The Zennist

The big complaint

Q:  What is your main complaint with the West’s handling of Buddhism?

A:  My sense is that Westerners have made themselves the main arbiters of what passes as orthodox Buddhism.  There is a kind of “Buddhist correctness” out there which you are not supposed to trespass.

Q:  Could you give me an example?

A:  The obvious and most important one is the denial of self doctrine. This doctrine, which is only a theory, helps to push Buddhism towards nihilism and Western materialism.  We are supposed to believe that anattâ means there is categorically no self.  That is dead wrong.  Anattâ is most always used with the Five Aggregates which make up the psychophysical body.  For example, material shape is said by the Buddha to be anattâ or not my self.  The real no-self doctrine, simply stated, is this:  We are not to regard the Five Aggregates or the same, our psychophysical body, as our self.  This implies that our real self is transcendent.  The Theravadins have turned the anattâ doctrine on its head not understanding that we are to deny what is not the self rather than the self.  They’ve made the anattâ doctrine into the categorical denial of self doctrine.  Now we are to believe that we are just a changing bundle of transitory elements which arise and disappear which implies that nirvana is annihilation.  You can see where nihilism comes into the picture.  All is for nothing, which subsequently glorified by latter day Buddhists as emptiness or shunyata.  Another example is rebirth.  Modern Buddhist correctness wants you to believe rebirth is not real since there is no self which transmigrates.  This is hogwash.  It is to be rejected.  What transmigrates is not the self but, instead, consciousness.  Consciousness is the subject/object mode—nama-rupa.  You are the subject, here is your object, a body through which a world is perceived, a world only relative to this human body.  When you crap out—you—the subject, immediately has another object-body.  It could be a hell being or a ghost body.  This consciousness rebirth goes on forever until we figure out out to escape. 

Q:  How do you stop Westerners from being the main arbiters?

A:  I think it is important for those in academia to examine, and if needs be, challenge so-called mainstream Buddhist assumptions.  Even if it means having to debate with one’s colleagues.  The public should not be left with the impression that scholars agree on what the Buddha taught because, as a matter of fact, they don’t.  Why, for example, should a well read Buddhist scholar believe all of what Steven Collins says, in his book, Selfless Persons?  Collins is not writing about what the Buddha may have taught.  He is writing about the Theravada account of what the Buddha may have taught which is somewhat the brain child of Buddhaghosa (circa 5th-c C.E.) who, incidentally, burned the Sinhalese Buddhist canon after he translated it into Pali (cp. Dutt, Buddhist Monks and Monasteries of India, p. 253).  Least of all does pop Buddhism have the answer to what the Buddha taught.  Most of their ideas about Buddhism are not grounded on any solid evidence.  The public needs to know this.  Also they need to learn to be skeptical of who teaches them Buddhism.  This is why I rail against Stephen Batchelor and those who support secularizing Buddhism.

Q:  What about Zen—Zen in the West?

A:  It is still fishing for what Zen is really all about.  It hasn’t dawned on enough Western Zennists that an intuition of pure Mind is absolutely required.  Failing this, they then confuse pure Mind with awareness which is crazy.  The two are not the same.  Being aware of slicing an onion is not Buddhahood, or being intensely aware of doing zazen.  The goal of Zen is to see our true nature which is pure Mind.  Pure Mind is an essence or substance—not something psychological like awareness.

Q:  What do you recommend be done to correct Zen?

A:  Get away from Dogen.  There is only one way, as I see it, to really study Zen.  Study the old Chinese Zen masters and the Korean Zen masters like Chinul, and forget Dogen.  Of course feel free to study Dogen—but forget Zen.  Remember, it was Dogen who said of Zen that it comes from the pretensions of bald headed little beasts!  Why read Dogen’s strange spin when it is better and easier to read the Chinese Zen masters who made Zen essentially what it is.  Read the creators—not the student.

Q:  Are you against seated meditation?

A:  Only Dogen’s idea of it which means to be solely engrossed in sitting.  That is the way I read his shikan-taza.  Sitting is only a means of freeing the mind from the demands of the body so it can uncover pure Mind which, although, right in front of the adept’s nose, is not recognized by him.  We need Zen teachers who teach pure Mind night and day; who ask their students when they are clearing away brush, for example, “Where is pure Mind right now?”  If this is not done, what is the point of Zen?  Of course this means the Zen master wouldn’t have any students left!  They would be angry and almost terrified to be pushed like this, especially by somebody who has seen, firsthand, pure Mind.

