The Zennist

Finding a good teacher

I just read somewhere that the Dalai Lama said that a person should observe a likely teacher for three years before deciding to become their student.  Who knows, the teacher could be misrepresenting Buddhism.  But this advice might not help since even those who wish to become students are  most likely unable to distinguish a charlatan from a sage.

According to some canonical sources, we live in the age of counterfeit Buddhism  (pratirupakadharma) in which Buddhism becomes corrupt, including its teachers.  Even if someone reads the section in the Sutra of Perfect Enlightenment about finding a genuine teacher chances are it will not be of help.  But I think I have found a pretty good way to tell corrupt Buddhist teachers from those who are not.  It has to do with the teachings of pure Mind, or if you prefer, clear light Mind or Buddha Mind.  Since all of Buddhism rests on liberated Mind which has been utterly purified of adventitious perturbations; which is the absolute substance, it stands to reason that any teacher not teaching pure Mind almost,  ad nauseam, should be considered suspect as not being a good teacher.

When you consider many of the texts of early Zen there is hardly a page where pure Mind is not explicitly or implicitly referred to.  In fact, there is no way to explain the almost bizarre behavior and words of Zen masters such as Joshu (Chao-chou, 778–897).

A monk asked, “The others say it [“suchness”] with their mouths.  Master, how do you teach it to the people?”  Joshu banged his heel against the stove.  The monk said, “So that’s what it is, isn’t it?”  Joshu said, “What a fine understanding of my heel!”

A monk asked, “Master, what is your great mind?”  Joshu said, “There is neither great nor small.”  The monk asked, “Ah, so this is your great mind, isn’t it?"  Joshu said, “If there were even a bit of this [distinction], it could never be it.”

Joshu, as we can tell from the above, is quite capable of explaining exactly what pure Mind is but he could always recognize those who were asleep, caught up in concepts about Buddha Mind who would never personally experience it.  Yes, he was a good teacher.

For the prospective student of Zen, today, who is not uncomfortable with a real Zen teacher who pushes them to the limit of their being, forcing them to leap out of their skins, such a teacher, like Joshu, is a lucky find.  No tears will be wasted.  Most, however, will never come across such a great teacher like Joshu; and most Zen teachers these days could not care less about teaching pure Mind; its great importance in Buddhism. What a student who is seeking a teacher can expect to find is a mediocre teacher who teaches zazen, or as one Zen master described it, ghost sitting. 

The subject of transcendence

It seems to me that modern Buddhism is trying to avoid, as much as it can, any meaningful and informative discussion about the place of the transcendent in Buddhism, including, if there is such a place.  In popular books about Buddhism the subject of transcendence is very seldom mentioned except, in an offhand way.  As one notable secular Buddhist author pointed out, the Buddha’s awakening was not an insight into a transcendent truth.  

Transcendence, that is, the fact of transcending, generally means to have gone beyond certain limits.  In Buddhism, the limit appears to be the psychophysical organism consisting of material shape, feeling, perception, habitual tendencies and consciousness.  What we learn from the canon is that the self or âtman is beyond the the five constituents of the psychophysical organism just as we might consider the substance gold to be beyond the shapes it can be made into.

Material shape, nor the rest of the psychophysical constituents, have any connection with the self, that is, our true self.  The first-person is strictly transcendent.  Because of this, expecting to see it, for example, with the eye is impossible since the eye is part of material shape.  It is not a percept, either, or something that we can be conscious of.  It lies quite beyond, that is, transcends the nets of the five psychophysical constituents.  This explains why the Buddha said the self is a refuge with no other refuge (D. ii. 100).  To be sure, the self as refuge is beyond the vicissitudes of samsara; it transcends it.

For modern Buddhists to believe that nirvana is not transcendent is strange and difficult to understand.  It is more than likely a reflection of just how much materialism has infected modern culture.  The Buddha, in fact, teaches that liberation (vimutti) is the meaning of nirvana (S. iii. 189).  And what else might liberation be if not the experience of having transcended the five psychophysical constituents which are synonymous with suffering.

“Form, feeling, perception, consciousness, and formations—I am not this, this isn’t mine, thus one is detached (virajjati) from it” (S. i. 112). (This unusual passage has consciousness before formations.)

