The Zennist

Does not exist after death?

The Venerable Yamaka (Samyutta-Nikaya XXII, 85) misunderstood the Buddha’s teaching insofar as he believed that after removing the defilements or âsavo, in the case of an Arhat, there is nothing beyond the body after its death (in essence, this is the teaching of annihilationism).  Yamaka said:  

As I understand the Dhamma taught by the Blessed One, a bhikkhus whose taints [âsavo] are destroyed is annihilated and perishes with the breakup of the body and does not exist after death.

This is like believing that when a whirlpool, which is always in flux; ever changing and impermanent, ceases, there is nothing more.  But in fact there is water when the whirlpool ceases.  When we realize that the essence of reality is not a phenomenon nor is not totally separate from phenomena, since it is constructive, in the example of the Five Aggregates, the essence is not annihilated.  We can call this essence pure Mind, or tathatâ, or the Tathagata meaning gone to thatness.

As regards our psychophysical body (the Five Aggregates) we learn to disengage with it, that is, free ourselves from it intoxicating (âsavo) power; not regarding it as our self or âtman, that is to say, not clinging to it.  The lessening of engagement with the psychophysical body also makes it much easier to see the true essence of reality. 

Moving to our dark night

It is true with everyone who takes up Zen.  To compensate for our lack of insight into pure Mind we find consolation in reading the Zen stories and koan collections like the Blue Cliff Records  and others.  This effort is more like trying to pump up water from a dry well using one of the old cast iron hand pumps.  And maybe it’s not dry.  There is water but our well is not deep enough.  We have to go much deeper.  But we don’t think that way.

We decide to turn our intellectual talents on these Zen stories and koans.  We begin to concoct complicated rationalizations.  We might join a Zen center.  Maybe talking to the Roshi will help.  But now we are on the hamster wheel of our own intellect.  After we read the various Zen stories and ponder a few koans, it seems that we haven’t moved.  We are just as unawakened as we were the first day we decided to study Zen.  We have no depth nor can we give up our intellect.  As Zen master Yuanwu put it, “You are just climbing up the pole of your own intellect and imagination.”  When we get to the limit of our intellect and imagination we have to slide back down and start over again.

No, we haven’t as yet had our dark night of the soul, our La noche oscura del alma, when we thoroughly part company with the darkness of our all-too-human world, including our cunning reason.  And why this need?  Because the pure, radiant Mind we are seeking can never be found in this world.  This world’s truth, in the end, is darkness and suffering because it is severed from spirit and life.  And we have yet to face that truth—that dark abyss.  

Going through this darkness or despair is really purification at its most profound level.  This is the time when we are most able to behold pure Mind; not before.  Our courageous seeking of pure Mind has brought us here, to the edge.  There is nothing more we can do.  We have exhausted our skillful, cunning ways.

Standing on the vestibule

Speaking for an average person, what are some practical things that Buddhism or Zen Buddhism can do?  We can imagine that it can help us deal with the day to day stress in our lives teaching us how to cope, mainly through the practice of meditation.  Maybe it can also teach us how to be aware of our actions and thoughts in our daily life.  It can also help us to accept the fact that we are eventually going to die; that death isn’t the “big blank” but a journey into a new life as a consequence of our previous intentions.  But is this really Buddhism or what Zen aims at?  I mean have we really set foot into its real territory?  The answer has to be, no.  We are still standing on the vestibule. 

Okay (it doesn’t sound good).  Let’s go this way.  Let me ask this.  Does the average person wish to get down to the task of learning what Buddhism is actually about?  They may not.  Maybe there is something else the average person can do that is close to Buddhism.  How about engaged Buddhism?  How about trying to protect our natural environment or do something to stop all the violence and poverty in the world?  But let’s be frank, this is not what Buddhism is aiming at.  This image doesn’t explain the monks and nuns in the monastery trying to awaken, that is, achieve nirvana or in Zen, achieve kensho (seeing our true nature).  Their task is much different than that of the average person who has a job and a family.  In a way, they are trying to face everything the average person tries not to face and then some, the end goal being enlightenment.

