The Zennist

Duality, delusion and Dogen

If seeing the cow's face in the picture at the left is analogous to kensho, it is certainly not dualistic to say there is, at first, seemingly, no cow in the picture—then a cow appears.  What changes is not the given picture, itself, but how we perceive that which is in front of us.  In the example of kensho, that is, seeing our true nature which is Buddha Mind, before we saw this Mind we did not see it.  Now we see it everywhere.  What is more, there is no real duality between Mind as suchness and phenomena, anymore than there is a duality between water (HOH) and waves.  It is our deluded mind that is the problem which will not open the door to truth.

Dogen Zenji seems to have had a problem with kensho which he saw as being dualistic.  In Francis H. Cook's paper (1983), Enlightenment in Dogen's Zen (JIABS vol. 6 no. 1) we learn of Dogen's idea of Buddhism.

Dogen suspected the Platform Sutra of being a forgery, and part of the reason for this is that its teaching of kensho (見性) seemed to be at variance with what Dogen saw as the true situation. The idea of kensho, "seeing one's nature," implies a very fundamental dualism, in that there is a "nature" which is Buddha, and something else that "sees." Consequently, there is a fundamental dualism of Buddha and not-Buddha. However, Dogen's point d'appui for everything he had to say about the Buddha Way was the understanding that there is only Buddha, and therefore the assertion of something or someone seeing Buddha contradicted his understanding.

What Cook is saying can be seen here.  Dogen asserts that "All sentient beings without exception are Buddha-nature" (Shobogenzo, Bussho). However, to get to this assertion Dogen, purposely, distorts a critical passage from the Mahayana Mahaparinirvana Sutra which reads, "All sentient beings without exception have the Buddha-nature." (Italics are mine.)  The "have" denotes potentiality whereas the "are" means everything is Buddha-nature.  For Dogen there is no true nature (性) for us to see (見)—it's all right here when, for example, we look at a donkey's jowls!  With Dogen's rejection of kensho, by implication, he is also rejecting Zen which is based on kensho: "Seeing our true nature becoming buddha" (見性成佛).

Dogen seems not to want to accept that among other things, purification is necessary.  With a purified mind we experience kensho.  We see that this nature has never not been present.  Our non-seeing of it owes to our own ignorance and confusion.  In chapter 8 of the Lotus Sutra, 'The Concealed Gem', we learn that a priceless gem was sewn into the lining of a poor man's clothes by a rich man.  Regrettably, the poor man was drunk at the time and had no idea that in his clothes there was a priceless gem.  Then the rich man had to leave the poor man.  Meanwhile, the poor man unaware of this treasure continues his life of poverty until one day he again meets the rich man who shows him the gem concealed in his clothing.

In respect to this parable, the poor man is rich and sentient beings are Buddhas but neither of them know this.  For Dogen this is good enough—no need to go any further.  Dogen is suggesting that the unenlightened mind is the Buddha Mind.

Zen is the return to essence

When we sit in meditation we do not see ourselves in an unbroken descent, constantly falling into our present embodied state of conditionality in which we are this phenomenal being or function (用) having lost sight of essence (體).  With this loss of essence or substance of mind we are overwhelmed with phenomenality.  Nothing we behold is other than conditioned—a function.  Even as we sit we have no way of going beyond this dense, painful layer of phenomenality.

 Zen wants us to reverse this fall; to return to essence or the substance of mind (which I generally refer to as pure Mind).  While this sounds simple enough, sitting in meditation we can't see this essence.  We only witness phenomena such as our thoughts and emotions or bodily sensations.  We don't notice anything else.  Yet, according to Zen there is something more we are missing during our introspection.  However, its actual purity and unconditionedness almost guarantee we will not encounter it face to face without a difficult struggle.  At best, we will only be able to envisage it as a dim abstraction, further reifying this abstraction, which is not the way to go.  Despite such a warning we continue.  We even imagine the only escape from this is doing lots of zazen.  

But doing zazen can quickly become a dead-end because the practice is too focused on the physical side of zazen, the "za" side.  Here, too, does the adept receive little or no instruction as how to proceed further.  It is generally, just be aware of the rising and falling of your thoughts.  Almost always ignored, is that the adept should contemplate what is prior to the arising of thought and what does not cease with the ceasing of thought.  With  gnosis of this the adept all at once sees essence which is beyond the sphere of the mundane.

