The Zennist

The moon is not the moon

It is next to impossible for the average person or even the average Buddhist to divine the difference between a mental image of pure Mind and actual pure Mind, itself.  One reason for the difficulty is the average person or Buddhist practitioner has never been totally free of mental images.  

Our sense of pure Mind or even Buddha-nature is really the reflection of the unconditioned pure Mind on the conditioned self-conscious intellect.  An apt analogy is the moon in the sky, i.e., the real moon, and the moon reflected on the surface of the water.  When the Buddha speaks of pure Mind, for us, this is the moon on the water which we wrongly imagine to be the same as the moon in the sky.  

If the reflected moon happens to appear in a shallow puddle of water, then in a day it disappears, the real moon is still in the sky.  Likewise when worldlings reflect on pure Mind or Buddha-nature, this is like the moon reflected in a shallow puddle of water.  Within a few seconds the Buddha-nature in the beginner’s mind completely disappears who then thinks, wrongly, that the Buddha-nature is impermanent.  As the reader can see this deluded person believes the real eternal Buddha-nature, of which the Buddha’s discourses speak, has disappeared when, in truth, only the conditioned Buddha-nature which is based on this person’s conditioned consciousness has disappeared.

Such deluded thinking dominates modern Buddhist thought which believes that all of Buddhism is centered on a puddle of water, so to speak.  For those engaged in this kind of thinking, everything is transitory, even the Buddha-nature and pure Mind (the moon).  They have yet to realize that the conditioned self-conscious intellect (the  mud puddle) is a deluded state of mind beholding an illusory copy of the real.

The other Nagarjuna

There is another side to Nagarjuna (circa 150–250 A.D.) which is generally hidden from the view of Western Buddhists.  It is the Nagarjuna who composed the Mahâprajñâpâramitâ Shastra which was translated from Sanskrit into Chinese by Kumarajiva (344–413), a Madhyamika scholar.  To be sure, it is not at all like N’s ever popular and almost incomprehensible Mulamadhydamaka Karika which, according to Thomas McEvilley, is not without significant parallelism to Pyrrhonism (cp. McEvilley, The Shape of Ancient Thought:Comparative Studies in Greek and Indian Philosophies, p. 455).  

Noteworthy, is the fact that both Nagarjuna and Sextus Empiricus can be put into the same time frame.  Both fall under the rubric of skeptic philosophy in which the aim of the karikas and tropes is to lead to the suspension of judgment by which the conceptual accounts of the dogmatists, when turned against themselves, can make no satisfactory judgement or headway. 

To escape from the negative imposition of words and concepts is at the heart of both philosophies.  Both, in their own unique way, help to prepare us for gnosis which transcends words and concepts.  However, if we just stay fixed on N’s karikas, we lose big time. N’s karikas are still dealing with the conventional, samsaric world which seems forever stuck on words and concepts.  When we decide to cut through our own internal dialogue and concepts  and reach for the absolute, it is quite beyond convention and the karikas.  

Swinging back to N’s Mahâprajñâpâramitâ Shastra we find a different Nagarjuna.  He aims for the absolute but not one in the world of words and concepts.  It is by direct experience or gnosis that we are to meet with it.  The following passages are from the Shastra which is from K. Venkata Ramanan’s marvelous book, Nagarjuna’ Philosophy (yep, get it!).  (I have omitted the Chinese characters.)

“Whatever is in the three realms, all that is the construction of mind (citta).  How is it so?  It is in accordance with one’s thought that one realizes all things.  By mind does one see the Buddha and by mind does one become a Buddha.  The mind itself is the Buddha, the mind itself is my body.  (Under ignorance) the mind does not know itself; does not see itself; it is due to ignorance that one seizes the determinate nature of the mind.  (In this state), the mind (that is thus seized) is also false.  All (these) things arise from ignorance.  The bodhisattva penetrates into the ultimate reality of all things, viz., the eternal sunyata, through (his comprehension of) this nature of mind. (276b)” (p. 72)

“The common people dwell only in nâma [name] and laksana [signs, marks], the thought—constructions that are devoid of substantiality. (688a)” (p. 72, brackets are mine.)