Q:  If Westerners are going to be main arbiters of what passes as Buddhism and Zen, is there any hope left for Buddhism in the West?

A:  I still believe there is.  Although The Zennist has its enemies, I know there are a lot of Westerners who would “get Zen” fairly fast if they were taught by someone who has had a glimpse into pure Mind.  At least they would get empowered and sense some light.  I started this blog believing that some Westerners are turned off by pop Buddhism but would be turned on to know that Buddhism is really a form of Asian gnosticism or if you like, Indian gnosticism.

Zen litmus test

To understand the literature of classical Zen and to appreciate its beauty and profundity, is to view it through the realization of pure Mind or Buddha Mind (these terms are just metaphors for the absolute).  Where such discerning insight (prajñâ) is lacking, symbolized by Manjusri, Zen is difficult to lay a hold of, intellectually.  It seems almost irrational although it is not—not from its own side.

Truth be known, we are pure Mind.  But such a mind as this is not an object we are familiar with.  We don’t recognize it no matter how hard we try.  Nevertheless, by great effort on our part, we have to discover it—see it, directly, for ourselves.  Then once seeing it, we can follow the sermons of the old Zen masters, perhaps grinning most of the time.

To get a sense of what I mean here is some material from Albert Welter’s book, Yongming Yanshou’s Conception of Chan in the Zongjing Lu (2011).  With pure Mind this is easy stuff.  Without it, not so easy. 

To present a framework for correct understanding, a kind of litmus test for correct Chan practice that is in accord with Buddhist teachings and principles, Yanshou present ten questions.  Affirmative responses to the following indicate that one's Chan practice is faithful to Buddhism.

1. Do you thoroughly understand seeing [one’s] nature, as if delineating and contemplating phenomenal forms similar to someone like Manjursri?

2. In everything you do—whether encountering situations or dealing with externals, seeing phenomenal forms or listening to sounds, raising a foot or lowering a foot, opening the eyes or closing the eyes—do you illuminate the implicit truth [ zong ] and comply with Buddhism?

3. Do you read the teachings of each age and the statements of former patriarchs and masters, listening deeply and unafraid, completely understanding the truth in all of their teachings and not doubting it?

4. In response to different [types of] difficult questions and all manner of trivial queries, are you able to provide [answers] according to the four kinds of eloquent responses and completely resolve the doubts that others have?

5. At all times and in all situations, does wisdom shine forth unhindered and does thought after thought pass perfectly, without encountering a single dharma that is able to cause obstruction, or being interrupted for even a single instant?

6. In all the occasions that present themselves to you in the external realm, whether contrary or agreeable, good or bad, do you resist [the desire to] elude them [on the one hand] and are you always conscious of destroying [any attachment to] them [on the other]?

7. Within the realm of the mind and its objects comprised of a series of one hundred dharmas, do you get to see the extremely subtle essence-nature and the original point of rising of each and every [dharma], without confusing them with the circumstances of birth and death and the organs of sense and their objects?

8. Regarding the four types of behavior—walking, standing, sitting, and lying—do you address others respectfully and exercise restraint when replying? And when wearing clothes and eating food, performing and carrying out [tasks], do you understand the true reality of each and every grade [in rank]?

9. When listening to claims that there are Buddhas or there are no Buddhas, there are sentient beings or there are no sentient beings, do you sometimes applaud them and sometimes refute them, sometimes agree and sometime disagree, with a firm unwavering mind?

10. When you hear about how all the different kinds of wisdom are able to clearly fathom how nature and form complement each other, how li and shi are unhindered, how nonexistence and existence are one and the same phenomena and do not reflect the origin [of phenomena] itself, and how the thousand sages appear in the world, can you avoid doubting it?” (pp. 86–88).

This reminds me a little of the The Three Gates of Yunmen.  They are as follows: 1) What contains and includes the universe? 2) What stops the flow of reincarnation? 3) What is the state of one wave following another?