With this realization, now, during meditation, our previous world of birth and death is seen to be an illusion which depends upon essence which we have uncovered.  The illusory world—even this body and thoughts of ours—is the function of essence whereby essence returns to itself by penetrating, thoroughly, through the function/illusion.  At the instant of penetration (samadhi) we always behold essence thus becoming more and more of it hence, leaving the former illusory world behind in the sense of no longer desiring it.  This is also the perfection of wisdom (prajñāpāramitā).

Overcoming our thoughts and concepts

Trying by the force of will to suppress our thoughts and concepts to reach enlightenment is somewhat analogous to trying to stop the ripples on a pond by patting them down with our hand.  It might even be looked upon as an act of madness.  Zen's idea of having us stop our thoughts, including our concepts really means to see their substance or tathatā.  This happens instantaneously.  It just takes one glimpse.  After that we are positioned correctly: the unconditioned substance looking at its compositions all of which are dependent on the unconditioned.  Before this event occurred, we used thoughts and concepts to look for that which was beyond thoughts and concepts.  Not a very wise way of trying to see true reality.  

The instantaneity of this extraordinary seeing can be illustrated in the example of looking for our car keys.  Although we don't know a lot of details about these keys, for example, what they are made of, one glimpse of them next to a stack of books is all that it takes.  We have found them!  After instantaneously seeing this substance, we realize that it has no color or sound.  It isn't big or small.  It transcends space and time.  It is not born nor can it perish and so on.  If we try to explain it to others, they say it is nothing or emptiness.  Nevertheless, everything the Buddha said about it came to be true.  Looking back, we realize that we have always had this substance.  

There is a huge difference between, continually, suppressing our thoughts and concepts and seeing, exactly, what transcends our thoughts and concepts.  Even if we get lucky and see this luminous substance or pure Mind, which has never been defiled by thoughts and concepts, it takes time to see all the implications this jewel possesses.  This is a gradual process.  It takes time to overcome our habit-forces (vāsanā) which favor conditionality and not the unconditioned.  Day in and day out we go to this most perfect substance.  We samādhi with it, so to speak, again and again for many years.  This acts against our old habit-forces so as to redeem our true self which has long been a slave to ignorance. 

In my own example, this process eventually culminates in a most amazing encounter with what can only be described as a super-being.  If the unconditioned animative side of us (tathatā) is fully developed, which supersedes the temporal man of flesh, one truly develops into a new kind of being.  When I encountered this being it asks, at first only one thing, "Show me what you know." And if you have not awakened to the unconditioned substance or tathatā, the story ends here.  But if you have, the story continues in a thoroughly mystical way.  All of this becomes a secret but only for the reason that the an-aryans, those who live in darkness and teach the worship of ignorance, don't wish anyone to know of the unconditioned!  Such people are profoundly evil.  

Chop suey Zen?

I think sometimes that learning Zen or just about Zen, in general, is more like sitting down at a very well prepared Chinese dinner with lots of never-before-tried dishes.  Nothing looks familiar except the noodles or maybe the rice.  For the typical Westerner, who is a product of his culture, the tendency when selecting a dish to try for the first time is to be cautious.  The Westerner wants to know what the food tastes like before he eats it.  He's a bit picky, too.  If there are noodles on the table, he might go for the noodles.  Noodles are familiar.  Even at a restaurant in San Francisco like Mission Chinese Food which serves Americanized Oriental food, our voyager might pass over the tea-smoked eel when he heard the word "eel".

In various degrees, Westerners are hesitant to jump into the richness of what Zen has to offer (which is a lot of Mahayana Buddhism) preferring, instead, to stick with what is familiar.  Zazen is like the noodles at our Chinese restaurant.  Or you could say that zazen is more like Americanized Chinese food, for example, chop suey, egg rolls or fried prawns.  For the Westerner zazen is physical and straightforward.  Just sit.  That's it.