Buddhism is a religion of redemption (i.e., deliverance from bondage), to be sure, but accomplishes this liberation by transcending the world of suffering which includes the psychophysical body.  We, the innermost self (paccatta) attain liberation/nirvana; we, the innermost self transcend samsara.

The four maladies

From the Sutra of Perfect Enlightenment (A. Charles Muller’s translation), among other things, we learn there are four maladies people suffer from who want to engage with Buddhism.  They are as follows:

1) Contrivance: The belief that perfect enlightenment can be attained by contrivance, for example, through study, meditation, ritual, chanting, doing good deeds, etc.  Contrivance, in other words, is linked with the idea of “practice” such as doing zazen or chanting.  The adept believes that a particular practices will lead to perfect enlightenment.

2) Naturalism: The belief that perfect enlightenment can be attained by not cutting off samsara and not seeking nirvana, that is, letting things follow their natural course.  One generally comes across this malady when some teacher talks about letting thoughts naturally arise and fall as if this is perfect enlightenment, which it is not.

3) Stopping: The belief that perfect enlightenment is attained by stopping thoughts.  This should be self-evident.  The suppression of thoughts does not work.

4) Annihilation: The belief that perfect enlightenment is attained by the annihilation of defilements in both body and mind.  This sounds like the practice Siddhartha did when he practiced asceticism.

Of the four maladies I think the first malady is the one modern practitioners suffer from the most.  In Muller’s translation of the Sutra of Perfect Enlightenment, Kihwa is the Korean commentator who provides the exegesis which Muller has added to the Sutra.  According to Kihwa, the chapter, Universal Enlightenment Bodhisattva, in which the subject of the four maladies appears is for those of an inferior capacity.  It should also be fairly obvious, from this, that these same people have not attained gnosis of pure Mind.  If they had done so, why pursue worthless practices?

I think it is important for newbies who are serious about Zen to review these maladies and get Muller’s translation of the Sutra of Perfect Enlightenment (there is a used copy for $0.01 on Amazon—hurry!).

Our psychophysical body is corrupt but not the self

The Buddha is always reminding his followers to abandon what is not theirs (cp. S. iii. 33) which, in particular, are the Five Aggregates that make up the psychophysical body.  In the same vein he says “abandon desire for whatever does not belong to self (anattaniya)” (S. iii. 78).  Again, this includes the Five Aggregates.  They are not a part of the first-person, our real self.  

Throughout the entire Khandhavagga (book of the aggregates), of the Samyutta-Nikaya, of the Pali canon, we learn that the Five Aggregates, without exception, are always corrupt—but never the self or attâ.  These aggregates are impermanent, conditioned; they are dependent originations, subject to destruction, to perishing, to fading away, and cessation.  Again, we learn that the self is not subject to corruption—it transcends the aggregates.  Finally, the Five Aggregates—but not the self—belong to Mara, the Buddhist devil.

So why do so many writers, journalists, scholars and Buddhist monks mislead the public when it comes to making a clear distinction between the corrupt aggregates and the self, which the Buddha never once teaches his followers is corrupt?  A typical writer about Buddhism will say, for example:

“Many religions teach that there is a soul or spirit which never dies.  The Buddha said that there is no such thing.  He said that people are made up of five parts—body, feelings, thoughts, ideas, and awareness of things around them.  Every person is made up of these five things” (Sue Penney, Buddhism, p. 12).

The Buddha taught no such doctrine.  The Buddha said that the Five Aggregates are not ours (S. iii. 33); each one is “not my self” (na meso attâ).  How clear is that?  But why do so many people who write about Buddhism get it all wrong; who seem to be champions of the Five Aggregates and enemies of the self?  Can’t they read?  Do they own The Connected Discourses of the Buddha: A New Translation of the Samyutta Nikaya, translated by Bhikkhu Bodhi?  If not, maybe they should buy a copy and read it, especially the chapter I pointed out earlier.  Anyone who follows my advice will soon become a changed person.  Not once is the self deprecated nor are the aggregates other than completely corrupt.