The average person prefers to be left on the vestibule with a good home, nice kids and a good retirement.  They are not quite ready to make the leap.  But I would say to the average young person, make the leap when youth is still on your side—as the Chinese say, don’t dig a well when you are thirsty.  It is too late.  Lots of karma as accumulated when you are older.  It is hard to change.  I was lucky.  I dug a deep well starting at twenty.  I am sure many of the blog readers know what I am talking about.  

The real world is external?

Dr. Henry Kissinger once wrote: "the West is deeply committed to the notion that the real world is external to the observer, that knowledge consists of recording and classifying data—the more accurately the better." This as anyone can see is the Newtonian world view which is mechanistic and the keystone of Western scientific materialism.  But this is also a modern version of naive realism that is still alive and well which as nothing to do with Buddhism. 

Buddhism has no such view especially when reading such sutras as the Lankavatara Sutra which to my way of thinking teaches what can only be described as Mind Realism—not external realism.

"Out of Mind spring innumerable things, conditioned by discrimination and habit-energy; these things people accept as an external world. I say, there is nothing but Mind” (tr. Suzuki, Studies in the Lankavatara Sutra, 255).

Mind is not out there, or in the heavens like some God.  We have to turn away from our believed real world out there.  Yes, in a way we have to renounce it.  Chasing after it will only lead us on a wild goose chase.  Even our temporal body and what goes on in our head has to be renounced.  Mind is not our body nor is it our thinking which is giving rise to various concepts and mental images.  According to the Lankavatara Sutra, Mind,

"It is not an existence, nor is it a non-existence; it is indeed beyond both existence and non-existence; it is Such-ness, it is even released from mind:  I say, there is nothing but Mind” (ibid, 255). 

Many years ago when I read this (too many to count) I was at once awed and flabbergasted.  I had no idea how to see this Mind.  I was frustrated to say the least.  I submitted myself to this mysterious path but had no idea what to expect; still I had enough faith in the Buddha’s teaching to know it lies within me to realize it.  Such is not just blind faith but requires supreme faith in oneself even if you are alone, as I was.  Zen master Lin-chi said:  "Those who study the Way these days need to have faith in themselves and not go looking for something outside.”

For anyone these days to renounce the external word as the real world, they first need faith in themselves.  Only then can they submit themselves to the mysterious path that realizes Mind.  Wanting assurances from others that this is the right way, is not adequate faith.  Only we can muster the needed faith as we read the Lankavatara Sutra.  But not everyone can do this.  The culture which For anyone these days to renounce the external word as the real world, they first need faith in themselves.  Only then can they submit themselves to the mysterious path that realizes Mind.  Wanting assurances from others that this is the right way, is not adequate faith.  Only we can muster the needed faith as we read the Lankavatara Sutra.  But not everyone can do this.  The culture which Kissinger described only destroys our faith. described only destroys our faith.

Oneness?

Oneness?  Let’s be honest, we are already one with our illusory psychophysical body and its suffering which, over time, will only become worse as we age.  Again, we are already one with the illusory external world which confronts us on a daily basis, including mother nature.  In fact, we are so one with this huge illusion we can’t find our way out of it try as we might.  Said differently, we are unable to awaken from this nightmare with its innumerable rebirths.

Only a few people such as Bodhisattvas are able to awaken from this grand illusion with which they seem to be one but know otherwise.  Bodhisattvas are people who have seen the very unconditioned substance from which this conditioned illusory world is composed. Because they have seen it, they are not caught up in the illusion, being forever one with the non-illusory substance of pure Mind.  This kind of oneness we could say is like the sun which reveals not only itself, but also the illusory differences which arise from it. 

 

The emptiness of representational thinking

The idea of emptiness is really about putting an end to representational thinking—it is not some kind of Buddhist essence.  In this regard, emptiness can never be turned into a doctrine because it is, itself, inane.  

It is important to understand that in representational thinking nothing is sacred because it is empty and not real.  What we can give thought to—even the Buddha Mind—is never other than empty, insubstantial, and unreal.  It is like thinking of a bar of gold as if this head-image of ours were actual gold.

