The Zennist

A limit to the three marks of existence

The popularly taught three marks of existence (trilakṣaṇa), namely, anitya (not eternal or everlasting), duhkha (disharmony/suffering), and anatman (no atman), come under the heading of the conditioned.  We have to understand that these three marks only address the finite world, never the transcendent world (paraloka).  Less discussed, if at all, there is another passage by the Buddha which describes “three conditioned marks” which refers to a conditioned state.

“Monks, there are these three condition-marks of that which is conditioned.  What three?  Its genesis is apparent, its passing away is apparent, its changeability while it persists is apparent.  These are the three condition-marks” (AN 3:47). 

We have to understand that the conditioned leaves out the unconditioned (one of those no brainers) such as nirvana, the unborn, the immortal-element, etc.  We also have to put anitya, duhkha, and anatman under the heading of conditionality—never the unconditioned.  Now here is where a problem comes as I see it.  Many Buddhists, including teachers, have a bad habit of making anitya, duhkha, and anatman, the alpha and the omega if not the all encompassing, putting into this triad even the unconditioned, i.e., nirvana!  They don’t understand that the three marks are rather a limit.  They are absent of the eternal, felicity, and atman all of which characterize the unconditioned.

The Buddha’s discourses use a lot of words explaining to us what we should transcend—not covet or cling to.  But there is also a chapter on the unconditioned in the Samyutta-Nikaya where the Buddha teaches, for example, “the path leading to the unconditioned” (S. iv. 360).  In the same chapter the Buddha says the Noble Eightfold Path is the path leading to the unconditioned (S. iv. 361).  And important part of the Noble Eightfold Path is “right view” which the Buddha says is supermundane (M.iii.72).  We can put the supermundane into the category of the the unconditioned.

Needless to say I am suspicious that three marks are being used today in a kind of confidence game, in order to convince the public that Buddhism rejects any kind of absolute (i.e., the unconditioned).

 

The great circular building

Imagine a great circular building with windows all around it something like portholes.  At each window is a person looking in who is able to communicate with the other people looking in.  Further imagine that the people looking in have no recollection of how they got into their present position.  In this building are countless different things such as furniture, artwork, and other kinds of objects.  Of course, everyone sees the same objects and can talk about them with each other.  But what they cannot see are themselves.  They have no idea who they are because they are not inside the great circular building.

From the individual’s perspective this is first-person knowledge of which the individual knows little if anything.  Conversations about the objects in the great circular buildings are called third-person knowledge.  Eventually, the conversation in the great circular building turns to, “Who is the person looking at everything?”  Nobody answers.  Most are nonplused.  Some get angry.  They insist the question can’t be answered because there is no such person. There are only objects in the great circular building, that is, third-person knowledge.  Most agree.  One person, however, doesn’t agree.

He said that he was able to pull away from the mesmerizing objects in the great circular building.  He told everyone within earshot that his body was not like anything to be found in the great circular building.  He also said that there is a huge world outside of the great circular building.  To most of the denizens this was all very strange.  It was not third-person knowledge but, instead, first-person.

This is the way some of us see things.  We are able to free our self from the mesmerizing objects; we don’t rely solely on third-person knowledge.  We took the path of first-person knowledge such that we are able to see what ultimately transcends the temporal world.

 

Not easily taught

The Bodhisattva (Siddhartha) awakened to the unconditioned, the very essence of our conditioned world that we all perceive and live in. This was a profound awakening which went far beyond what ordinary people might imagine or hope to attain.  By awakening to this unconditioned essence, awakened beings come to see that all things are illusory; they are mere configurations of this profound unconditioned essence. As a result of this ‘awakening’ they no longer crave and reify the illusory. They are liberated. 

What the Buddha awakened to could not be easily taught to those mired in sensory consciousness who were attached to their psycho-physical bodies.  The bulk of the people the Buddha tried to teach were incorrigible—they could only go so far, in other words.  A special group were corrigible; much easier to correct and teach.  They had the capacity to pick up the Buddha’s compassion which should be thought of as a bliss-like light that surrounded the Buddha.  In fact, I would argue that all Buddhas have this bliss-like light which is the real meaning of compassion.

Today, a Buddha might not be able to find those who are corrigible; who don’t kick at the goad, so to speak.  In today’s world, with the rise of political correctness where certain people have become oversensitive to such a degree that their views cannot be corrected, Buddhism is impossible to teach.  Such people just leave.  If Buddhism were like a restaurant, such people would not be happy with how the meal was plated, or the server’s facial expressions and attitude.  They could not care less about the food.  Such people want Buddhism taught to them on their terms.  But it is those very terms which prevent them from seeing the unconditioned, attaining nirvana.

As the reader can probably tell, I am not a fan of political correctness or the SJWs (social justice warriors).  Buddhism has to cut through all that stuff.  It’s just more garbage.  We cannot reach the sacred fount through social justice.  It is a barrier that unless knocked down will prevent us from seeing the unconditioned.

Is dharma religion or philosophy?

There are many definitions of religion most of which boil down to educated guesses.  Some Western scholars contend that religion cannot be adequately defined.  The dictionary meaning is one of many possible definitions which stretch from the practical such as worshiping a super human controlling power, to the theoretical in Schleiermacher’s, “All religion expresses itself in such an awareness of something outside and beyond nature.” 

Curiously, the Sanskrit language has no equivalent for the word religion nor does the Sanskrit or Pali word dharma/dhamma find an equivalent in a European language such as English.

To the question, is Buddhism a religion? we could say, yes it is, but not in the sense of worshiping a god or some super controlling power.  Strictly speaking, however, Buddhism is a dharma.  Generally, dharma means ‘that which holds together or bears’, in the sense of an underlying unific reality.  The teaching of Buddhism then, as a dharma, concerns the seeing of this reality so as to be in accord with it.  Pausing here, the reader can see how the word religion and dharma don’t mesh very well.

