buddhism develops out of a reaction to the Buddhist canon, itself, insofar as various ideas within the canon do not chime with secularism.  It is important to note that secularism does not accept religious gnosis as a valid form of knowledge whereby the adept is directly in communion with ultimate reality which happens to be immaterial.  

If the differences between traditional Buddhism and secular Buddhism were only a matter of interpreting what the Buddha meant by nirvana, for example, there would not have arisen such an internecine conflict.  The gravamen of the conflict is that secular Buddhism rejects, a priori, much of the Buddhist canon only allowing certain discoures of the Buddha to pass muster.

What secular Buddhism should be understood as really being is secularism that embraces some of what the Buddha taught and, for that matter, also embraces some things Jesus taught, and so on.

Where the internecine conflict gets nasty, for want of a better term, is when secular Buddhists believe they have the right to reform Buddhism by expunging certain key notions such as rebirth and karma and radically modifying others such as nirvana; not safeguarding these notions as the Buddha cautions us to do.  (As I have mentioned before in an earlier blog, without rebirth nirvana is impossible to achieve simply because, using the Buddha’s own example, it requires several lifetimes.) 

Secular Buddhism's new Buddha

Westernized Buddhism seems to be turning more and more towards materialism, if not hard scientism, which has become the unspoken modern lingua franca.  Foremost, it has a decisive bias towards non-materialistic, spiritual phenomena.  One of its cardinal tenets, it believes the brain and the self are the same, or if you like, the brain and mind are the same so that when the brain goes we go—there is no self (P. natthattâ).  In addition, there is no rebirth or karma.

For those of us familiar with the Pali canon, this sounds a lot like the teaching of the materialist, Ajita Kesakambali, who was a contemporary of the Buddha. 

“Ajita Kesakambali taught what appears to be a form of materialism, that there is no future life for us let alone repeated rebirth.  Mankind is formed of earth, water, fire, and air, which return to their elements after death.  There is no merit in good deeds (good karma) or demerit in wicked ones" (Paul Williams, Anthony Tribe, Buddhist Thought, p. 19).

Implied in Ajita’s materialism, as with modern forms of materialism, is the belief that our mental life is born from a certain configuration of matter (e.g., biological matter).  But then what is matter?  Oddly, pushing to the very limits of what is meant by matter, matter cannot be defined except to go in a circle—it almost means nothing.  For example, matter is mass, mass is matter.  The best definition that we can find for matter is that it is resistance.  But this answer falls into the jurisdiction of metaphysics like the notion of force.  In other words, we are still in the land of ideas, not matter as a fact.

Switching gears, what Western Buddhists have achieved is really the transformation of Buddhism into a kind of a humanist materialism.  From this perspective, Western Buddhism has invented a new kind of nirvana that is all about the total acceptance of death.  Our self along with the brain, after we are dead, will be no more.  Supposedly, in this state of peaceful nothingness, suffering cannot touch us ever again.

But all this rests on murky assumptions that matter, for one thing, is primary, not spirit, or the same, Mind.  If, on the other hand, there is the postmortem survival of consciousness, this materialist version of Buddhism is in deep trouble.  

Because of our ignorance (avidya) with respect to what phenomena are fundamentally composed of, in which materialism is still just a guess, we are caught in an almost inescapable trap of doubt and unsurety.  We cannot be certain that there is no postmortem survival of consciousness (vijñâna), as Buddhism predicts, in which consciousness will spontaneously interface with a more dense expression of its latent desires and presuppositions, which is rebirth (punarbhava). 

Western Buddhists, for the most part, do not come to study Buddhism with an open mind. If they did, they would not wince when the word “rebirth” is read or heard.  The project of Western Buddhism is to forge a new religion using some older parts of Buddhism in which Buddhism is turned into a religion of death and mortality acceptance.  This is really the teaching of Ajita Kesakambali—not the Buddha.

 

Tough break for paraplegics and quadriplegics

Is sitting in a chair doing zazen?  According to some Soto Zen experts it isn’t.  If you are a paraplegic or quadriplegic in a wheelchair, tough break.  You can never do zazen.  But don’t be sad.  Ask this question:  “Did the Buddha mention anything about zazen, or mention that it only counts when a person sits in a full or half-lotus?”  The answer is no.  

Truth be told, the Buddha never mentioned anything about zazen.  Sure, he mentioned dhyâna (P., jhâna), but it was never coupled with nishad/nisîdati (to sit, to dwell) which is rendered in Chinese, 坐.  Zazen is a relatively new term in the long history of Buddhism the importance of which is overstated by Soto Zennists.  According to Tang Dynasty Zen master Tsung-mi, rather than zazen, it is the one-practice samadhi that is transmitted down from Bodhidharma (Peter N. Gregory, editor, Traditions of Meditation in Chinese Buddhism, 120).  Soto Zen has it all wrong.  Zazen was not transmitted.

