The Zennist

Something profound to offer

 I have a hunch that it is not uncommon for those new to Buddhism to say that it agrees with them in some respects, although they don’t believe everything the Buddha taught, such as rebirth.   For the beginner, picking Buddhism to be one’s main religion is somewhat like buying a used car.  The engine runs okay.  The gas mileage is good.  It will need some work, eventually.  I don’t like the color but it will suffice.  I should be able to drive it for another hundred thousand miles or so.  I suspect that what is really at the back of the beginner’s mind is that as long as the teachings of the Buddha are not too radical or opposed to materialism and empiricism (i.e., knowledge acquired by the senses), it can be accepted.  

Surprisingly, what the beginner does not know is that for the Buddhist empirical knowledge is not privileged nor is third-person research (objective research).  True science is first-person—not “I” but âtman (“I” and âtman are quite different).  The Buddhist first-person is not the same as the West’s notion of the subject or subjectivity.  

Is this starting to sound complicated?  It is when we try to put the Buddhist mind under the scrutiny of the Western mind that things can begin to get complicated.  For example, I have no trouble seeing objective research as being contained and understood within the framework of first-personhood which begins with comprehensive thinking which also lies beyond the ken of the senses.  But can the Western mind understand what the Buddha means by “Mind-only, beyond which there is no external world”?  Can it understand Buddhist consciousness by which beings transmigrate from one existence to another?  Can it understand bodies made of spirit (manomayakaya)?  The fact is, it can’t understand anything beyond the senses and their respective fields.  Nor does science even know what the universe is made of.  This is because they haven’t thought comprehensively and profoundly enough like the Buddha.  

For the beginner to become a Buddhist he must want to engage in comprehensive thinking, rather than tarry in materialism and empiricism like a child delighted by new toy or a magic trick.  Buddhism has something profound to offer the serious beginner.  It is to know the substance or essence of the universe, thereby, becoming free from the great mirage of phenomena; this greatest of deceptions; the most profound of all illusions.

 

Overcoming consciousness

Buddhist meditation has to overcome consciousness or vijñâna, which can be thought of as a refraction (= alteration or distortion) of pure Mind, always attended with subject/object modality.  It does this by a subtle penetration through the veil of objective consciousness by a conscious subject which has become, itself, progressively more subtle in its penetration.  A gross conscious subject, on the other hand, cannot penetrate through the veil of objective consciousness.  Meditation is of no value.  He ever remains a naive realist; a slave to his own crudeness.

By overcoming the distortion of consciousness, the real aim of meditation is to reach the gnosis of pure Mind which can be thought of as the universal substance or essence.  It is from where the universe begins and ends.  Here one has also arrived at nirvana or the support.  There is no more conditioning.

With the realization of pure Mind, consciousness no longer has an abiding place (thiti) with regard to Mind.  The magicians trick is revealed  (consciousness is described by the Buddha as a magician’s trick).  An important point not to be overlooked, the trick cannot be revealed unless there is the immediate and direct acquaintance with pure Mind.  As some might note, faith is required that consciousness can be transcended.

On the flip side of this, we are guaranteed to be trapped in rebirth in one womb after another since consciousness can only express itself in a show of impermanence and dissatisfaction.  This is non-finality from which craving increases instead of ceasing.  The proper goal for consciousness, however, can be for the pure subject to know the pure object which cancels it out.  This is, at once, to leave the box of conditionality and with it, unending rebirth. 

 

Buddhist consciousness

Holy Brahma!  Are modern Buddhists as crazy as I think they are?  Without question they assume that the Buddha was a hardcore self-denier.  Yet most of his discourses ask us to reject what is not the self or anattâ.  With this, also, they assume that because he was a hardcore self-denier, there is no rebirth since there is no âtman that transmigrates.  

At this point, it almost goes without saying this, but the notion of consciousness (P., viññâna; S., vijñâna) has received little if any attention by pop Buddhists.  Certainly, not by secular Buddhists.  As we might expect, consciousness is believed to be something on a par with the Western notion of consciousness.  This is altogether wrong.  There is much more contained in the Buddhist notion of consciousness than Western consciousness, even the current idea that consciousness is a by-product of the brain.