 

 

Unfiltered words

When I first came across Zen Buddhism, like most people, I tried to put my own spin on it, that is, interpret it through my own set of experiences and ideas.  I knew Zen signified something.  But if Zen satori were a fish, it wasn’t going for my signifier hooks.  I read a lot of D.T. Suzuki and Alan Watts.  However, the more I read I realized that the mysterious Zen fish wasn’t going for their signifier hooks either.  What Zen really signified was a complete mystery.

I think it is a truism to say that we can't help but interpret any religious discourse or teaching through our own set of experiences and ideas. However, the problem with interpretation is that we can’t manage to keep our own views separated from what the founder is saying. 

Christianity is a perfect example.  Last year I read Elaine Pagels' book, The Gnostic Paul: Gnostic Exegesis of the Pauline Letters. From her book I learned that modern Christianity is not built upon exegesis but, instead, for well over a thousand years, has been built up on years of eisegesis which is the interpretation of a text by consciously or unconsciously reading into it our own ideas.

We Buddhists are not far behind our Christian friends when it comes to consciously or unconsciously reading our own ideas into the Buddha's discourses, especially Zen (this is so when we try to understand what koans saying).  Most pop Buddhism and pop Zen books these days are a reflection of eisegesis. Almost all of them get a free pass because their readers are satisfied with the interpretation, not realizing that it is just an interpretation which has very little or no basis. 

Perhaps ironic, we human beings seem to always find the religion we are looking for. The problem is, it is not what the founder actually intended.  We have revised it to our liking.  Eventually, our religion becomes all-too-human—in some cases, no better than no religion.  Allowing a religious teaching, in this case Zen, to speak to us directly without putting our spin on it is a difficult practice to accomplish.  But only then is the possibility of satori open to us when we let the words enter our hearts unfiltered.

The necessity of self

The Buddhist self or âtman is most generally used in contrast with the Five Aggregates (pañca-skandha) which are considered to be non-self.  The self is to be thought of as spiritually separate and independent from the corruptness and influence of the Five Aggregates.  The Buddha, in fact, teaches his monks to shed their identification with the aggregates thus affirming who they really are.  The common refrain throughout the early discourses of the Buddha is always: This [aggregate] is not mine, I am not this [aggregate], this [aggregate] is not my self.

So why the necessity of a Buddhist âtman rather than no âtman?  With these words, D.T. Suzuki masterfully sums up the case for the âtman and why, by implication, no âtman or non-self is almost evil.

“Mahayana Buddhists generally understand the essential characteristic of âtman to consist in freedom, and by freedom they mean eternality, absolute unity, and supreme authority.  A being that is transitory is not free, as it is conditioned by other beings, and therefore it has no âtman.  A being that is an aggregate of elemental matter or forms of energy is not absolute, for it is a state of mutual relationship, and therefore it has no âtman.  Again, a being that has no authoritative command over itself and other beings, is not free, for it will be subjected to a power other than itself, and therefore it has no âtman.  Now, take anything that we come across in this world of particulars; and does it not possess one or all of these three qualities: transitoriness, compositeness, and helplessness or dependence?  Therefore, all concrete individual existences not excepting human beings have no âtman, have no ego, that is eternal, absolute, and supreme” (Outlines of Mahayana Buddhism, p. 144).

Compare this with the standard pop Buddhist belief that all is empty and insubstantial. Existence is impermanent and suffering and there is absolutely no self.  Accepting this wholeheartedly is what the Buddha supposedly teaches!  If this were true (and it is not) the Buddha would be teaching a religion, exclusively, of bondage with no liberation!  Buddhism would then be fundamentally evil which it is not since what it actually teaches is liberation from dependence, impermanence, suffering, and liberation from the absence of authentic selfhood. 

A materialistic soul denying religion?

The Zennist blog from what I have seen on the Internet has the distinction of being one of the few Buddhist blogs that has not followed the herd-belief that the Buddha categorically denied the self.  The implication of this is that The Zennist blog is right and the Buddhist herd is wrong, wrong in the sense of maintaining that the Buddha categorically denied the self or in Pali, attâ.  

But how can a few people be right and the huge majority wrong? (Believe me, I am not the only one who has concluded that the Buddha did not categorically deny the self of attâ.)  The obvious answer to this question is that the majority have not thoroughly and intelligently read the discourses of the Buddha; especially the discourses which directly bear on what is termed ‘non-self’ or in Pali, anattâ including the Five Aggregates from which, incidentally, the non-self doctrine is formed.  Many important discourses which bear on this are to be found in the Khandhasamyutta section of the larger, Samyutta Nikaya or The Connected Discourses of the Buddha published by Wisdom Publications.  This section consists of 159 discourses, one of which is the important second discourse the Buddha gave which is named Anattâ-lakkhana Sutta (SN 22.59) which translated is Non-self Characteristics Discourse.