“Owing to the power of the false sense of self, one sees the self in four ways, viz., that “rûpa is I,” “rûpa is mine,” “in me there is rûpa” and “in rûpa there is myself.”  (Similar kinds of views arise even in regard to the other four skandhas).  Thus there are altogether twenty kinds of false sense of self.  When one realizes the awakening to true wisdom, then one understands the falsity of these. (103c)” (p. 100)

"To him who understands the meaning in the teaching of the Buddha and grasps the truth of derived name, he has taught that there is "I"; but to one who does not understand the meaning in the teachings of the Buddha and does not grasp the truth of the derived name, He has taught, there is no "I." (253c) (p. 105)

“The teaching of no "I" is of two kinds: the one in which there is the seizing of the determination of "no I," clinging to the denial of "I," and the other is the denial of "I" while refraining from seizing "no I" and keeping free from (turning it into a drsti by) clinging to it. (In the latter case) one naturally gives up (all clinging).  The first kind of no "I" is an extreme, (a case of exclusiveness) while the second one is the Middle Doctrine (the non-exclusive way). (253c) (p. 105)

“The ultimately real nature of the “I”...the ultimately real nature of the knowledge of all forms, the ultimately real nature of the Tathagata, all this is one reality, not two, not divided.” (563b) (p. 269) 

Walpola Rahula's nirvana

According to Walpola Rahula, in his book, What the Buddha Taught (1962), he explains that nirvana is realized by the ‘being’ composed of the Five Aggregates who has gone out (p. 42).  This is kind of an odd description.  Let me back up so you can see the passage in question which is quite confusing.

“Here is should be clearly and distinctly understood, without any confusion, that what is compared to a flame or a fire gone out is not Nirvana, but the ‘being’ composed of the Five Aggregates who realized Nirvana” (p. 42).

We observe from Rahula’s words that the ability to realize nirvana is solely through the 'being' composed of the Five Aggregates, or the same, the psychophysical body made up of five constituents, namely, material shape, feeling, perception, volitions, and consciousness. This is the being who will realize nirvana. This is Rahula's version of nirvana which is Theravadin.  (This aggregated being is also Mara the Buddhist devil!  Why Rahula, or any Theravidin overlooks this important fact is beyond my ability to speculate.)

Moving forward, can such a being as Rahula’s being realize nirvana, who is composed of the Five Aggregates?  The answer has to be in the negative.  

Beginning from here, we have to ask, what can we learn about a being composed of the Five Aggregates from the discourses of the Buddha?  First of all, as a being, I am form (or material shape), feeling, perception and consciousness that means that this is what I am.  I am not beyond the aggregates or less than each of them.  However, according to the Buddha this is identity view (sakkâyaditthi) which means the aggregates are the being or individual.  With regard to each aggregate I regard them as my self.  In the Identity View Sutta (Sakkâyaditthi Sutta) it states: 

“When there is form, bhikkhus, by clinging to form, by adhering to form, identity view arises.  When there is feeling ... perception ... volitional formations ... consciousness, by clinging to consciousness, by adhering to consciousness, identity view arises” (S. iii. 185).

Somewhat ironic, identity view is also wrong view as noted in the discourse before it which is the Micchâditthi Sutta.  This idea of identity carries with it, by implication, a limitation:  One cannot uncling from the Five Aggregates since one is composed, as Rahula claims, of the Five Aggregates!  Again, ironic, neither the Buddha nor his disciples identify with the Five Aggregates.  Only worldlings (puthujjana) believe they are the Five Aggregates.  In fact, it is they who produce the aggregates according to the Dutiyagaddulabaddha Sutta.

“So too, when the uninstructed worldling produces anything, it is only form that he produces; only feeling that he produces, only perception that he produces; only volitional formations that he produces; only consciousness that he produces” (S. iii. 152). 

While the worldling is a being who is composed of the Five Aggregates—or imagines he is—neither the Buddha nor his disciples (ariyasavaka) will have anything to do with them!  In numerous discourses, the Buddha when regarding the Five Aggregates says, “This is not mine, I am not this, this is not my self” (M. i.136).  But still more interesting is this passage.