Soto Zen’s notion of zazen (tso-ch’an), with its strict emphasis on posture, fails to comport with the Sixth Patriarch’s Platform Sutra, chapter 19.  For one thing, ‘sitting’ (坐) according the Sixth Patriarch, “means without any obstruction anywhere, outwardly and under all circumstance, not to activate thoughts” (trans. Yampolsky).

Soto Zen is a really a form of Buddhism for spiritually challenged beginners who have little or no grasp of the spiritual side of Buddhism; who are obsessed with the belief that sitting on a zafu turns one into a Buddha (which it doesn’t). 

 

Spotting secular Buddhists

For me, it is easy to spot the Buddhists who are the so-called secular Buddhists.  Mainly, they are either European or American.  They don’t believe in any kind of afterlife—perish the thought of NDEs!  They also believe that we are the sum total of our physical anatomy so that when the brain dies, that’s it.  It’s absolute death after brain death.  Adding a bit more to this, they are pseudo-skeptics, terribly mediocre, and depressed (I suspect the majority are on SSRIs).

Why these people claim to be Buddhists is difficult to explain, easily.  One thing I do know, they believe garbage like this:

"The Buddha’s psychological principles [are] derived logically from his materialist metaphysics.  Lacking soul or permanent entity, distinct individual personality is an impossibility.  What is mistaken for self is only a bundle of attributes (the senses and consciousness) held together temporarily as the spokes of a wheel are fastened around the hub" (World Civilizations, Volume 1, ninth edition).

The dimwit professors who cobbled this together are describing what the Buddha rejected.  The Buddha regarded the psychophysical body to be impermanent, unsatisfactory and lacking a self (anâtman).  But this is not the state of nirvana (P., nibbana) which is attained in the very self (paccattam); which is basically the goal of all Buddhists except secular Buddhists who regard death as nirvana.

(It is clear from many passages in the Pali canon and the Mahayana canon that nirvana is not in the category of physicality—it transcends it.  Specifically, it has nothing to do with the psychophysical organism otherwise known in Buddhism as the Five Aggregates (pañcaskandha).  The subject of nirvana is not a term secular Buddhists are comfortable with; it’s a subject they wish to ignore.)

 

No nirvana without rebirth

If you think about it, the attainment of nirvana rests on the acceptance that there is life after death, in fact, many lives.  Also implied in this, is the understanding that when one dies, they do not automatically attain nirvana.  There are no guarantees.  In fact, nirvana is extremely difficult to attain—it takes many rebirths.  Using the Buddha’s own example, as a Bodhisattva he went through many lives before he won nirvana. With the attainment of nirvana, only then comes the end of rebirth—not before.

So how do the rebirth deniers, who insist they are Buddhists, handle this inconvenient truth?  Not very well.  They generally choose either to ignore nirvana or just dumb it down to some incredible weird shit like this:

“Wisdom is to see that there is nothing to search for.  If you live with a difficult person, that’s nirvana.  Perfect.  If you’re miserable, that’s it” (Joko Beck). 

Let’s be very clear about nirvana.  It is not about living with a difficult person.  It is much more.  And given the fact (and it is a fact) that most people, if there were such a thing as a spiritual IQ test, would test moron or below.  Even Einstein would find nirvana difficult to conceive of, let alone attain like the Buddha.

Without rebirth—a huge learning curve—no nirvana.  One has to acquire merit to such a degree that the attainment of nirvana becomes feasible.  And this takes many, many rebirths.  Not just this life will do.

A Buddhist who is a rebirth denier has, essentially, said death, not nirvana, is the great emancipation.  For one thing, it is real easy to do.  Just wait and it will come.  Yep, no need to strive for that difficult nirvana.  Death takes care of everything.  Incidentally, this is where secular Buddhism is coming from, the new Buddhist heresy. 

 

The modern siege against a spiritual self

The word ‘self’ used in a spiritual context like Buddhism can often be used in the wrong way.  The word self, we have to remember when we see it in Buddhism, is a translation of âtman and/or attâ .  The English word self doesn’t match up with âtman that well.  Nor does ego.  Âtman has no reference to Freud’s ego; nor is it ever used as the center of selfishness.  To use a line from Mark Twain the difference between the modern meaning of self and the Buddha’s meaning is “the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning.”