I think the reason why so many people who write about Buddhism get it all wrong is because they have fallen into the trap of materialism.  Materialism is like a drug that causes people to become deluded.  In fact, they become so deluded that they are almost incapable of seeing Buddhism the way the Buddha taught it.

Let's not keep dancing

It took a lot of courage for Siddhartha to renounce his world for a higher vision of reality.  How many in today’s materialist world with its money chasing denizens would be up to the challenge of going from riches, or its possibility, to rags?  Not many I suspect.  

The real challenge meets us when we finally get all the material things we always wanted, including security, then settle back and ask ourselves are we really, really happy?  Chances are, like the song, Is That All There Is, made famous by Peggy Lee, with one of its more memorable lines, “then let's keep dancing,” we will eventually try to “keep dancing” or come to the realization that there is much more to life than satisfying our desire for material things and security.  

When we get to this place, if we ever do, we come to a fork in the road.  One road is “keep on dancing” which, at best, turns into spiritual materialism.  The other road is much different.  It opens up to a world that is outside and beyond nature; including the physical body.  It is transcendent.  This is where Buddhism actually begins.  This is the road Siddhartha chose rather than to keep on dancing.

Kafka samsara

Sitting alone where there are no distractions and few traces of the human world, we faithfully reflect that, according to the Buddha, there is a hidden part of us called pure Mind or the same, Buddha-nature.  We are also aware, at the same time, that we are connected with it but, as yet, we cannot cognize it.  We have no way to get at it.  In this division the latter part seems to rule.  It tries various strategies by which to access the first part, directly, but ultimately fails.  We have no way of shifting to the immediacy of pure Mind although we know it is here!  Fraz Kafka expresses this perfectly when he writes:

"He is thirsty, and is cut off from a spring by a mere clump of bushes. But he is divided against himself: one part overlooks the whole, sees that he is standing here and that the spring is just beside him, but another part notices nothing, has at most a divination that the first part sees all. But as he notices nothing he cannot drink" (Erich Heller, The Disinherited Mind, p. 158).

We might call this predicament, avidya, or ignorance.  But there is more to it than avidya can describe.  The other part of us that rules, let's call it the second man, leads a life of willful avidya.  It has not dawned upon him yet that he is the problem.  And even if it did dawn upon him, how could he get rid of himself, sufficiently, so that he might see the pure Mind, or the first man?

The edifice that the second man has built and continues to build in his effort to get to the first man really turns out to be a kind of fortification against his own demise (remember, he is the problem).  Even having faith that he is pure Mind (the first man) or that he has the Buddha-nature, only prompts him to build more.  He calls this the seeking of pure Mind.  Or if he tries to ignore the seeking of pure Mind and the implicit first man, he still continues to build believing that he is a builder.  Then strangely, he goes so far as to guard his great edifice against those who suggest his edifice is really a prison which keeps him from the truth of himself:  the ever present truth of which he is, but cannot cognize.  

The Zennist blog questions

Q:  Why did you decided to start a blog?

A:  Over the years I realized that that long articles and books about Buddhism I was reading, while useful to me, personally, were missing the entire thrust of Buddhism:  it aims at the transcendent.  Internet discussion groups weren’t cutting it either.  They were  often contentious and overly moderated.  You had Buddhist moderators acting like the Soup Nazi in the sitcom Seinfeld.  You could get kicked out for almost anything.  The Zen character I created “Zenmar” was blacklisted along with other Buddhists from important discussion groups.  When the blogs came on the Internet scene, it was love at first sight.  I had a lot to say because there was a lot to correct.  Zen Buddhism wasn’t Zen Buddhism.  It was just people wearing robes who did a lot of rituals, including ritual sitting, with no real grasp of what Zen is really aiming at—which should be obvious if anyone has bothered to cover the literature.

Q:  So what was Zen missing in your estimation?

A:  It doesn't understand the importance of pure Mind.  With the exception of a few Asian Zen masters, as far as I can tell, I am the only Westerner who understands that Zen koans, for example, are absolutely connected with pure Mind.  A person can’t solve a single koan without understanding that koans are mysterious expressions of pure Mind.  In my recent blog, Unlocking the mystery of Zen, as briefly as I can I try to get the blog reader to look at koans and meditation from the perspective of pure Mind.  I really want the reader to think about what I said—at least have the faith that the answer to koans lies with pure Mind.