Looking at Buddhist consciousness it manifests itself through the sense organs as we might say electricity is conducted by copper wires.  When we look at the 12-links of conditioned existence, the Dvâdasha-nidâna, it is important to look at the order of the links.  Consciousness is prior to nâmarupa (lit. ‘name and form’ but more precisely, the embryo of the five skandhas or aggregates).  We always have to keep in mind what the links are.  They are about rebirth.  Without consciousness no embryonic development can take place.  For the Buddha conception is triadic.  It requires male sperm, the woman’s egg, and consciousness which is impressed with karma or samskâra.

The Buddha tells Ananda in the Mahanidâna Sutta of the Digha-Nikaya that “Consciousness conditions nâmarupa.” If consciousness were not to connect with the fertilized egg, no being would be born.  Consciousness karmically impressed, we could say, is the most essential factor for rebirth which will have to resonate, it would seem, with a fertilized egg.  No resonation, no rebirth.

The heresy of Sâti was that he proposed consciousness transmigrates unchanged (anaññam) instead of changing insofar as it is karmically impressed.  This consciousness is samsaric consciousness, the surviving factor of an individual that re-enters womb after womb (gabbhâ babbham).

“That kind of monk certainly will experience misery after death going from womb to womb, from darkness to greater darkness” (Sutta-Nipata, 278).

Keeping this in mind which is a decent, during meditation consciousness is modified and elevated until it is transcended, vimutti.  The stages of meditation are called abiding places of consciousness (D. ii. 68).  Ultimately, the mode of consciousness (which is the substance of Mind) must cease altogether despite the hyper-elevated states which are experienced by the meditator.  The meaning of consciousness or vi-jñâna by the prefix “vi” splits jñâna into subject and object that can produce a vicious circle.  Consciousness, we might say, ends when the pure subject beholds the equally pure object.  All difference and separation now collapse.  The adept returns to the source of all.  This is nirvana.

By way of adventitious defilements

Sometimes I get the impression that Dogen’s Zen, Dzogchen and Mahamudra are trying to bring us to the realization of pure Mind by way of Mind’s adventitious defilements and delusions—not by the direct realization of Mind or the luminous Mind, itself.  This is the same thing as believing that because certain Sutras tell us that our phenomenal world is only a projection of absolute Mind or all things have the Buddha-nature, we should conclude that all things are now enlightened.  This reminds me what Dogen once said, "Seeing the Buddha-nature is seeing a donkey's jowls or a horse's mouth." 

 Here the practice is about being aware of whatever arises in your mind as being the play of wisdom. You don't have to penetrate beyond this veil to the core of pure Mind, itself.  All that is going on in your head, right now, is a manifestation of Buddha Mind.  Practicing this more and more, soon you will come to believe that samsara is nirvana and any physical thing that you do, such as sitting, is Buddha activity; the very expression of enlightenment. 

But what is the realization of pure Mind is precisely the absence of adventitious defilements from the mind in one moment.  Suddenly, conceptualizations stop.  In the next moment non-conceptual gnosis is attained.  We realize that we have transcended all modes of consciousness.  We are Mind substance—but we have always been Mind. But now it is confirmed whereas before we wallowed in avidya unable to, let us say, distinguish clay from a pot made of clay or hemp from a rope made of hemp.  

 The non-eternal world can’t be the same as the eternal Buddha-nature—it simply cannot reveal; it to us.  To believe such is to be caught in false eternality.  The clear light or luminous Mind cannot be the ordinary maculate mind which is not luminous.  This is like mistaking muddy water for clear water.  Nowhere in the conditioned world is to be found the unconditioned world of the Buddha.  This is like taking poison for medicine or brass for gold.  Nor does it make any sense to believe that if the deceptive, monkey mind is realized this is Buddhahood, but if not realized, this is samsara!

Why can't we have smarter Buddhists?

Looking at Wikipedia's Glossary of Buddhism, when it comes to the important word âtman, I am guessing that it was probably put there by someone who pulled it out of their arse. I am also guessing that the guy never heard of Yaska's hermeneutical work Nirukta which, by the way, predates Buddhism.  The Nirukta is the oldest Indian treatise on etymology, philology and semantics. 