As is often the case, Westernized Zen has been made to adapt to its new culture.  If some respects it is not quite Zen yet it is still Zen, but not much.  Maybe we should call it chop suey Zen!  In previous blogs I have mentioned Zen master Tsung-mi's five Zens which are: 1) deviant Zen (外道禅); 2) common/pṛthagjana Zen (凡夫禪); 3) Hinayana Zen; 4) Mahayana Zen; 5) Supreme Vehicle Zen.  Most people interested in Zen are exposed to common Zen which can adapt to Western culture.  Secular Zen would be deviant Zen which is not consistent with the Buddha's teachings.  Both common and deviant Zen are about where most Westerners are although they believe they are practicing Supreme Vehicle Zen.

Zen only becomes Zen when we plumb the depths of our own being—not in the psychological sphere, but much deeper trying to answer the question, "What is my true nature?"  Seeing who we really are is much more fundamental than our psychological world which is tied up with the external human world which we live and work in.  Short of this depth, Zen remains a curiosity.  We never fully commit ourselves to its calling almost keeping Zen at arm's length.

Being always deceived

The lesson we need to learn from history is that we can become easily deceived by it.  Zen has a history but not a very reliable one if we examine its primary sources.  Looking at the lineage of the Zen patriarchs going back to the seven Buddhas is not going to help us to see our own true nature, or the same, our True Mind.   Indeed, there is little of it that is spiritually useful except the recorded sayings of the Zen teachers many of which emerged during the Song period. 

A more important and useful history might be one that looks at Zen from a mystical perspective; not so much Western or through the eyes of Catholicism and the Orthodox Church, but as a unique category of human thought, like philosophy, which attempts to plumb the depths of human consciousness until it comes to the very substance of thoughts.  This is not likely to happen because the West doesn't have a high regard for mysticism nor a high regard for mind or consciousness.  For it, only brains are real from which consciousness is born and dies. 

If we look at how the establishment ("establishment" meaning the guardians of materialism) treats the subject of the afterlife and karma, it's not a good picture.  The critics for one thing, are overly skeptical to a fault only granting themselves dispensations.  If one envisions a special, high cabal who determines what we are to believe and disbelieve, one exists, but not in the way we imagine it does.   It is just the invisible hand of commonsense thinking which struggles to stay at even a commonsense level.  It wants simplistic solutions, that is, treating problems simpler than they actually are.  Intelligence is altogether lacking: the capacity to see things and problems, including various situations, from their own side and foresee the hidden consequences (both short and long term) that underlie all decisions.

Taking this all in, what we are facing is a simplistic Zen that plays well to our commonsense.  If then Zen seems to become more complex than we first imagined we stand our ground choosing to fight against this complexity.  We extoll the virtues of the beginner's mind as if there is something sacred in being simple minded—a Forrest Gump of Zen.  We work to eliminate Zen which speaks of kensho.  We put our bets on the table that Buddha-nature is this world—everything is Buddha-nature.  This is the hand we play.  But we lose.  We have only deceived ourselves.  We even imagine that we are Zen master Linji's (J., Rinzai) the true man of no title refusing to see this as a metaphor for ultimate reality, i.e, that which animates this bag of bones but which is unconditioned.  

A readiness to learn

In Buddhism, the puthujjana (the common un-aryan/un-noble person) is the "outer man" who is led by the nose by his sensations; only occupied with sensible things.  This is a downward sloping path.  This puthujjana is unaware of this downward path where, more importantly, it ultimately leads.  Foremost, is it a path of degeneration a path whereby one can pass from the human (i.e., the humane) to the beast, the beast being totally consumed by their desires.  This also leads to exhaustion and depression.  Unlike the aryan (those who have supermundane right view) whose path slopes upwards; who is the leader and guide of his senses, limiting their powers, the puthujjana is tied to his senses.  The worst puthujjanas cannot escape. 

And now we come to puthujjanas who are teachable.  I should mention, too, that the Buddha did not teach the incorrigible puthujjana.  The Buddha was not a savior who promised to save the masses from their folly and sorrow.  Those who are best taught have a readiness about them, that is, they are prepared in mind so as to be willing, and not reluctant, to be taught.  The disposition of this puthujjana is not the same as the incorrigible one.  In this light, those looking for the perfect teacher but lacking the required readiness, although they believe they have it, will find that they have made little or no progress over the years.