Q:  I notice that your blog uses a lot of passages from the Pali canon.  Why is this?

A:  Much of it has to do with the attitude of Western Buddhists who believe that the Pali canon is a truer expression of the Buddha’s teaching and therefore more credible and trustworthy.  I want to show them that the Pali canon is very profound and perfectly fits with Zen.  Also, it is much easier to see where the Mahayana canon is coming from if one has a good understanding of what the Pali canon is really saying.  Over the years I have made a good case that the Pali Sutras don’t deny the self and, in fact, they point to the transcendent which comes through purification of mind.  The enlightened Mind is without perturbations (anâsava).  On the other hand, mind steeped in ignorance is with perturbations.  Nirvana is really the liberation of Mind from the pain of its perturbations.  All this falls within Zen.

Q:  You seem to repeat a lot of the same passages.  Is there any reason for that?

A:  The canon of Buddhism employes iteration in a huge way when it comes to various passages.  So do I, but not as much.  Often in the past, during my own voyages of self-discovery, I had to read passages over and over again before they clicked in my head.  For example,  in the Samyutta-Nikaya the Buddha is telling his monks that they “should abandon desire for whatever does not belong to self” (S. iii. 78).  This is really a killer passage!  The Buddha is not only implicitly affirming the self but he is telling his monks to abandon everything that doesn’t belong to the self.  Think about that.  This includes the psychophysical body and all things.  I will probably repeat this passage a number of times.

Q:  So what do you see for the future of The Zennist blog?

A:  I have a hunch that Asians will find it very useful because the blog has essentially put the pieces of the Buddhist puzzle together which is through the realization of pure Mind.  I don’t have much hope for many Western Buddhists.  At this point in time, they are too arrogant.  They don’t think their shit stinks yet.  When I was with Gyatrul Rinpoche, Westerners had zero respect for the Buddhist canon and things the Buddha said.  Gyatrul, I remember, one night pointed to the glass bookcase which had the Tibetan canon in it, he told me that this is the most sacred thing in a Buddhist temple.  Okay back on track (sorry for the digression)—the future of The Zennist blog as I see it will be, as one reader put it, a reality check.  Are you really learing Buddhism or just bullshit? 

Q:  It seems you are really down on Western Buddhists.  Is there any reason for that?

A:  I don’t think Westerners have given up their love affair with materialism.  They are using Buddhism unknowingly as a way to cope with the negative side effects of materialism.  I mean, you can’t devote your whole life to chasing money, owning a big home or two, a couple of cars, and so on, and not except some serious side effects like becoming depressed for no apparent reason.  Materialism has to be balanced out with true forms of spirituality like Buddhism.  But Western Buddhists psychologize Buddhism too much.  You can’t do that.  Psychology is not that effective for dealing with the forces of materialism which heavily depend upon desire and sensory gratification.  One needs to transcend materialism—see thru it; see it as game of illusion chasing.  Even beginner’s Buddhism has to teach this.  Buddhism is trying to restore, as much as it can, our real humanness that seeks the ever present transcendent that is hidden from us but which we can uncover, with a lot of hard work.

Right view comes first

Ordinary worldlings (prithagjana) are caught up in appearance, both externally and internally; specifically, the are caught up in sensory consciousness and figurative thought.  They know of no other existence except one where there is impermanence, suffering, and a lack of self.  

When it comes to “right view” (samyag-drishti) of the Noble Eightfold Path (arya-astanga-marga), whereby the normal temporal view of reality is transcended, worldlings (prithagjana) have no satisfactory understanding of right view and certainly they lack its accomplishment.  Another way of describing right view, is it refers to true vision as opposed to the ordinary person’s false vision of reality in which they are trapped in the world of samsara.  

Right view is described in the Mahacattarisaka Sutta as being noble (aryan), without defilements (anâsrava), and supermundane (lokottara) (M. iii. 73).  Mind is said to be noble and  and without defilements (anâsrava-citta).  According to the Buddha the arising of defilements (âsrava) is the arising of ignorance (M. i. 54).  Right view is really to see nirvana for the first time (M. i. 510).