This important text also happens to give the root terms of âtman which are √at (constant motion) and √ap (permeation).  Âtman does not literally mean "self" or "I" or "ego." I hate to say this, but this is just more evidence of Westerners trying to force âtman into a mold they would much prefer—but is incorrect.  Of three meanings Yaska gave âtman the third is the one for our purposes. It means the ultimate sentient principle or better, the animative principle (cetanatattva).

As far as âtman relates to Buddhism (attâ in Pali which comes from Prakrit)—staying clear of the sectarian doggie poop—âtman is not the bad boy. Throughout most of the Buddha's discourses such as the Samyutta-Nikaya, the negative âtman, this being anâtman, is used for a special purpose: We are to reject what is not the self or anâtman—not the âtman! We could also put it this way: The purport of anâtman is all identification with conditioned things such as the five grasping aggregates must be got rid of.  The Buddha even tells his followers: "Abandon desire for whatever is anâtman" (SN 22:68).

Based on the correct meaning of âtman, which is the animative principle, it is not to be found in essentially conditioned and mortal things such as the five grasping aggregates.  Neither is the Tathagata or nirvana. 

 

Real Buddhism is in the discourses of the Buddha

 The Buddha was an original genius who uncovered the mysterious, heretofore, concealed Dharma in contrast with worldly reality (samsara).   

“The Dharma obtained by me is profound, of deep splendor, difficult to see, difficult to understand, incomprehensible, having the incomprehensible as its scope, fine, subtle, the sense of which can only be understood by the wise” (Catusparisat Sûtra).

Buddhism, hence, pertains to what the Buddha taught in his discourses along with others who were his disciples who had won nirvana.  If someone claims to teach Buddhism and it is not in the discourses or stongly implied, how can it be Buddhism?

His awakening went beyond our common, sensory perception and experience.  The Buddha’s Dharma did not manifest in any all-too-human form which made it exceedingly difficult to realize.  Nevertheless, the Buddha taught mortals of their supramundane origin that they might awaken to it and attain the immortal (nirvana).  

The path the Buddha taught was not a decent by means of discriminating consciousness or even its suppression, but an ascent which involved hyper subtle introspection or dhyâna. (“Those who enter the path and practice meditation (jhâyino) are released from the bonds of Mara”, Dhammapada 276).

This Buddhism, which is found in the discourses of the Buddha, is not the same Buddhism that is being disseminated today in temples and Dharma centers.  It is a counterfeit teaching of Buddhism than is alien, in every way, to the early discourses.  By such a negative path no illumination is attained because none is believed possible.  There is only this mundane world that ends in suffering and death—no beyond or transcendent.

Even a beginner should be able to see that what I am saying is true.  How much is secular Buddhism really Buddhism, for example?  Very little, because secular Buddhism is almost completely stripped of the Buddha’s discourses.  Does it ever quote this passage and agree with it?

“And because there is indeed a world beyond, the view of anyone that there is not a world beyond, it is a false conception of his” (M. i. 402).

Even in Zen, especially Dogen’s Zen, there is very little of the Buddha’s discourses (Mahayana) given attention to.  Certainly, central to Dogen’s teaching is not the realization of Buddha Mind but, instead, zazen as if to suggest that zazen was the practice of Buddhas!  It was not.

Everywhere one looks at modern day Buddhism, the discourses of the Buddha are almost entirely ignored.  What is taught, instead, is some twisted, false representation of Buddhism that is almost incoherent, as if to suggest the Buddha delighted in teaching a kind of obscurant wisdom.  We find this especially in the teachings of nihilistic emptiness which the Buddha did not teach.  Neither did the Buddha teach there was no âtman nor did he teach that the âtman was an illusion.  In the discourses, he taught the opposite.  He told us, instead, to abandon desire for what is not the âtman (S. iv. 49) which, by default, tells us that the âtman is our refuge!