Key to understanding why the Buddha did not categorically deny the self lies in knowing what, exactly, the Five Aggregates are; foremost understanding that they belong to Mara the Evil One, they are impermanent and suffering, and they are not our self.  In other words, according to the many discourses, the Buddha does not want us to identify our self with these corrupt aggregates.  This understanding goes to make up the non-self doctrine.  

Up to this point no scholar can dispute my assertion that the aggregates belong to Mara the Evil One, nor can they dispute my assertion that the aggregates are impermanent and suffering.  Nor can they dispute my assertion that these aggregates are “non-self” or in Pali, anattâ.  Now comes the part where we learn that the Buddha did not categorically deny the self.

In the first discourse of the Khandhasamyutta a householder is taught not to regard the Five Aggregates as the self.  In the second discourse we learn the Buddha teaches the removal of desire and lust for the Five Aggregates.  In the seventh discourse a worldling regards the aggregates as the self—a noble disciple does not regard the aggregates as the self.  In the ninth discourse, the aggregates are regarded as impermanent, both of the past and the future, including the present.  In the tenth discourse the aggregates are said to be suffering.  In the sixteenth discourse, the aggregates are suffering and what is suffering is non-self (anattâ).  Each aggregate is to be regarded: This is not mine, this I am not, this is not my self (attâ)’.  In the twentieth discourse, the cause and condition of the arising of the aggregates is non-self or anattâ.  In the twenty-second discourse the Five Aggregates are called a burden. Laying down the burden is blissful.  In the twenty-fifth discourse we are to abandon desire and lust for the aggregates.  In the thirty-first discourse the root of misery are the aggregates.  In the thirty-third discourse we learn that the aggregates are not our self just like watching someone burn grass, sticks, branches and foliage we would not think they are burning us.  The aggregates are not ours.  In the thirty-ninth discourse, one practicing in accordance with the Dhamma dwells engrossed in revulsion towards the aggregates.  In the forty-third discourse we are to regard the self as an island with the self as refuge with no other refuge.  In the fifty-third discourse one who is engaged with the aggregates is unliberated; one disengaged is liberated.  In the fifty-ninth discourse, we learn that the aggregates are non-self that if they were the self or attâ, there would be no affliction.  In the sixty-first discourse the aggregates are burning, thus we must have a revulsion towards them.  In the sixty-third discourse we learn that clinging to the aggregates one is bound to Mara; by not clinging to them one is freed from the Evil One.  In the sixty-eighth discourse we should abandon desire for whatever is non-self or anattâ.  In the sixty-ninth discourse we should abandon desire for whatever does not belong to the self.  In the eighty-fifth discourse the noble disciple does not regard the aggregates as the self.  He does not become engaged with the aggregates.  He regards the aggregates as murderous.  In the ninety-fourth discourse the aggregates are never permanent, stable, eternal, not subject to change.  In the ninety-fifth discourse we learn that the aggregates are foam, a water bubble, a mirage, a plantain trunk, and an illusion.  In the one hundredth discourse we learn that worldlings only produce the aggregates which are impermanent.  In the one hundred and seventeenth discourse we learn that regarding the aggregates as self is bondage.  In the one hundred and nineteenth discourse we learn that it is good to regard the aggregates thus:  this I am not, this is not mine, this is not my self.  In the one hundred and twenty-second discourse we are to regard the aggregates as impermanent, as suffering, as a disease, as a tumor, as a dart, as misery, as an affliction, as alien, as disintegrating, as empty, as non-self (anattâ).  In the one hundred and fifty-sixth discourse we learn that a view of self arises by clinging to the aggregates.

In other Nikayas like the Majjhima Nikaya also, The Middle Length Sayings, in reference to a theory of self or attavada we find the following:

“Those various views, Cunda, that arise in the world and are connected with theories of the self [attavada] or with theories of the world [lokavada]—wherever these views arise and wherever they obsess (the mind) and wherever they are current, it is by seeing them with perfect wisdom as they really are, thus: ‘This is not mine, this I am not, this is not my self’, that there is ejection of these views, that there is renunciation of these views” (M. i. 40).

