The Zennist

The rise of irreligion in Buddhism

There are any number of self-proclaimed atheists in Buddhism many of whom are Westerners.  The idea of atheism should be the non-belief in a demiurge, that is, a creator god.  Our universe may not require a creator.  At the highest level it might well be self-generating.  Personally, I don’t mind atheists becoming Buddhists.  But this is not what is happening in Buddhism today.  I often find that those who profess to be atheists practice, in addition, irreligion.

If we accept that religion involves connecting with unconditioned, infinite spirit which is not limited and constrained in the way humans are, then irreligion carries with it a destructive intent to limit what man can know, spiritually; to keep mankind within the boundaries of the finite.  This inevitably leads us to a false and dangerous path.  It is one of nihilism which carries with it the general sense of meaninglessness and certainly the belief that all knowledge is relative.  In other words, everyone is right which can easily mean that everyone is wrong.

Those with whom I have communicated which I would regard as irreligionists, have an unconscious drive to irreligionize Buddhism.  They seem uncomfortable and irritated by the notion of a higher world that we can access by way of meditation; which is the very stuff from which our finite world is composed.  It is not surprising that they latch onto Nagarjuna by turning him into a second Buddha not even understanding the message of the first Buddha!  If I had to encapsulate an irreligionized Buddhism (Nagarjunarism) it would be found in these words:

The teaching of emptiness shows that all phenomena are free from inherent existence. They have no real basis; nor are they definable in terms of themselves except that they are dependently related to each other. Using the same line of reasoning, as we look within ourselves there is no true nature, âtman, or unchanging identity or ground. There is nothing there!

What this leaves us with, if we permit ourselves to think about it, life is a continuous struggle with no escape except death (hoping that death is final).  As Nietzsche writes in his book, Will to Power, “Every belief, every considering-something-true, is necessarily false because there simply is no true world."  Certainly from Hume to Nietzsche religion has been under siege and the siege continues which has become irreligion.  By throwing out the bathwater of religion, irreligion is also throwing out the baby Buddha.

Two different paths

At times, the Buddha’s discourses in the Pali Nikayas seem to beg simplification.  Yesterday, I had one of those simplification moments while going on my daily walk admiring the autumn scenery (around here it looks like a Hallmark greeting card).  

I saw beings going towards the life or existence of conditioning (F., conditionnement) becoming entangled and bound up with phenomena.  This includes entering into impermanence, suffering and loss of self.  The drive or urge towards the conditioned, if I may call it that for now, was by desire, thus, being attracted to things; being, also, caught up and lost in things.  While trying to escape from this, beings were unsuccessful.  They fell prey to other attractions which only proved to be impermanent.

Quite the opposite, I saw Buddhas going towards the unconditioned, free of entanglement in which the noumenon grew in magnificence.  Phenomena became more translucent.  It lost its power to attract.  The drive towards the unconditioned was penetrating.  It was the straightforward Mind (riju-citta), or you could say the Mind of compassion (karuna-citta).  It was like the rays of a divine sun jetting outwards with nothing being to resist these rays.  In the Avatamsaka Sutra it says: "The Buddha radiates light pervading the world. . . ."  However, those caught up in desire who are attracted to the world of conditions cannot perceive or sense, even at a subtle level, the Buddha’s glorious light.

Getting to the Buddha’s level first requires renunciation of the conditioned world.  It cannot be saved the way it wishes.  It is hopeless to think otherwise.  The most difficult part is to comprehend that what we perceive through our senses has no reality.  Only what the world is composed of is real; moreover, we are this very substance although we don’t as yet apperceive it because we are still bewitched by the conditioned world.  We have to awaken from our long slumber.

Changing context

Heinrich Dumoulin’s book, A History of Zen Buddhism (1963) might well need to be updated given that we know much more about Zen from the hoard of manuscripts found in a sealed cave at Dunhuang.  But this doesn’t change the overarching context of Zen Buddhism that he gives the reader.  

On the other hand, history, in many examples, can be nothing more than a collection of discrete primary documents such as dairies or manuscripts.  This is not yet with a context.  The task of a historian like Dumoulin is to contextualize these documents.  In the case of Zen, its context is an association that takes place between certain ideas found in various documents.  These ideas must in some way cohere thus forming a context.

Based on all the historical material thus far discovered, Dumoulin has captured the context of Zen when he said, “Zen is the school of enlightenment born from the mystical stream in Buddhism” (A History of Zen Buddhism, p. 52).  Even before Zen became a “school” or “tradition” (ch’an-tsung) in the ninth-century, going as far back as the Lanka School in which Zen is rooted, enlightenment was central.  And it was central because the mystical stream of Buddhism was still flowing.  It had never stopped despite China’s political ups and downs.