We should also note that Buddhism is not, strictly speaking, a philosophy in the Western sense of the word, that is, a speculative attempt to present a complete systematic view of reality.  Buddhism rests upon dharma.  According to the Buddha, “this dharma 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” (Catuṣpariṣat Sūtra).  What the Buddha is describing is really the essence of reality rather than a systematic view of reality.  This essence I hasten to add is unconditioned.

I know some Westerners have the bad habit of trying to put Zen Buddhism into the bag of philosophy.  But it doesn’t fit.  Zen is about dharma or the same, the true dharma (saddharma).  This was reached by Siddhartha, the Buddha-to-be, through dhyana or meditation.  This implies a high level of personal purification, not speculative powers able to concoct a system or model of reality.

Stopping desire

When we look at an infant or a small child their desires seem both natural and simple.  It is basically about food.  Adult humans who want to study Buddhism don’t have desires that are natural and simple.  They are more complex.  I should add, too, that these desires easily become addictions.  I need my cigarettes and my beer, just to name a few such addictions.  Then I have a lot of things spinning around in my noggin.  Lot’s of fantasies and dialogues going on—fear and anxiety, too.  Even loneliness than I can’t seem to get rid off.  All this can be thought of as blowback from our desires.

Now the question we need ask is where do these desires come from?  Do they come from outside or inside?  And if we want to control them do we look to the inside or to the outside?  The obvious answer is desire starts from the inside.  In a way, we are desire-beings existing through our conditioned psycho-physical body, enjoying the pleasures it offers (mainly sexual) while, at the same time, working to make more desires a reality.  But as I briefly mentioned earlier, there is blowback from desire especially when it has turned into addiction: a certain desire that has to be repeated for fear that its absence should turn into psychological suffering.

In Buddhism the second noble truth which is about the origin of suffering is actually about clinging to the psycho-physical body, otherwise known as the five skandhas.  We have to keep in mind that the first noble truth which is pain, is the five skandhas consisting of physical form, feeling, perception, volitional formations, and consciousness.  Our connecting with the body of suffering—the origin of suffering—occurs at conception so that we constantly desire it without a break except at the body’s death.  According to the Buddha the only way to stop such desire is realize what is other than suffering, impermanence and not the atman.  This is the unconditioned.  With this realization we can then progressively liberate our actual self from its entanglement with the conditioned psycho-physical body.

Deluding ourselves

Zen books and the sermons of Zen masters are always telling us there is a huge difference between concepts and direct experience.  But this falls flat when it comes to the actual experience of kensho (seeing our true nature) because at the level of reading about concepts and experience, a concept and experience lose their specific and actual distinctions.  They are the same.  It is somewhat like discovering that conceptual-pure-nothing and conceptual-pure-something are the same.  Leaving book reading, by contrast, we know the difference, by way of direct experience, between hot and cold water.  My shower is at first too cold and then too hot.  Now it is at the proper temperature.  I can now take my shower. 

But we do not actually know the experience of seeing pure Mind or true Dharma (saddharma).  This is when we delude ourselves.

We are only recognizing pure Mind at the level of a very subtle concept together with the concept of direct experience.  We may believe otherwise and pride ourselves on some kind of attainment or experience.  But, frankly, we are deluding ourselves.  The ability to delude ourselves runs deep in the human psyche.  It is a difficult habit to kick and when we finally kick it we are amazed at how deluded we once were.  A little humility might help if we accept our deludedness when we chase after the elusive state of pure Mind.

The sphere of actual kensho is not in the world of concepts.  When we experience our true nature directly, that is, pure Mind, it certainly goes beyond concepts.  We see it.  It’s somewhat like ordering Neapolitan pizza from a menu.  We know Neapolitan pizza is just not the words on the menu.  A few minutes later, the pizza arrives and we eat a slice or two—that’s pizza kensho.  But in Zen when we order pure Mind, it doesn’t seem to come.  So we go back to look at the menu again.  We order—still nothing arrives.  Then read the menu again and order.  Over time, we begin to wonder if there is any such thing as pure Mind.  This is perhaps the highest form of deluding ourselves.

A higher language

Both religious Sanskrit and Pali use a parokṣa language, a language of implied and indirect meanings.  In Buddhism the Buddha or a Zen master is using parokṣa language to explain what language cannot explain, directly, but can only be hinted at in a roundabout way.  We find this kind of language especially in koans.  If the adept can’t go here, he or she can forget about kensho for a while.  They are not up to running speed.  It will take a couple of years of hard training. 

In the highest level we are communicating with someone who can directly sense the light (i.e., the animative principle).  When we are with each other the bliss is so strong that you could cut it with a knife, so to speak.  This is what cannot be put into words.  For those not there, Buddhism can and often gets more confusing the more the conversation drags on.  One of my friends, a recent graduate that I have known for several years, I can sit with and talk about this light and cover the many implications which derive from knowing it.  Everyone else would think we are hallucinating—talking about something that doesn’t seem to exist.

Our everyday, commonsense language is the lowest form of language.  It doesn’t work with trying to help us understand nirvana or why Joshu said, “mu.”  Oh sure, we can have a conversation, but it is not profound.  But for one who has had kensho, nirvana is beyond the reach of words.  And “mu,” where did it come from?  If the adept doesn’t know the source of “mu” he or she is lost.  There is no use dumbing down Buddhism or Zen Buddhism to fit the needs of the average person.  It is not going to help.  The average person, over time, is going to have to pull themselves up by their own bootstraps, so to speak.