“Whatever is there of material shape, feeling, perception, the habitual tendencies, consciousness—he beholds these things as impermanent, suffering, as a disease, an impostume, a dart, a misfortune, an affliction, as other, as decay, empty, not-self.  He turns his mind from these things [MA. iii. 146], and when he has turned his mind from these things he focuses his mind on the deathless element thinking: ‘This is the real, this the excellent, that is to say the tranquilizing of all the activities, the casting out of all clinging, the destruction of craving, dispassion, stopping, nibbana [nirvana]” (M. i. 435–436, trans. I.B. Horner). (Brackets are mine.)

Apparently, the composed aggregated being who has realized Rahula’s Nirvana and gone out, is not the Buddha or his disciples since they’ve turned their minds away from the misfortunes of the Five Aggregates long before they are destroyed at death.  Truth be told, there is nothing in the discourses of the Buddha that tells us about a khandha-being (i.e., aggregate-being) who realized nirvana.  The Five Aggregates do not realize nirvana; they do not take refuge; they cannot distinguish between what is the path and what is not the path.  They are incapable of discerning a Buddha from a worldling.  The list goes on. 

The Buddha, the patron saint of science?

As far as the modern project of Buddhism is concerned it seems disposed to making the Buddha the patron saint of science.  But then, what is science?  As far as I can tell the modern definition of science for Buddhists looking up the word in the Oxford English Dictionary, is not the following definition of science.

“The state or fact of knowing; knowledge or cognizance of something specified or implied; also, with wider reference, knowledge (more or less extensive) as a personal attribute.”

But this one:

“In modern use, often treated as synonymous with ‘Natural and Physical Science’, and thus restricted to those branches of study that relate to the phenomena of the material universe and their laws, sometimes with implied exclusion of pure mathematics. This is now the dominant sense in ordinary use.”

Personally, I like the first definition of science, especially, “The state or fact of knowing” which sits nicely with the Buddhism of the discourses (Suttas, Sutras).  This chimes with terms like jñâna, sambodhi, vidya, and so on.  However, judging from the literature of pop Buddhism, it is definition number two that its literature rides on.   

Incidentally, trying to turn the Buddha, essentially, into the patron saint of science goes back to the 1860s according to Donald Lopez (The Scientific Buddha, p. 10).  It is a project not with shallow roots which if a team of great Buddhist scholars were to attempt to pull it out by the roots, would be unable to do so.  This is not because of a lack of countervailing evidence in the Nikayas, for example.  It is because the myth that the Buddha was the first scientist of his day has been cast into almost impenetrable concrete.

Perish the thought of the Buddha’s miraculous birth or that he found the world (loka) an almost unbearable place of suffering that is alien to man’s true spiritual nature, that is, his âtman which is spiritually seperable from the perishable psychophysical body.  The list goes on of oddities that don’t chime with the belief of the Buddha being a Mr. Science sort of guy who tried to wise up the, supposedly, primitive Brahmins with their dumb belief in a soul.

All the claims that the Buddha is like a patron saint of science can be easily refuted. Where the problem lies is with many modern Buddhists who don’t, frankly, give a tinker's dam about the discourses of the Buddha.  Tomorrow, they could burn them up and not really care. 

Spiritual confusion

Ignorance (P., avijja; S., avidya) is really the inability to distinguish between what arises and vanishes, namely, the Five Aggregates, with what does not arise and vanish, namely, the self.  The self, according to the commentarial literature (Sâratthappakâsinî, ii. 268), is the island (dîpa), the refuge (tâna), the rock (lena), the ultimate rest (parâyana), and by implication, nirvana since it, too, is an island. 

It is only by abandoning our identification with what is not the self, anattâ/anâtma, this being the Five  Aggregates does, logically, arise vidya or gnosis.  Before vidya, I was under the bondage or spell of anattâ (the aggregates) insofar as the Five Aggregates were believed by me to be my self.  Now I have knowledge (vidya) of the true self which is an island, a refuge—the ultimate rest or parâyanam. 

In straightforward English, ignorance is a state of spiritual confusion.  I cannot distinguish between what is not my self (anattâ/anâtma) and my true self (attâ/âtma).  In such a state of ignorance, I even believe that the Five Aggregates are the measure of all things.  But how can what is impermanent be a measure?  How can the aggregates be the noble witness, in other words?  Only the self is the noble witness, according to the Buddha (A. i. 149).