Without right view the Noble Eightfold Path is impossible to complete.  It races ahead of them all.

"As to this, monks, right view comes first. And how, monks, does right view come first? From right view proceeds right aspiration, from right aspiration proceeds right speech, from right speech proceeds right action, from right action proceeds right livelihood, from right livelihood proceeds right effort, from right effort proceeds right mindfulness, from right mindfulness proceeds right concentration, from right concentration proceeds right gnosis, from right gnosis proceeds right liberation” (M. iii. 75–76).

Caring for inwardness

What the truly spiritual adept preserves and cares for is their inwardness.  This inwardness is always aimed towards the transcendent and for that reason the adept withdraws his interest from the secular world.  Only from inwardness does the spiritual path begin.  As seems apparent, caring for inwardness is not a worldly practice.  This kind of care seems almost repugnant to secular consciousness.  In fact, not to care for inwardness marks the disposition of the secular or worldly person (prithagjana).

Devotion to the secular world comes by way of the naive will.  One believes in the importance of external action over inwardness. To some degree such action manifests itself in Buddhism in its external forms.  Becoming a monk or a nun, including the life of a monk or a nun, are examples where the naive will is seen at work.  Wearing the robe; monastic conduct as well as ritual, are certainly outside of inwardness and what the true adept must really care for.  Much of this, ii can be argued, is done to satisfy secular perceptions of religion and what religionists are supposed to do.  Buddhist monks and nuns are not without secular drives, either.  And few, if any, are fully devoted to a life of caring for inwardness.

A notable example of a life given to caring for one’s inwardness can be seen in Edward A. Burger’s documentary film, Amongst White Clouds.  In the film, the hermit monks, including a nun, are not Buddhas—maybe not even real Bodhisattvas who have attained Bodhicitta.  But all, without exception, are caring for inwardness in everything that they do.  It is their daily practice.

Seated meditation in a Dharma center helps to preserve a trace of inwardness, but by no measure is just sitting in a Dharma center going to put one into a life of inwardness which is daily consecrated.  At best seated meditation is the foremost ritual of caring for inwardness.

Unlocking the mystery of Zen

Looking at Zen koans and koan-like passages from the aspect of pure Mind is the only way to unlock the mystery of Zen.  Take, for example, the koan Joshu’s Dog.  To answer this koan it is necessary to know how pure Mind is related to Joshu’s “Mu.”  Again, let’s take the koan, Wash Your Bowl.  How is pure Mind connected with Joshu’s words, “Then go wash your bowl”?  Or, how does pure Mind fit with Gutei’s finger which he raised when anyone asked him a question about Zen?  When Bodhidharma said,  “Not one of them understands the movement of his own hands and feet,” how does his statement apply to pure Mind?  How does pure Mind relate to Ananda grasping the corner of Shânavâs’s robe then yanking it only to greatly awaken Shânavâs?  There is no other way to unlock the mystery of Zen except in the context of pure Mind.

Looking at Zen koans and sermons this way, some part of us almost knows the real meaning of Zen while another part of us is deeply confused; not sure what to make of Zen.  The part of us that is deeply confused tends to have the final say.  In other words, many of today’s Zennists are confused about Zen; who also seem oddly closed off to the idea of looking at Zen and its koans through the context of pure Mind.

Zen doesn’t have to be all that confusing for us.  But it often is, especially, when doing seated meditation is added to the mix.  No modern Zennist is really clear about seated meditation or zazen.  The pertinent question is, how does seated meditation fit into the context of pure Mind?  It seems to me that no modern Zennist has a satisfactory answer which should be somewhat obvious.  Speaking for myself,  I have no problem with an answer.

When the fluctuations of our human mind cease, the eternal pure substance of Mind is revealed at once.  This is meditation (dhyâna).  To contemplate this pure substance is called right samadhi.  

Western Zen may very well die out because it hasn’t, as yet, acknowledged the overarching importance of realizing pure Mind and that the edifice of Zen is built upon the realization of pure Mind—not seated meditation or any other practice which only adds confusion to modern Zen.