The action of representational thinking is where ordinary consciousness as subject stands over the concept or mental image as object.  In the case of Zen Buddhism, the thing to be realized, namely, the One Mind, is represented by a concept or mental image and subsequently reified.  This is representational thinking.  We are in a delusional state inasmuch as we continually treat the One Mind representation as real.  The task of a Zen master it to wake us up from our sleep of representational thinking.  

The opposition and the confusion we experience in Zen is always between representational thinking and the object it is trying to represent but cannot be represented.  By example, there is a split between the concept-representation of Buddha Mind and the real Buddha Mind.  

Zen Buddhism is trying to stop representational thinking which the Zen adept is habituated to.  This explains the oddball behavior of the Zen masters.  The minute the Roshi sees us representing, wham!! he nails us.  The One Mind or Buddha Mind cannot be represented, imagined, or conceived.  Period.  It only becomes possible to overcome representational thinking when it has stopped all at once—suddenly (hence the idea of “sudden awakening”).  In that moment occurs the Mind to Mind transmission.

 

The introspective sciences?

Why do I find it strange that a few people object to me saying that Buddhism is an introspective science?  They shouldn’t.  Science is a nice term.  In the O.E.D. science is defined as: The state or fact of knowing; knowledge or cognizance of something.

Oh, I know why they object.  My use of the word “science” is not scientific enough—that’s it!

In this age of scientific materialism, I can’t use the word science.  But wait a minute.  The word science in the term “scientific materialism” really pertains to scientism—not science.  The two words are somewhat different.  According to the O.E.D. scientism is:

The belief that only knowledge obtained from scientific research is valid, and that notions or beliefs deriving from other sources, such as religion, should be discounted; extreme or excessive faith in science or scientists. Also: the view that the methodology used in the natural and physical sciences can be applied to other disciplines, such as philosophy and the social sciences.

This definition strikes me as being ideological, if not entirely an unproven philosophical claim about what science should be.  One also senses that behind the scenes of scientism there is a tacit assumption that what is knowable is only knowable by science.  There is no introspective knowing, in other words, which merits use of the word, science, as in the introspective sciences such as Buddhism, Vedanta and Yoga.

Scientism really has a God complex.  As a matter of fact, Western culture has a God complex—not as regards religion—but with scientific materialism which is another name for scientism.  And what has this new science brought us?  I would venture to say a lot of fictions and flops.  I still can remember President Eisenhower’s  Atoms for peace, and Project Plowshare which was going to use A-bombs to make the Panama canal wider ignoring the problem of radiation!  Scientism became the new Catholic Church and scientists the new clergy.  Perhaps their greatest crowning achievement was the invention of the Big Bang and black holes.  Of course, nobody as seen either and never will.

 

Relative and absolute nihilism

Nihilism or 'everything is non-existent' (sabbam natthî'ti) has been around for a long time in India going maybe as far back as the antiquity of the Upanishads.  It was around during the time of the Buddha and it may have even appeared in Buddhism in Madhyamaka which is based on Nagarjuna's interpretation of the Buddha's teachings.

In Nagarjuna's Pratyaya pariksa, which is the first chapter of his famous Mulamadhyamakakarika we are left with an unmistakably nihilistic view according to Thomas E. Wood (Nagarjunian Disputations, p. 49).

"1) nothing exists without having originated, and 2) nothing does originate. From 1) and 2) it follows that nothing exists at all. As a corollary, nothing perishes either" (ibid, 49).

There are, I think, two ways we can look at this kind of nihilism.  One way is that nihilism only pertains to the illusory world that we humans are born in and will surely die in insofar as it lacks intrinsic nature (nihsvabhava) which thus makes it all seem meaningless.  This is relative nihilism which takes place in the finite world of birth and death.  But this world does not pertain to the One Mind (or nirvana) which underlies and transcends the world of birth and death—its very stuff you could say.  This is not nihilism or meaningless.  Even though the world may seem nihilistic there is a way to escape its consequences.  

The second way is to proclaim absolute or universal nihilism which then becomes a kind of nihilistic idealism.  Thomas E. Wood describes it this way.

“Thus, despite the strictures against nihilism that were present in the canonical texts themselves, the possibility always lay open of claiming that nihilism was the purest, most rigorous and most consistent form of the Buddhist teachings, while the dharma theory was an inferior and provisional one.” 