Given that most of us exist in a state of profound ignorance, unable to distinguish between what is not really our true self from what is our true self, what does this mean for popular Buddhism?  The quick answer:  Almost all of popular Buddhism is wrong.  Unknowingly, it teaches from a state of ignorance.  Its basis is what is not the self (anâtman), namely, the Five Aggregates.  Unfortunately, the multitudes of Westerners lap it up. 

This is such a serious problem for modern Buddhism that it threatens to destroy the entire religion and its foundation.  The Zennist blog is one of the few places on the Internet that doesn’t follow the mindless herd but listens, instead, to what the Buddha teaches.  What is really amazing is that the Pali canon and the Chinese Agamas are so clear that we are not to regard as our self that which is not the self (the aggregates), that one could fairly conclude that modern Buddhists are stark raving mad—totally inverted (viparyâsa). 

Caught in the 12 factors of dependent origination

Q:  What are some of your ideas on the 12 factors of conditioned genesis?

A:  Well, first of all, it is about the way we all get entrapped into conditioned, samsaric existence just as the eightfold noble path is the way by which we reach the unconditioned—I mean nirvana.  The latter is an escape route the former is a major catastrophe for sentient beings.  When we look at the term dependent origination (I don’t like to use conditioned genesis), it is made of two terms: pratîtya and samutpada.  The first term means roughly, based on.  We can say based on hemp, a rope is made or based on clay a pot is made.  Samutpada is the resultant thing, the rope or the pot, for example.  Of the 12 factors or nidânas (lit. to bind down) each makes up the whole package of misery you could say.  When I look at the first factor, avidya or ignorance, I know avidya is based on the non-knowledge of pure Mind.  This is why the Avatamsaka Sutra says the 12 factors are based on Mind.

Q:  Wow!  Excuse me, but I never learned that from my teacher.  So if I see pure Mind there is no avidya and no samsara?

A:  Basically, yes.  The old Buddha was a smart and wise dude.  These 12 factors are profound.  There is more to them than meets the eye.  In a state of avidya, I can’t tell brass dust from gold dust, defiled mind from pure Mind.  From this, based on ignorance, my volitional tendencies, by which pure Mind is totally distorted and hidden, comes into play.  Then based on this, consciousness originates, the kind that leads to rebirth looking for a psychophysical organism (nama-rupa).  This is when mom and dad are having really good sex and one of dad’s sperm cells hits the jackpot.  Based on this, the psychophysical embryo originates, then the sense organs originate, then comes sense contact, sense experience, thirst, mental clinging, becoming, our birth in the hospital (hopefully) then, over time, old age and death.  In short, this is the path to misery.  The hard part for us is dealing with consciousness, volitional tendencies and, most of all, avidya.  Since the average person is ill equipped to distinguish between defiled mind and pure Mind, who has strong volitional tendencies, it proves a daunting task to awaken people.  

Q:  So after we die, based on our avidya and volitional tendencies, which are still as strong as ever, consciousness originates which goes looking for an embryo or something like that, right?

A:  Yes, that’s not bad.  Our consciousness, which is always in subject/object mode, resonates with a rebirth vessel—we tune into it, so to speak.  After we die, a couple might be having sex.  If we resonate with them we become entrapped in a namarupa, all confused and strong willed.  We are reborn.

Q:  I know this is a stupid question, but did the Buddha invent this?

A:  No.  It is just a part of natural life.  It keeps the old wheel of suffering revolving.  It’s natural to be spiritually dumb so that we can’t distinguish the unreal from the real and keep getting reborn.

Q:  Why did the Buddha call his teaching of conditioned genesis—sorry for my use of this term—profound?

A:  I think because it explains the real reason we’re so fucked up.  But the Buddha also said that even more profound than dependent origination, which only deals with temporal, composed reality, is nirvana which is totally uncomposed or asamkrita.  One can only get to nirvana by transcending the world of dependent origination.  We do this by distinguishing between defiled mind and pure Mind or between what is not the self and the self.  The profound insight that comes with this is that there is only one substance or essence.  All things are only a configuration of this essence.  Intrinsically, we have never once ceased being that essence, but we can’t recognize it.  Being unable to discern it from its phenomena or configurations, we end up caught in the 12 factors of dependent origination, following illusions.