One can hardly read translations of the sermons of Zen masters, in the example of Thomas Cleary’s fine little book, Teachings of Zen, and not find the enlightenment theme expounded in various ways.  But this doesn’t mean that Zen is free of being de-contextualized and re-contextualized in which Zen is about sitting or learning to live in the moment.  Zen, in this form, is no longer a school of enlightenment or kensho.  We are not trying to see ultimate reality and become Buddha.  Dumoulin’s context no longer applies in many circles of Zen. The new, revised context, it seems to me, is Zen has to help people who have no real interest in enlightenment but still want to pretend that they are seekers of the Way so they can feel ‘as if’ they are enlightened or at least getting close to enlightenment.  But this will never be Zen.

Dropping our reality

For the sake of discussion we must assume that from the perspective of a Buddha, that is, sub specie aeternitatis, things do not fundamentally exist the way ordinary beings imagine they do.  Again, from the perspective of a Buddha or absolute Mind (ekacitta) everything is dream-like, even nirvana is like a dream.  Sentient beings are illusory, as well. There is no more to strive for or to save. Above all, suffering is no more.  This is really universal  nirvana.

Now let’s switch over to the world from the perspective of the suffering individual.  The individual has a difficult time perceiving the world the way a Buddha does.  As a matter of fact, it is impossible to perceive the world the way a Buddha does because the individual has not fully shed the illusion of individuality, namely, the five skandhas of material shape, feeling, perception, volitional formations and consciousness.  It means nothing to them if the Heart Sutra says the five skandhas are empty of intrinsic nature or svabhâva.  They understand emptiness to be real and intrinsic nature to be illusory!  What has happened, they’ve just shifted what was once considered by them to be real, namely, the skandhas over to emptiness, as if emptiness were ultimate reality.  They don’t realize that a Buddha has abandoned both the skandhas and emptiness.

From the Buddha’s enlightened perspective there is nothing attained as an ordinary being might imagine.  Simply, the Buddha has completely removed the illusion of non-buddhahood.  Being free of such an all pervading illusion cannot be described.  In order for the sentient being who is still deeply caught up in the illusion, the path that has to be taken to remove it is altogether different than the world of the Buddha.  One might read the Heart Sutra a thousand times.  It is useless.  It’s like showing starving people pictures of bread.  The point is to remove the illusion.  There is nothing to add in this process.  It seems difficult for the individual to understand how illusion is removed insofar as what is believed to be real is what has to be removed.

The confusing world of bodhicitta

Bodhicitta (the mind that is bodhi) can be a confusing term.  As early as the Samdhinirmocana Sutra, Bodhicitta can either be relative/conventional, which is samvriti-bodhicitta or it can be absolute, which is paramartha-bodhicitta.  Samvriti-bodhicitta denotes aspiration as with a vow and actually carrying out the vow.  Still, this is not the same as paramartha-bodhicitta.   At this point, it starts to get confusing.  

More than often I am inclined to suspect that those who have taken the vow of a Bodhisattva assume they have attained paramartha-bodhicitta.  However, the aspiration or vow cannot bypass paramartha-bodhicitta which is actually manifesting the Bodhi Mind (bodhicittotpada).  With paramartha-bodhicitta one, so to speak, is a baby lion who will grow up to become a big Buddha lion. On the other hand, with samvriti-bodhicitta one is not a baby lion; its more like a dog or a chicken aspiring to be a lion.  

We note that in the Brahmacarya chapter of the Avatamsaka Sutra that "at the initial moment of the activation of the bodhicitta [utpada], full enlightenment is attained."  Obviously, this is paramartha-bodhicitta and not samvriti-bodhicitta.  When Zen master Shen-hui is talking about Bodhicitta in this passage it seems that he has in mind the conventional or samvriti-bodhicitta. 

Since you have already come to this ordination platform to study the perfection of wisdom, I want each and every one of you to generate the unsurpassable bodhicitta both mentally and orally and to become enlightened to the cardinal meaning of the middle way in this very place! (Seeing through Zen by John R. McRae, p. 55–56).

It is hard to imagine that new ordinands will suddenly achieve highest Bodhicitta even with a rousing sermon by Shen-hui.  From this we might even surmise that in the early formation of Zen teachers, like Shen-hui, confused Bodhicitta for sudden enlightenment.  In any event, it is not difficult to confuse samvriti-bodhicitta with paramartha-bodhicitta.  But this was not always the case.  Nagarjuna explains it quite nicely in this passage from his Bodhicittavivarna. 