Clearly this passage instructs us not even to regard theories of the self to be our self.  Sound odd?  It’s not if we understand that theories or views of self stem from the aggregates, regarding them as the self.

In other discourses (e.g., D. i. 195–197) we learn the Buddha rejected three kinds of self. They are:  the gross acquired self, the mind-made acquired self, the formless/arûpa acquired self.  This is a qualified, limited denial—not a categorical denial of the self.  The self of the Buddha and his disciples is always regarded as separate from the Five Aggregates; moreover, it is our refuge; which is also the noble witness among other things.

Buddhists who maintain the Buddha categorically denied the self offer no credible grounds or basis for their belief.  In addition, recognizing and marketing Buddhism as a materialistic soul denying religion seems to have a greater appeal to the general public than marketing it as Asian gnosticism, which it is.

Sequel to consciousness

Q:  In the last Q&A in which you talked about being stuck in the dyad of consciousness, vijñâna, it stuck in my mind.  I remembered that the fifth aggregate consciousness was like a magician’s illusion.  Considering how important consciousness is in our day and age, the subject and object dyad, to use your words, are you saying that awakening to pure Mind is the collapse of consciousness, seeing what it is really made of?

A:  You could say that.  It is the collapse of being bewitched by consciousness.  As a result we see the magician’s illusion for the first time.  It’s not an intellectual realization.  It is a real seeing or gnosis.  There is a lot of confusion about the intellectual acceptance of various Buddhist ideas such as illusion and emptiness, and full realization which transcends the intellect.  Meditation is about the latter.  All of Buddhist meditation aims for the collapse of consciousness and the subsequent seeing of pure Mind which is known by many metaphors.  This collapse is, at first, sudden and somewhat unexpected.  Eventually it become the manifestation of the Mind that is bodhi or bodhicittotpada.  And that is one super event which I described in another Q&A, Paranormal Buddhism.

Q:  Would you say that the current practices that most Buddhist practitioners are involved with are coming out of the magician’s illusion?

A:  Yes, especially zazen.  If we are supposed to think outside of the box, then sitting in zazen is like sitting in the box believing there is no outside.  When the Buddha talks about the Five Aggregates and says they are not my self, Western Buddhists take the Five Aggregates to be a box that has no outside—even though the Buddha just said that he is not an aggregate!  Western Buddhists are sometimes crazy! If a five room house is on fire and you run outside to escape, are you not outside the house?  When consciousness collapses, and Mind appears, you’re outside of the illusion of consciousness.

Q:  So are you conscious anymore?

A:  Let me explain it this way.  The strange thing is that when, as a conscious being, I look for pure Mind I can’t find it—believe me I can’t.  On the other hand, I am pure Mind.  All that I behold is a configuration of it, including the subject sitting in front of you.  Buying into the consciousness dyad of subject and object we cut ourself off from the truth and any possibility of attaining it or escaping from samsara.

Q:  But this sounds dualistic.  Is it?

A:  There is no dualism of a single substance, the One Mind, just like there is no duality of gold even though there are millions of different gold pieces.  Duality is always an illusion of the one appearing as opposed by others, or as subject facing an object.  Let me touch on rebirth for a second.  When consciousness transmigrates, the propensity for subject-objectness existence transmigrates.  But in truth, nothing from the standpoint of the One Mind is transmigrating.  However, we don’t realize this.  The worldling is clueless as to the way things really are.  The clueless transmigrant, who is always implicitly consciousness, wants the conscious life again: to be a particular subject with a particular body living isn a world of other such beings.  For a Buddha it is totally different.  The subject and object illusion is gone and with its collapse so is consciousness.  What is left is the One Mind with its limitless configurations.

Q:  Would you describe this as nirvana?

A:  Yes.  But there is no blank or big void.  Nor is nirvana a form of mystical death.  When the Buddha tries to describe nirvana to worldlings bewitched by consciousness, it sounds like nothing or just absence.  How do you explain something to creatures hooked on the subject-object dyad of consciousness?  Nirvana is no object-thing for a subject.  The subject cannot achieve nirvana, either.  Forget that!