This is absolute negation or emptiness since everything lacks intrinsic nature.  But what does this really mean?  That we still perceive things the same way, but everything is empty of intrinsic nature, is not any different than saying everything has an illusory existence.  In truth, illusion must appear (a non-appearing illusion is absurd). Perhaps it is more accurate to say that things which are illusory can never be other than projections or configurations of the unborn Mind.  The real then, is the underlying source of the illusion which is non-illusory, which is Mind.

Early Buddhism taught that the Five Aggregates were conditioned and illusory which were synonymous with all things (sabbe dhammâ). They were also considered to be empty.  The Buddha taught us not to identify with the illusory.  It is not our self.  Attaining nirvana was (and still is) the real goal.  It is realized by the very self (S., praty-âtman) which is non-illusory.  

Western extremism

The West is presently suffering from extremism which comes in two forms.  One is scientific materialism.  We might even call it fundamentalist science.  Everything comes from some kind of matter (we still haven’t found it) even life, itself, and certainly our brains protected by our skulls.  There is no such thing as a soul, mind or consciousness.  Mind or consciousness is only an epiphenomenon of the material brain.  When the body dies that’s all.  

The other extreme is religious fundamentalism.  Everything the Bible says is true—I mean, it’s the word of God!  Perish the thought that the words in this holy book are from mortals who had writing skills.  And while, in some instances, their words are profound, overall this holy book does little or nothing to relieve man of his suffering except preach that he must please God who brought good and created evil (Isaiah 45:7)!

These extremes have a few things in common.  One is don’t look within.  Introspection is not permitted.  There is no absolute to be found within; certainly no absolute which transcends birth and death; being and non-being which is the teachings of the Buddha.  Also don’t believe that your future life is restricted and influenced by your present actions.  Karma is not permitted nor rebirth in which each life we live is more like a way station as we try to reach the Isle of Jewels (nirvana). 

Right now the battle lines are slowly being drawn.  We have the scientists on one side and the religious fundamentalists on the other.  One side has never actually seen so much as a black hole or a tiny electron.  Thomas S. Kuhn reveals a dirty secret.

"We do not see electrons, but rather their tracks or else bubbles of vapor in a cloud chamber.  We do not see electric currents at all, but rather the needle of an ammeter or galvanometer."

We want to believe these little particles are there.  But not a single one has been seen except that certain trace effects are seen which depend upon certain preconditions.  But how precisely these traces are made is still not exactly known.

On the other side of the battle line we have clergy who have never seen God.  But they are quite certain he is real and will judge us if we don’t obey his rules.  After all, who wrote much of the Bible?  It couldn’t have come from a mortal, or could it?

Realizing the knowledge possessor

First-person thinking which is introspective (dhyâna) is based upon what a person really is, and we could say, what a person is not.  This is to say also, that with first-person thinking as introspective, there is no knowing apart from the first-person.  The first-person is thus a knowledge possessor or one seeking knowledge-of-itself.

In light of this, it is a non-sensical doctrine that asserts there cannot be a self (âtman).  To such an absurd doctrine one might ask, “By whom is there known not to be a self?”  Let's be honest, it is more logical to know that ‘x’ or ‘y’ is not my self than to assert paradoxically there is no self or me—almost to suggest, I know there is no knower.  

Surely, knowledge is for the first-person.  In the case of Buddhism in the Pali Nikayas the first-person is mistaken as to what his self really is.  He has over-identified with the wrong thing.  He believes his self is this corporeal body, its feelings, perception, habitual formations and consciousness.  Now the Buddha comes along and teaches this confused person that his self is not, for example, his corporeal body or his consciousness.  In this regard, the person comes to personally know that he is not the psychophysical body he was born with.

For the beginner and even the veteran, Buddhism can become very confusing at times.  Buddhist often fall into two traps.  One trap is to take consciousness to be their self (or sensory awareness).  The other trap is to believe that the Buddha taught that there is no self.  Truth be told, we lose our self by clinging to what is not our self, namely, the Five Aggregates.  We also lose our self by taking the materialist position that there is no self.  Importantly, to realize our authentic self is to abandon desire for what is not our self.