Empty thoughts

Emptiness (suññatâ, suñña) in early Buddhism has not gotten a lot of attention, but it is there in the Pali Nikayas and the Chinese Agamas.  It generally has to do with negation, for example,  something that is merely the absence of something.  It can be argued that emptiness in the Pali Nikayas and the Chinese Agamas has none of the significance and importance attributed to the emptiness (shunyata) found in Mahayana.  I think it is safe to say that in early Buddhism, emptiness was no big deal—it had not yet become a spectacular philosophical term.    

In the Pali Nikayas, ‘suñña’ means, desolate, vacant, lonely, absent, quiet, secluded, which has no special philosophical sense attached to it.  A monk went into the forest and found an empty place and did meditation.  As far as meditation is concerned, one can abide in the abode of emptiness (suññatâ-vihâra) which is empty of delusion, hatred, and craving (the three poisons).   Also, the world is empty of the self.  Finite things like the eye are also empty of the self.  Material shape is empty of the self and so on.  In one discourse in the Samyutta-Nikaya the Five Aggregates—never the good guys—are regarded as empty and not the self.

“Friend Kotthita, bhikkhu who is an arahant should carefully attend to these five aggregates subject to clinging as impermanent, as suffering, as a disease, as a tumor, as a dart, as misery, as an affliction, as alien, as disintegrating, as empty [suññato], as not the self [anattâ]” (S. iii. 168-169).

If we crave the Five Aggregates, being unable to distinguish (prajñâ) false reality (what is not the self) from true reality (the self), we come to suffer the same fate as the aggregates such as misery, affliction and being empty.  Later on in Buddhism, the Five Aggregate formulation in which each aggregate is not the self will change.

"Born materiality is empty of sabhava (sabhavena suññam); disappeared materiality is both changed and empty. Born feeling is empty of sabhava; disappeared feeling is both changed and empty ... Born conceptualization ... Born volitions ... Born consciousness ... Born becoming is empty of sabhava; disappeared becoming is both changed and empty. This is ‘empty in terms of change’” (Patisambhidamagga ii.178 in the Treatise on Voidness).

Later, the above changes in the familiar first part of the Heart Sutra.

When Bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara was engaged in the practice of Prajñâ-pâramita, he beheld that the five aggregates are empty of own-being (svabhâva shûnyâm/sabhavena suññam).

Here, O Sariputra, materiality is emptiness and the very emptiness is materiality; emptiness does not differ from materiality, materiality does not differ from emptiness, whatever is emptiness, that is materiality, the same is true of feelings, conceptualization, volitions, and consciousness.

All this serves to obfuscate the original Pali that the Five Aggregates are empty of self, or the same, not the self which further means, we shouldn't identify our true self, or Buddha-nature, with the aggregates.  Much later in Mahayana, the Buddha’s absolute body becomes the Svabhâva-kaya, the own-being body.  Amazing!

Common doctrine vs. perfect doctrine

Why Westerners get hooked on Nagarjuna (circa A.D. 150–250), who was regarded as the founder of the Indian Madhyamika School, is difficult to make heads or tails of.  One could easily surmise from those who presently follow Madhyamika that enlightenment is the realization of  the non-absoluteness of the world, its emptiness, in other words which has a nihilistic ring to it.  Having said that, there is no shortage of adumbrations by Western Buddhists, about what Nagarjuna was trying to say.  

Nagarjuna’s notion of emptiness (shunyata) both for Westerners and Tibetan Buddhists certainly gives some degree of consternation; which ends up painting a much different picture of Buddhism than the Pali Nikayas and the Chinese Agamas paint, both of which make a sharp, spiritual distinction between the conditioned world of endless rebirth, and the unconditioned world of nirvana.  

“[T]hat which is the unconditioned element, which has as it own nature that which is the antithesis of all conditioned things, such as earth and so forth, is nibbana, for which same reason he (next) says “There, too, monks, I do not speak either of coming” (and so on)” (UdA 392).