I need to say, that just because we find a teacher that appeals to us; whose teaching mainly consists in doing zazen, for example, we should not assume that this person is aryan.  They might even be hardcore puthujjanas making up their own Zen, something out of Joko Beck's book, Everyday Zen, which is written from a psychological standpoint rather than a spiritual one, the latter pertaining to our Buddha-nature which is at the core of the "inner man."  This points us to self-delusion.  Yes, puthujjanas are quite capable of deluding themselves even as far as believing that they have a readiness to be taught; who also know the best teacher.

Coming back to readiness, looking back on my own time with a Zen teacher, I will admit that as a puthujjana I confused readiness with obedience.  With obedience we can close off an open mind but not so with a readiness to learn.  With readiness truth finds a companion; a person is more open to truth's voice.  And if that voice is not there with a particular teacher or too weak, one moves on with faith in themselves and the path.  Too little faith in oneself leads one back to obedience.  It's following without growth.  And what is growth? It is understanding more and more the Buddha's teaching while overcoming one's own ignorance.

Escaping from our dreams

We awaken to find ourselves walking across a vast desert like plain.  We have no memory of how we came to be here.  Try as we might no fact presents itself that will suffice as an answer—not even a tiny clue is forthcoming.  Walking is all that we can do.  We have faith, a deep faith, that sooner, rather than later, we will be relieved of this walking; we will come to the end of our journey and know the truth.  But what if nothing like this happens?  What if we walk until we are totally exhausted eventually dying?  Even worse, what if after dying we find ourselves once again walking across a vast plain?  Is not the thought of this, that it might happen, the greatest of our fears?

Walking without any real since of time or progress other than there is no end in sight, we eventually see many skeletons bleached by the sun.  There seems to be no end in sight to these skeletons.  As far as we can see, this orchard of bones is endless.  Is this a sign that our own death is drawing nigh; that our bones will lay here with the rest? We have no answer.  We have no means of escape.  We are doomed. Still, we continue walking.

Then we awaken.  What a relief!  It was only a bad dream.  Smiling, we throw back the covers of our bed, walk to the window and look at the forest.  But the dream is not forgotten by us.  It lingers.  Why doesn't it go away?  It was only a dream.  Then our imagination sets to work.  Instead of the vast plain there is a world like a giant movie set with its facades and props.  Everyone is an actor who doesn't know they are acting—they've been learning their lines for a long time now—they are convinced that this is who they are.  As for the skeletons, the graveyard hides them so as not to remind us of our doom.  As for our greatest fear, it is not our death, but being reborn in such a false world again.  It is the bad infinite.  We fear that we are regressing if we do not escape from this kind of life.  But what can we do?

Buddhism is for the few

When I read people's opinions about enlightenment, for example, it is about realizing that there is nothing to be liberated, or that enlightenment is when you stop seeking enlightenment, I begin to think that such people are more interested in secularizing Buddhism than learning what enlightenment actually is.  This goes for Zen as well.  This kind of response reminds me of someone answering a riddle as if to say, "Yep, this is the big secret.  There is no such thing as the unconditioned or pure Mind.  It's all about realizing that just as you are—that's enlightenment!  See, the problem with this enlightenment stuff is  you think there is some kind of essence to see which transcends birth and death.  Just accept life the way it is.  Anyway, when you die, that's it.  No rebirth." 

Of course, I should expect this since secularism is the authoritative center of the public discourse which is just one step away from Bolshevism which expresses itself as a hatred of metaphysics, religion, including mysticism, and the arts as a means of liberation.  No, the secular view of life is not quite here but like Bolshevism it is both materialistic and nihilistic.

Most of the good practitioners I have encountered over the years are not hardcore secularists or even Bolsheviks!  They try to bring the best that Buddhism has to offer to their daily lives; seeming to understand that enlightenment is suddenly seeing pure Mind which is unconditioned and, more importantly, the stuff this world is made from.  Although they are not there yet, they have sufficient faith that they can intuit it.  They haven't fallen into the trap of treating enlightenment or awakening as if it were a riddle that could be answered with some clever words.