When a Bodhisattva, having practiced a course by way of mantras, has thus produced the bodhicitta that in its relative aspect has the nature of aspiration, he must by means of meditational development produce the absolute bodhicitta. 

Looking for the proper territory

Most everyone with a brain understands that the map is not the same as the thing mapped.  Using a map to find an old abandoned gold mine it first helps to be in the territory where the old mine is and have a compass.  When we think about this in the context of what we have read about Zen, nothing in print or in our imagination is that living truth of awakening.  We don’t have any idea what kensho, nirvana, pure Mind or enlightenment really is.  We’ve never been there. 

Buddhism has given us a map in the form of the discourses of the Buddha and the sermons of the Zen patriarchs.  But we haven’t a clue as to the thing mapped.  The maps are not only strange but the territory they describe is not something determinate that we can, easily, put our finger on.  

I remember my first days with my Zen teacher.  I knew I really didn’t understand the texts he was reading from.  Nothing was familiar to me.  About the only book in the small temple library I could understand, partly, was Zen in the Art of Archery which  was a short book written by Eugen Herrigel.  My orientation was still very much external and physical.  I understood about awareness.  I learned the routine of the temple, easily.  Zazen did not prove difficult.  But the main maps of Zen I couldn’t understand.  To my mind there is no such territory.  For all I knew, the maps were representing a fantasy land.  But when Herrigel said things like:

In this respect Zen is akin to pure introspective mysticism. Unless we enter into mystic experiences by direct participation, we remain outside, turn and twist as we may. This law, which all genuine mysticism obeys, allows of no exceptions. It is no contradiction that there exists a plethora of Zen texts regarded as sacred. 

I was back on track, at least to begin looking for the proper territory which the maps of Zen were describing; which I knew was deep within me.  After a while I began looking into my mind more closely; to the thoughts and the internal dialogue that were going on in my head.  At some point in finally sunk into me that Zen was a path for mystics.  It can only be understood by the mystic.  Anyone who believes that Zen can be reasoned out, or is just about accepting the here and now, is hopelessly deluded.

 

Ending the illusion of progress

Much of our progress in Zen, I would argue, is an illusion.  What I mean by this is that we imagine we are advancing, inch by inch, and getting somewhere,  hopefully to win kensho (seeing true nature).  But the sad truth is that we are not.  What stops us is that we are fixed on a kind of subtle dogma or belief.  As a result, we end  up going around in circles. 

It matters not whether the dogma or belief comes from outside of us from a Zen institution that we are involved with or inside of us as an opinion held by our personal conviction.  This  does not mean that truth as taken the place of error.  Even if we go down the road of skepticism we are still left with nothing in the way of positive truth.  We still have not arrived at the point, even with skepticism, where truth stands complete in itself so that we have no need of further negation.  In a manner of speaking, we have not yet, completely, taken away the impurities so that only pure gold remains.

Our satisfaction is short-lived when we are left with skepticism.  It means that we are unable to get beyond this kind of apprehension to a surer ground in which we see the world before us as a configuration of pure Mind.  The barrier that stands in our way is always our opinions held by our personal conviction which act to determine our goal.  Such conviction keeps a lock on genuine kensho that is seeing our true nature which is the goal of Zen.

Given up our deeply held opinions held by our personal conviction, only demands of us that our concern be with trying to see pure Mind which is another way of looking at kensho.  This is a relentless, simple pursuit.  Nothing is complicated.  No beliefs or dogmas need be superadded.  Even koans become unnecessary which were developed to put an end to the heavy influence of literati Zen.  Even sitting in meditation is simplified when we try to see pure Mind.  As with my example in 1969, seeing it is unmistakable.  Such a Mind is truly empty and pure and luminous.

Curious about Zen

The curiosity seeker sees in Zen what he or she wants to see, not what Zen is in its own right.  Understandably, such seekers are only interested in following their own opinions and presuppositions about Zen.  Many such seekers do not have the time or inclination to go where Zen actually leads.  This presents a problem. It is seen in chat rooms and in Zen centers where just sitting is stressed rather than a study of Zen's central goal which is kensho (見性,seeing our true nature) which involves seeing the pure Mind.

If Zen were actually presented in its own light, I seriously doubt that the typical Westerner would find it appealing.  It is what Zen is not about which has the appeal insofar as Zen becomes the worship of mundanity in its various forms such as Joko Beck’s everyday Zen or Genpo Roshi’s  Big Mind or even secular Buddhism.  If I were to call Zen the sect of Buddhist gnosticism, who would be interested except a handful of people?