The great Chinese Buddhist genius Chih-i/Zhiyu (538–597 A.D.), it seems, wasn’t all that impressed with Nagarjuna's thoughts although Nagarjuna was, so to speak, the patron saint of T’ien-t’ai/Tiantai Buddhism.  Of the hierarchy of Buddhist doctrines in T’ien-t’ai/Tiantai, namely, the triple doctrine, the common doctrine, the gradual doctrine, and the perfect doctrine,  Madhyamika was ranked as common doctrine—number two.  (By the way I am indebted to NG You-Kwan’s great book, T’ien-T’ai Buddhism and Early Madhyamika [1993] without which this blog would not be possible — it is one of those scholarly works you can’t put down once you start reading it.)

Perhaps the reason for Madhyamika’s inferior ranking in Tiantai was because late in its development Madhyamika became overly concerned with the one-sided analysis of phenomenal existence; that it lacks substantiality (svabhâva).  In so doing, it forgot Buddhism is also a religion of redemption, that is, liberation from non-substantiality!  In fine, Buddhism has two sides: Firstly, the study of phenomena and, secondly, transcendence/liberation from the emptiness of phenomena.  

It was to Chih-i/Zhiyu’s credit that he saw what was happening and formulated the ‘perfect doctrine’ middle way Buddha-nature (chung-tao fo-hsing), thus identifying this with non-empty Buddha-nature.  This tallies with the Mahayana Mahaparinirvana Sutra in which “emancipation is the ‘not-empty’” rather than emptiness.  In the same Sutra it is stated: “Not-empty points to Truth, to whatever is Good, Eternal, Bliss, Self, Pure, Immovable and Unchanging” (trans. Yamamoto), which adds up to Buddha-nature.  

To digress somewhat, Chih-i/Zhiyu’s understanding of Nagarjuna’s thought comes by way of the Mahaprajñâpâramita-Shastra (Ta-chih-tu lun) which is, incidentally, taken up in K. Venkata Ramanam’s wonderful book, Nagarjuna’s Philosophy.  Unfortunately, Western scholar’s dismiss the Mahaprajñâpâramita-Shastra as not being a work by Nagarjuna.  But oddly, it is through the Mahaprajñâpâramita-Shastra that a clearer light can be shed on Nagarjuna’s recondite Mulamadhyamaka Karika (MMK) which Chih-i/Zhiyu read, although not in Sanskrit.

Chih-i/Zhiyu’s chief criticism of Nagarjuna’s emptiness seems to be that it can’t lead us to fully realizing our Buddha-nature as we must.   To be sure, it is no raft to yonder shore of nirvana.  Emptiness comes from the analysis of the samsaric world, a world which is without true meaning, that is, inherent existence (svabhâva); which is also rife with speculative fictions which delude us.  In such a world, we are entities of nothingness because we have no knowledge of true reality which is Buddha-nature.  It is only by awakening to our Buddha-nature that we leave emptiness and with it, samsara.

Back to the beginning of this blog, the Western attraction to Nagarjuna, particularly, his MMK stems, I think, from nihilism which, to this day, dominates the Western mind.  Many Western Buddhists are still in love with nihilism.  They thrive on such bleakness.  And rather than turn within to realize their Buddha-nature, instead, they wish to destroy everything spiritual and transcendent in human nature.

Invasion of the Dharma Snatchers

Those of us who remember the original 1956 film, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, were certainly impressed with it—I know I was. It wasn't exactly a horror story. In the film, we follow participants in a mystery about a strange kind of alien invasion.  Seed pods are hidden everywhere around us which duplicate their human victim, cell for cell.  Finally, at a certain point the victim falls asleep then the duplicate takes over, completely.  Each duplicate looks the same as the host.  But there is something not quite right.  The duplicates have no emotions.  They are soulless automatons.

 

In somewhat the same way, the Buddha's Dharma, or teaching, has fallen victim to a duplication process in which an alien form of Buddhism is emerging which is not the real Dharma of the Buddha.  In fact, it is materialism wearing the robe of a Buddhist monk which is really a soulless, nihilistic doctrine that asks each of us to accept our fate, that life has no meaning and that when we die, there is no more.  It's back to the carbon cycle, in other words.

