Where is the transcendent?

Is the transcendent important for modern Buddhism?  Let me stop here before I answer this question.  First of all, what do I mean by the transcendent?   Based on several dictionary definitions, the transcendent refers to that which is beyond ordinary experience and scientific explanation.  In Buddhism, the transcendent would be independent and separate from the psychophysical body (i.e., the five skandhas).  Specifically, this would be the self or liberated spirit (cetovimutta).  This is demonstrated in many discourses in which we learn that the self of the disciple is not connected with the psychophysical body.

Getting back to the original question, my answer is no.  The transcendent is almost always ignored by the most popular and modern forms of Buddhism especially secular Buddhism which views the transcendent as having indirect reference to deity or a religious absolute.

The modern position is certainly not in keeping with what the Buddha taught.  One can only defend such a position by ignoring most of what the Buddha taught with regard to the transcendent, for example, that nirvana is eternally beyond the pale of causes and conditions (Pande, Origins of Buddhism, 451).  Or nirvana is understood to be also eternal, changeless, immortal, transphenomenal, beyond thought, etc. (Pande, Origins of Buddhism, 473–74).

In addition, the personal realization of nirvana by the inmost self (paccattam) seems to be all but ignored along with the self being purified (visuddhamattânam) and the self being liberated (vimuttamattânam), liberation also being the meaning of nirvana which, incidentally, has no connection with the psychophysical body.

What the modern Buddhist is left with, sans the transcendent, is really nothing in the way of true Buddhism; certainly nothing in the way to the beyond or parâyana.  Such Buddhism is sham Buddhism taught by teachers who need to actually read what the Buddha taught; not making assumptions.  The big loser in all of this is the beginner who is learning the wrong stuff that, sooner or later, will have to be dropped if he or she wishes to realize the right stuff.

Failure to see and to teach the transcendent underscores Western culture’s current love affair with materialism.  Materialism also serves to ground Western culture in evil in which there is a decisive loss of the individual’s sense of spirit which opens to the transcendent.

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[minx]

My master told me;

"In all things, whether they are seen as good or bad, courage is doing what you are afraid to do. Courage in itself is nothing. It is but the determined mind, becoming perfectly one with the challenge, that is everything.

If you seek the dharma of our Lord Buddha, you need to muster up the very same oneness with the buddha nature we speak of in our sect. You need to discover and become one with this Buddha nature  in order to know and see what Buddhas knows and sees, and worldlings do not."