 

Attâ is âtman

The PTS’s Pali-English Dictionary, Childers’s Dictionary of the Pali Language and The Critical Pali Dictionary leave out the fact that the Prakrit from of âtman is attâ which is used in Pali.  Let me give you the entire passage from Kalatattvakosa: A Lexicon of Fundamental Concepts of the Indian Arts (2001).

“The Prakrit form of âtman is attâ, which is used in Pali.  Appâ is the Prakrit form of âtman in the sense of vyâpti (permeation); it is not used in Pali, whereas in Jaina Âgamas both attâ and appâ are used” (p. 52).

To be sure, attâ and âtman are cognate, this also includes appâ.  These terms are not pronouns which some Pali experts imagine attâ is, in the example of A.K. Warder in his book, Introduction to Pali on page 184.  Attâ coincides with the âtman of the Upanishads as Mrs. Rhys Davids insisted long ago.  

Attâ is not the lesser of âtman.  If in the Sutta-Nipata (514) it says “One who by the path made by the self (pajjena katena attanâ)” why not use the stronger “by the self” instead of the weaker, “by himself” (K.R. Norman)? The 'pro-nouning' of attâ is an attempt by some to deprive the Buddha’s words of their expressive, spiritual power.  Permit me to give an example.  The first passage is not so expressive:

“Just as if a man had a house with eleven doors and when that house caught on fire, he could flee to safety by any one of these eleven doors, so I can flee to safety by any one of these eleven doors to the Deathless” (trans. Bhikkhu Ñânamoli & Bhikkhu Bodhi).

This passage is more expressive:

It is as if there was for a man a house having eleven doors; if that house were on fire, he would be able to make himself safe (attânam sottim kâtum) by any of those doors.  In the same way I (aham) will be able to make the self safe (attânam sotthim kâtum) by anyone of those eleven doors that lead to the Undying (amatadvârânam)” (M. i. 353). 

The purport of this passage is that the self or attâ is saved by a door that leads to the Undying or amata.  This self is not a lesser self but the âtman which can also be a refuge like an island, protecting us from the flood of samsara.

 

The lie of a free sangha

First of all, excuse the pun.  I decided to join FreeSangha, another one of the typical over moderated Internet Buddhist forums that claims to be different.  They even go so far as to say,

“FreeSangha is supposed to be what it's called: FREE. For now the general rule is that no-one (and I mean no-one!) will be banned without clear evidence of spamming or repetive [sic] trolling. If this freedom is abused, this freedom of yours might be revoked, so use it wisely.”

Wonky Badger really meant to say, nobody but the blogger of The Zennist will be banned because he clearly shows that what is being disseminated by the moderators is not the Buddhism found in the discourses of the Buddha. 

For those of you who remember the now defunct E-Sangha, FreeSangha and other Buddhist Internet forums tried to turn over a new leaf in the aftermath of E-Sangha’s abusive track record.  They all claimed that they didn’t want to repeat E-Sangha’s mistakes.  But they largely failed.  The owners of these forums didn’t understand that Buddhist moderators are never neutral.  In fact, they are extremely biased in their views about what the Buddha taught and did not teach. 

Now, instead of just one E-Sangha, there are several; all more or less run the same way.  Moderators on these forums are actually censors.  They have no real interest in insuring there is an opportunity for the broad discussion of the tenets of Buddhism and current Buddhism.  Instead, what the job of the moderator is as censor is to make sure the ideas of secular Buddhism seem persuasive.  On the other hand, anyone who makes a persuasive case against secular Buddhism is to be eventually banned. 

More specifically, the job of a moderator is to insure that the subject of rebirth, postmortem survival of consciousness, and the transcendent (nirvana) are not fairly discussed.  Above all, a discussion about the self or âtman in Buddhism and that it is the self that realizes nirvana, should be forbidden.  

Any beginner going to a Buddhist forum who wants to learn something about Buddhism is making a huge mistake.  What they will learn is pretty much secular Buddhism which is not Buddhism.  Secular Buddhists are Buddhists in name only; not by way of doctrine or practice. Above all they reject rebirth and nirvana.  In their book of lies, there is only samsara—nothing outside of it.  When you die, that’s it.   