The original Dharma of the Buddha was simple and straightforward.  We are intrinsically  not the conditioned psychophysical body we believe we are which we cling to, tenaciously.  The Buddha perfectly distinguished his true self from what is not the self, namely, the psychophysical body.  This body is conditioned, he is not.  The Buddha realized nirvana which is a perfect state of unconditionality which is not born, does not die, does not pass away to become again born and with birth, suffer.  From his awakened vantage point the Buddha taught the many how to distinguish the conditioned false self, consisting of Five Aggregates, from their true self.  He taught the many various ways of how to regard the psychophysical body so they would not cling to it; so that they might liberate themselves from its bewitching power and realize nirvana.

When Buddhism came to the West, the alien invasion began.  A duplicate Dharma was contrived by the materialists who embraced Buddhism as a doctrine of materialism.  This false dharma taught that when we look into our conditioned psychophysical body we will find no such thing as a self or a soul.  All is empty, like an illusion.  Our fate is exclusively bound up with this body which only knows suffering.  When death takes it away we will return to the material void.  In the meantime, we should practice the acceptance of our fate and help others to also accept it.  Those who speak of a deathless, transcendent nirvana are to be shunned.

Thus far, the Dharma snatchers have been successful with their materialist duplication of the Buddha’s spiritual Dharma.  It is not unusual to go into a Dharma center and find automatons sitting upright, believing this is the Buddha’s real Dharma.  This once living, vital person fell asleep and was absorbed by by the pod of materialism (sic), that duplicated this person cell for cell.  He now practices the false Dharma (pratirupakadharma). 

They don't get it

The views of eternalism and annihilationism are based on our psychophysical body (i.e., the five skandhas, aggregates) which the Buddha repeatedly says are ‘not the self’ (anâtman), ‘not belonging to the self’ (anattaniya) and ‘not the self and not belonging to the self’ (anattan-anattaniya).  The Buddha even equates the psychophysical organism with the Buddhist devil, Mara.  These facts have been, to my knowledge, not well addressed by many Buddhist scholars and, in particular, the Theravadins who are arguably self-deniers.  

In the Pali Nikaya discourses, the Buddha's discrimination between the Five Aggregates that make up the psychophysical organism and his self is absolutely disparate.  Here is an example:

"Wherefore, monks, whatever is material shape, past, future or present, internal ... thinking of all this material shape as ‘This is not mine, this I am not, this is not my self,’ he should see it thus as it really is by means of perfect wisdom.  Whatever is feeling ... whatever is perception ... whatever are the habitual tendencies ... whatever is consciousness, past, future or present, internal ... thinking of all this consciousness as ‘This is not mine, this am I not, this is not my self,’ he should see it thus as it really is by means of perfect wisdom.  Seeing it thus, monks, the instructed disciple of the pure ones turns away from material shape, he turns away from feeling, turns away from perception, turns away from the habitual tendencies, turns away from consciousness; turning away he is detached; by his detachment he is freed; in freedom there is the knowledge that he is freed and he comprehends: Destroyed is birth, brought to a close the Brahma-faring, done is what was to be done, there is no more being such or so”  (M. iii. 20).

Astonishingly, scholars and sectarians miss this crucial point; saying it againg,  that the difference between the constituents of the psychophysical organism and the self is  disparate.  One side is conditioned the other is not.  This fact is too conspicuous to deny if one has taken the time to read the 159 discourses in the Khandhasamyutta which is part of the Samyutta-Nikaya (I use Bhikkhu Bodhi’s translation). 

This brings up the important spiritual issue that natural human behavior is based on self-identification with the psychophysical organism in the form of “This is mine”, “I am this”, “This is my self.”  In acting this way, the worldly person (prithagjana) unknowingly mixes up unreality with true reality (this is avidya or spiritual ignorance).  When the Buddha says, again and again, with respect to each aggregate, “This is not mine, “This I am not, “This is not my self,” he is distinguishing the unreal from the real.  Buddhists who don’t get it, are still tied to the aggregate system many of whom, without realizing it, are annihilationists.