I realize that Buddhism, and Zen are not for the huge majority of people.  Most, simply, do not have the good karma to comprehend a supermundane world beyond this one, let lone how to enter it.  Many of the Western teachers of Buddhism are spiritually blind, who don't have the light.  They only know how to teach acceptence of this world which is not a good thing.  This world is not a refuge.  It's vision is antithetical to Buddhism's.  It will only destroy the spiritual nature of man and with it, what little compassion he has left.  Just look at the violence of the Judeo-Christian religion, including Islam. What does this religion teach?  "The LORD is a man of war: the LORD is his name" (Exodus 15:3 KJV).

Paradoxical practice

A nice example of paradoxical thinking comes from Lao Tzu's Tao Te Ching who wrote: 

In order to lead, the leader learns to follow. In order to prosper, the leader learns to live simply. In both cases, it is the interaction that is creative. All behaviour consists of opposites. . .Learn to see things backwards, inside out, and upside down.

As odd as it seems, contemplating our mortality on a daily basis is not a bad idea.  In 2007, a study by DeWall, C.N. & Baumeister, R.F. showed that the contemplation of death had the opposite effect as compared with what is commonly believed.  It is as if by contemplating death our body immediately tries to counter it, searching for happy thoughts! 

In the teachings of Buddhism such paradoxical thinking is not pushed aside.  Nor are Buddhists taught to supress or ignore the finitude of the natural world; that sooner or later we die.  Buddhist culture is more mature than typical Western culture with its emphasis on youth and feeling good.  In Buddhist culture one is immersed in being aware of, and observing the vicissitudes of life; that in such a conditioned existence no composite thing survives.  It is only in the unconditioned world of nirvana that man is taught to find his security.  From the Upajjhatthana Sutta (S. iii. 71) the Buddha speaks about five themes that should be reflected upon by a woman, a man, a householder or one gone forth.

I am subject to aging, I am not exempt from aging.

I am subject to illness, I am not exempt from illness.

I am subject to death, I am not exempt from death.

I will grow different, separate from all that is dear and appealing to me.

I am the owner of my karma, the heir to my karma, I have karma as my origin, karma as my relative, karma as my resort.  Whatever good or evil karma I do, to that will I fall heir.

Avoiding our soul

Yesterday, I ran across this quote by C. G. Jung.  He wrote: "People will do anything, no matter how absurd, in order to avoid facing their own soul."  This might sound counterintuitive but it's not.  This relates to modern man's darker side which, at an unconscious level, is laying siege to the soul, ātman, consciousness, mind, essence, etc—all of which belong to our inner world where the true is to be sought.  As some of us are aware, an ontological inquiry is not smiled upon in today's world of lost souls.  It is only the inquiry of the third-person or positive science that is listened to which the Buddha would consider to be naïve because it refuses to look within at the innermost. 

Treating man in such a way that the inner person, which is the portal to the ātman/Buddha-nature, is understood to be an epiphenomenon of the brain, is just one such absurd example of what man is capable of doing when he doesn't want to face his soul.  The acceptance of this particular view of man allows those in power, through their media, to dehumanize the masses; to prey upon the weakness of the masses which makes sure the intelligence of the masses devolves; that over time, the masses become too stupid to realize that they have been psychically lobotomized.  They have become little more than programmable robots.  How can a person begin to look within in such a state of mind?

Even sitting in zazen we can fall into the trap of avoiding our soul or Buddha-nature.  It becomes just a matter of holding a posture for less than a hour.  It becomes an exercise of trying to tame the monkey mind that runs this body.  But is this really what the Buddha taught?  By this exercise do we actually awaken to the very substance of our thoughts this being our Buddha-nature?  And what does it mean to awaken to such a substance seeing our self face to face for the very first time?  How can we answer such questions when we spend our lives avoiding our true nature?

Perhaps one of the greatest absurdities to be found in Buddhism is the denial of the soul or ātman.  This is avoidance at its maximum.  It is amazing to see how Buddhists, including Buddhist monks, will say almost anything to protect and defend their no-soul theory of Buddhism even though the Buddha taught no such doctrine.  If anything, the Buddha taught us to avoid what was not the ātman, namely, the five grasping skandhas or aggregates that are murderous, suffering and impermanent.  By analogy, denying the driver is the car is not saying there is no driver! This is just saying that we shouldn't identify the driver with the car or take the car to be the driver or there is no driver.  The driver and the car are quite distinct.