But to say that Zen is about the attainment of kensho puts it into a whole different perspective.  It has nothing to do with mundanity which is the world of impermanence and suffering; where there is no island of self which the flood of samsara can’t overwhelm.  To reach kensho requires more of us than we can imagine.  To cure ourselves of suffering, which only kensho can accomplish, demands renunciation of this world; that we abandon desire for it believing that it can alleviate suffering.

Let me be blunt, the curiosity seekers don’t want to attain kensho, not if it means giving up this world as payment.  This seeker is still in love with the toy store of samsara and what he believes it has to offer.  Zen for this person is a quick fix, a quick way to sooth his wounds in a world he still cherishes and wants to succeed in.  He hopes that Zen will give him an advantage.  But Zen doesn’t give anyone an advantage.  Its only message is attain kensho; don’t fail.

 

The problem with individualism

A brief definition of “individualism”, a term born from the French Revolution, is glorification of the finite person, which in Buddhism might be described as glorification of the corporeal body (i.e., the Five Aggregates) which undergoes biological birth and death.  It is also recognized in Buddhism as asmimâna or the I-concept.  It is akin to the Western notion of individualism.  Such individualism, in its strongest form, leads to vanity and selfishness.  As a political phenomenon it is oligarchy, that is, rule by the privileged.

Judging the conversation that covers Zen and modern Buddhism much of it stems from the individual perspective or I-concept which functions as a criterion.  This leads, in my opinion, to Buddhist logomachy, i.e., a battle of semantics, in which there is no real awareness of the meaning of Buddhists terms, especially, when we enter into Zen and what the early schools of Zen, such as the Lanka School, were trying to teach.

Until we remove the I-concept which involves, among other things, giving up the assumption that the individual can be the criterion, logomachy is not going to cease.  It hasn’t in Tibet which, to this day, is still battling over shengton vs rangtong, respectively, negation with positive implication vs negation with nothing beyond (universal negation).  What should be obvious is that Buddhism was never in the beginning meant to be a soapbox for disputes.  The only way to settle disputes is first, to realize nirvana!  In Zen it is gaining kensho seeing, firsthand, the supramundane unconditioned Mind. 

Halfway measures will not work, either.  A person cannot be half awakened and half asleep.  Ultimately, the stumbling block will prove to be individualism; that when it comes to Buddhism and Zen each of us has the right to look at Buddhism and Zen through our own special colored glasses, these glasses being the I-concept which has its own unique set of criteria for determining what is and what is not Buddhism and Zen Buddhism.

Somehow we keep forgetting that the discourses of the Buddha were supposedly composed from the state of enlightenment explaining how to reach it.  We should not assume that we can fully understand the Buddha’s teachings from the standpoint of the I-concept.  From this perspective we can easily delude ourselves into believing that enlightenment is just around the corner—any day now!

Breaking our connection

If the overarching goal of Buddhism is to end suffering, how is it done?  This is the important question.  If I cut my finger, I can stop the bleeding by compressing the cut with some sterile gauze then put on a band-aid.   It will eventually heal.  If I have a headache I can take aspirin. There are countless ways to end such suffering.  

However, the suffering the Buddha is talking about is different.  It is the suffering that constantly arises from attaching to what I believe is who I am which is the biological body together with its sensations.  Making matters worse, I only know this way of existing but almost nothing about being disconnected from it, if that is possible. Sure, I can use medicine to alleviate some of my suffering but it will do nothing to alleviate my continuous connection with this biological body.  It will not allow me to see a disconnected state. 

But, logically, a disconnected state I must apprehend and realize.  I can’t forever treat the symptoms and neglect finding a true escape from this troublesome biological body!  In Buddhism, this is what meditation is all about.  The way or the path of disconnecting with the biological body.  Somehow, the connector, which is I, has to disconnect to see what is other than this biological body of suffering.  This implies that I am in the vicinity of the disconnected but do not yet realize it, not in the way I realize I am still connected with suffering because of the biological body.

The most difficult part of disconnecting completely from the biological body is that abandoning defilements is limited; which only leads to absence.  In other words, abandoning defilements doesn’t automatically mean direct gnosis of pure unconditioned spirit which has never undergone rebirth into various forms insofar as it is empty of conditioned dharmas.  The real purpose of such abandonment is to reach a positive unconditioned state of absolute pure spirit in which no further abandoning is necessary.  Only here are we disconnected.  

The connector, which is I, was all along self-sufficient pure spirit.  By glomming onto the configurations of spirit, unbeknownst to me, I became continually connected with and entrapped in samsara.  I could not distinguish between myself as pure spirit and the configurations of spirit.  This was my ignorance or avidya.