Q:  I see why the realization of pure Mind is so important and how it can be confused with the subject.  It seems like, from what you’ve said, nirvana is just seeing nothing but pure Mind in which everything is just this Mind’s form.

A:  That is sort of true.  But it is not seeing with the subject.  I can look at the world through the eyes of the subject and can’t see anything except suffering.  When you first see the world from pure Mind, sustained by the Buddhas, which is bodhicittotpada, you might as well be in another dimension it is so profound.  I would go into it in more detail but the bulk of Buddhists, regretfully, are not ready to learn just how profound Buddhism really is.  I dare say, these people are only at the level of being able to understand the book, Jonathan Livingston Seagull, that Richard Bach wrote way back in the early 70s.  

Q:  So they have to wait for Maitreya Buddha?

A:  Even if he or she showed up, who would recognize such a Buddha?  Thank goodness, there is another more mysterious way beings are saved.  It all relates to pure Mind.  It is not powerless.

Another Zen scandal

The latest Zen Buddhist sexual scandal concerning Joshu Sasaki recently hit the pages, so to speak, although it has been around for not a short amount time.  Adam Tebbe recently covered it in the Huffington Post.  It comes in a line of similar scandals, some widely known others not so well known.  Some are still going on.  

I think we all agree that religious scandals are nothing new under the sun, especially those which are sexual.  Looking at Zen, there is an unpleasant side to such scandals, if you’re the victim, and a not so unpleasant side which opens the door to ambitious Dharma heirs who can take off on their own, teaching their own version of Zen now that the big honcho has fallen.

All this leads to the question, “Is this really Zen?  And what should Zen really be about?”  I think for most Westerners, interested in Zen, a present day Zen institution like AZI (Association Zen Internationale/International Zen Association) is considered to be orthodox Zen.  Naturally, I beg to differ.  If we strip away the layers of structure, there is not much Zen there to examine, at least not the Zen that makes it possible to know our original nature which is central to Buddhism.  This nature, I hasten to add, unties all knots,  It causes koans to fall by the wayside.  And makes those who sit in zazen look like cloth draped over a pile of dung.

Such a structure make sexual misconduct more difficult to uncover and certainly makes it more likely to occur.  Given enough time and experience, religious institutions know how and where to bury the bodies of scandal.  As we might expect nothing really changes as far as institutions go.  Nor is one really going to learn how to answer koans or have a basic understanding of what Zen is really about.

It is more likely that we would find Zen in China's Zhongnan Mountain range where Buddhist and Daoist hermits live which I mentioned before in an earlier blog about Edward A. Burger’s documentary film, Among White Clouds.  On the same score, it has always been my observation that Buddhist Dharma and Zen centers have to be run like businesses which naturally have a heavy influence on how Zen is packaged presented to the public which tends to turn Zen into pop Zen.  Underlying this, not enough glitz; and presenting Buddhism at the graduate level, nobody is interested—and no cash flow.  So Zen has to have glitz and be dumbed down to just sitting.

After the leap the path begins

In the film, The Wizard of Oz (1939), to get from Kansas to Oz requires a leap of sorts (in this case not a leap of faith).  There is no road or trail starting in Kansas that can get a person to Oz.  And then when someone like Dorthy has arrived in the Land of Oz, only then can they take the yellow brick road to Emerald City.  

Believe it or not, to take up the Noble Eightfold Path or the Ten Bhumis of a Bodhisattva requires first an initial leap.  Not a tornado, like in the film, but nevertheless an extraordinary leap is absolutely required.  It is either winning the current (srotapanna) or manifesting the Mind that is bodhi (bodhicittotpada).  These will get us to the Buddhist equivalent of the yellow brick road where begins our real spiritual journey—not before.

Where Buddhism really starts to fail is when its followers start pretending to be something they are not, not unlike little children dressing up in the parent’s clothes.  Both the attainment of srotapanna and bodhicittotpada which are leaps, are extremely rare.  One does not so easily become an Arya-sravaka or a Bodhisattva.  It is not without a huge leap—a leap not unlike going from Kansas and the Land of Oz.  