We have to keep in mind also, that Buddhism’s rise in popularity in the West is due, in part, to a misreading of Buddhism by those who are fed up with religion; who are sympathetic to certain views found in materialism which, for example, reject postmortem survival.  In this context, there is a siege directed against a spiritual self. 

For the most part, Buddhism understood in the West is believed to be an Indian form of materialism that rejects Brahmanism’s idea of spirit or âtman.  This is, of course, not true at all.  No where in the Buddhist canon is Brahmanism rejected out of hand.   If this were actually the case, why is there a whole chapter in the Dhammapada dedicated to the brahmin (Brâhmanavaggo), beginning with verse, 383?  Let us not also forget that the Buddha’s family name is Gautama which is a brahmin name.  In the Itivuttaka (IV, i) the Buddha even declares that he is a brahmin.  

In light of the above, and much more, why should we straightaway assume the âtman as it is used in the canon of Buddhism doesn’t often refer to the notion of Brahmanism’s âtman?  Surely, the Buddha when he said “The self is the support of the self” (attâ hi attano nâtho) meant more than suggesting our temporal self is the support of itself.  And what accounts for all the self compounds found in the Pali canon, for example, attaññu (knower of the self)? (I counted over 65 different compounds using self.)

The most revealing part of the West’s understanding of Buddhism it that it relies more on what the Buddha did not say instead of what he actually said.  Western Buddhism, especially its notion of self or âtman/attâ has all the earmarks of materialism.  The golden thread of the transcendent is missing.

Back to materialism

Materialism, as most of us understand it, has to do with the importance we give to material possessions.  This includes the desire for material objects and their consumption; even to where our happiness, for the most part, depends upon conspicuous consumption (Thorstein Veblen).  The danger with this kind of materialism is the degree to which we are obsessed with desiring material objects.

Giving a practical example, let’s say I really want a Shun chef's knife.  Do I really need such a knife, after all, I am not a chef?  My present knife works fine.  But right now, I am temporarily obsessed with having a Shun chef's knife even though I really can't afford this knife.  When I reflect on my desire to have this knife, I have to admit, I can’t really see how it is going to make me happy or happier.  It even reminds me a little of my brother’s G.I. Joe collection when he was a little boy.  It certainly hasn’t brought him happiness. He is now getting close to fifty having to go through the pains of growing older.

This kind of materialism really closes us off to finding an adequate spiritual path that will help us to cope with life’s more negative side: in the words of Porphyry, “The bitter waves of this blood-drenched life.” Although it seems that materialism can work for a little while, our decision to go in that direction in order to cope with life never seems to pan out has hoped.  We are, in fact, deluded which, incidentally, is one of the three poisons.

We really need to take a profound fast from materialism.  It might be better for us to take a walk in the woods, alone, so that we might commune with nature for several hours instead of spending almost two hundred dollars on a Shun chef’s knife.  Maybe it would be better to go backpacking for a day or do some rock climbing. There are some really good one-day backpacks like the Marmot Ascent 40 which sells for around one hundred and thirty dollars.  Oops!  Back to materialism.

 

By way of implication

 Some readers of The Zennist blog are surprised at how much I rely on the Pali canon.  There is a simple explanation.  I discovered that the Pali canon often works through implication for want of a better term.  For example, anattâ (lit., not the self)  implies Mara the Evil One.  Why is this?  It is obvious from many discourses that the Five Aggregates are always anattâ.  But we also learn that these same Five Aggregates are always associated with Mara, the Buddhist devil.

“When there is form, Radha, there might be Mara, or the killer, or the one who is killed.  Therefore, Radha, see form as Mara, see it as the killer, see it as the one who is killed.  See it as a disease, as a tumor, as a dart, as misery, as really misery.  Those who see it thus see rightly.  When there if feeling ... When there is perception ... When there are volitional formations ... When there is consciousness, Radha, there might be Mara, or the killer, or the one who is killed” (S. iii. 189).

Logically, it is correct to say that anattâ implies Mara the Evil One. What is so interesting about this is when we look at those who loudly proclaim the Buddha taught anattâ or No-Self. Unbeknownst to them, they are saying the Buddha taught Mara the Evil One!

Among other things the Five Aggregates imply are impermanence and suffering.  Is it correct to infer from this that anattâ, the vaunted No-Self of the Theravadins, is impermanent and suffering?  Yes, it is quite reasonable to draw such a conclusion.

Next, what important terms are not associated or fungible with the Five Aggregates?  They are terms such as Tathagata, the attâ or self, the mind (citta) that is liberated, the unconditioned (asankhatam), and nirvana to name some.  Can we, at this point, say that the self or attâ, by logical inference, is the Tathagata, the liberated mind, the unconditioned, and nirvana?  Yes we can.