If I have offended anyone, I am truly happy.  If I have made secular Buddhism seem like a fresh pile of doggie doo, I am happy for that.  As for all of the moderators out there, you’ve made some very bad karma.  You could end up in the Niraya Hell.  If you do, the Buddha has promised me a ringside seat to watch you get what you justly deserve. 

The absolute finality of death is not so certain

The transformation of the Buddha from a light bringer to a secular Buddha has been made possible by ignoring much of what the Buddha taught, especially, when it it is not well understood in the first place having nothing in common with modern secular society which worships at the golden calf of materialism guarded by the high priests of holy science.

But the sciences like any other institution is a mix of the good, bad and the ugly.  It would not be false to say that the sciences have their share of dogmas that the bad and the ugly hold dear.  They could not care less if the data goes against their prized dogma, in the example of cosmological redshift or black holes.  These people will defend their turf to the hilt; and woe unto anyone who raises a sword against them, and their golden idol.  

When it comes to near death experiences (NDEs) which further opens the door to the acknowledgement of the postmortem survival of consciousness, which the Buddha claimed happens, consciousness being the transmigrant, the bad and the ugly side of science comes out in full force.  These materialist inquisitors, who could not care less about the so-called neutral position of science, are quick to let their a priori prejudices become the basis of a new Malleus Maleficarum (The Hammer of the Witches).  

But now let's cut to the chase: Why are these people so up in arms when it comes to NDEs and what it implies, namely, postmortem survival?  The answer could prove controversial and unwelcome.  It might be because the answer, itself, is to be greatly feared if true.  It reveals that cognitive dissonance has been going on for some time. 

This means that when a person finds themselves confronted by two mutually exclusive things such as death without postmortem survival and rebirth, the subsequent tension generates certain actions to reduce the conflict.  This begins a drive to suppress what is believed to be the most dissonant of the pair and by doing so, learn to live with the less dissonant.  But then what if the more dissonant of the two starts finding reasonably solid evidence in the form of NDEs?  The scary thing happens: We have to face the fact that not only will there be postmortem survival for us but what if this survival means we have to come back into another life far worse than the one we just exited?  Of course, there is no absolute certainty that this is true but on, the other hand, since we’ve been born once already there is less absolute certainty that we will not be born again.

 

 

The fall of secular Buddhism

Generally speaking, if you throw out all the religious terms in Buddhism such as rebirth, the Buddha’s ability to see what happens to beings after they die, and throw out other things that don’t fit with a materialistic society but keep Buddhist rituals an robes, including meditation and mindfulness, you have secular Buddhism.

Secular Buddhism can be both hardcore and soft. It can be against anything that smells of religion, including metaphysical doctrines—even mysticism— considering these to be illegitimate insofar as they go beyond reason and empirical investigation. Or it can be tolerant of religious propositions, etc., but only if they are politically correct and don’t go too much against the times.

More fundamental to secular Buddhism is the belief in the adequacy of reason and empirical investigation.  This, of course, assumes that reason and empirical investigation, as tools, are fully capable of understanding the Buddha’s awakening.  Any well educated person, therefore, should be able to understand the Buddha’s awakening by reason alone which makes faith unnecessary.  But this is impossible.  To make reason and investigation work requires a certain amount of dumbing down and revisionism of Buddhism, itself, since Buddhism, as it stands in the discourses, is not yet well understood, even by Buddhist scholars.  Gautama is not modern by any stretch of the imagination.  His nirvana, in fact, defies modern explanations.  

The Buddha of the discourses is neither a man of reason nor a man who accepts the validity of empirical investigation.  His awakening transcends these, arguably, secular positions such that it is independent of all sensory evidence.  The Buddha even goes so far as, absolutely, to deny that his religion (dharma) is his own devising which has be hammered out by reasoning and based on investigation (MN #12 Mahasihanada Sutta).  In addition, he made it very clear that anyone not giving up this view is consigned to Niraya Hell!  Yes, those are pretty strong words which go to underscore the fact that the Buddha’s awakening went beyond the sphere of reason and investigation which are, structurally, important to secular Buddhism without which it falls.