In the case of a Bodhisattva, I contend that only a Buddha can empower one, that is, initiate them into bodhicittotpada.  This means that the Buddha or Buddhas are not physical beings but spiritually real.  The Lankavatara Sutra appears to support this.  Only Buddhas can mature a Bodhisattva who imparts to them their sustaining power.  Short of this, one is only pretending to be a Bodhisattva who knows nothing about what a Bodhisattva really is.  That any of this should seem strange to us only serves to remind us how much Buddhism has lapsed.  For those of us who have faith in the teachings of the Buddha, there is more hope than you can imagine.  I learned a long time ago that the Buddhas are still around and that if you really love the teaching you have nothing to worry about.  The leap will come one day.

The Vedanta question

Prior to the end of Buddhism in its homeland of India, Vedanta philosophers raised the question of how bondage and liberation are possible if Buddhists believe there is no self or âtman, and things exist only momentarily.  I am not sure modern Buddhists would find it easy to answer this question given their belief that there is fundamentally nothing beyond the psychophysical body, and phenomenal reality has only momentary duration.

Given the modern Buddhist penchant to read only half of Buddhism, the half that is concerned with the conditioned, finite world, it should not be surprising that modern Buddhists have no idea how bondage and liberation are possible.  If we had to rely on a secular Buddhist like Stephen Batchelor to provide a coherent answer to the question, we would be out of luck.  Nothing adds up, in other words, when we scout the transcendent and believe reality is momentary all the way down!  Certainly, there is nothing of any measure redemptive with such a view—and there should be.

Over the years I have seen this view gradually gain dominance in Buddhism.  The Zennist blog is sometimes attacked as being Vedantic although this objection bears little or no relation with the actual historical facts.  If anything, the Buddhist objection to Vedanta, surprisingly, was that Vedanta stole Buddhist theories making Vedanta essentially crypto-Buddhist!  The implication here is that there is not a dime’s worth of difference between Buddhism and Vedanta.

Of course modern Buddhists don’t want to accept this as close to being the historical truth and certain sects of Buddhism don’t want to accept this view either, fighting against it tooth and nail.  Their belief all hinges on no self theory or anâtmavâda which as they present it (which is totally wrong), makes the Vedanta question impossible to answer.  The scholars and monks who support this wrong headed view seem to have spent little time and have given even less intelligent thought to the older discourses in which the term anattâ/anâtman is used.  From the huge number of discourses in which anattâ/anâtman appears we learn that we are not to regard the Five Aggregates of material shape, feeling, perception, habitual tendencies and consciousness as our self. They are anattâ/anâtman:—not the âtman.  This then makes the Vedanta question easy to answer.  Bondage arises by attaching to what is not the self (i.e., the Five Aggregates).  Liberation is abandoning the Five Aggregates. 

Characteristics of what is not my self

The second discourse given by the Buddha, which might have been around the time of the rainy season retreat, was given in the DeerPark at Isipatana.  In Pali, the discourse is named Anattâ-lakkhana Sutta (SN 22.59) which translated means the discourse on the characteristics of the not self.  

This discourse is important for the reason that the Buddha teaches his five monks the difference between what is not the self, namely, the Five Aggregates, and their self.  It is a mistake to assume that this Sutta is a direct attack against the notion of the self or the âtman.   In fact, what the five monks learn from this discourse is that they are to regard each aggregate beginning with material shape, feeling, perception, habitual tendencies, to consciousness, thusly: This is not mine, I am not this, this is not my self. By this they experience a revulsion towards the Five Aggregates, and on account of this revulsion attain liberation.

A very simple discourse, by the same token, this discourse is easily misconstrued by Buddhists who are under the spell of the sectarian teaching that the Buddha denied the self, which he did not.  For those who are earnestly seeking liberation, like the five monks in the Anattâ-lakkhana Sutta, they are intent upon discerning what is absolute from what is not, namely, the aggregates which are impermanent and suffering.  

For a certain period of time before this sermon, it was probably easy for the five monks to believe that a subtle aggregate like the fifth aggregate, consciousness, was their self (the idea that vijñâna or consciousness is the absolute principle appears in the ancient Upanisads).  They were no doubt unaware of the sharp spiritual distinction between the aggregates, which are not the self, i.e., anattâ, and the self or attâ.  

After the minds of the five monks attained perfect spiritual liberation, it is difficult to see why they would, afterwards, help propagate a doctrine which attacked the notion of a self which transcended the aggregates.  The more effective doctrine would be to teach the rejection of the aggregated psychophysical body as being the self since it is always impermanent and suffering according to the Anattâ-lakkhana Sutta.