Both the practice of zazen and koans/gong'ans can lead us down a path that soon turns into a pathless jungle where we can easily lose all sense of direction. Even with a teacher, one whom we believe is skilled, the path often falls short of where we think it should go. Obedient as we are to our teacher we begin to doubt our journey (I certainly did). Something is missing.
Very soon the institution of Zen takes over. We get sucked into the politics. We are interested in robes and ceremonies and becoming a great teacher although we haven’t had anything close to kensho which is the central idea of Zen. Then we begin to reason with our self, “Even though I will never become enlightened—at least not in this lifetime—I can still help people.” But isn't this a case of the blind leading the blind?
But what if there was a better way than doing zazen or working on koans? What if our teacher taught us that the so-called “transmission of the lamp” was really the transmission of light; not ordinary light but rather involves, suddenly, waking up to the spiritual light which runs our psychophysical body? Don’t we seen a hint of it in this passage:
"The pure Mind suffuses every part of his whole body, like a man whose head is covered by a white cloth. There is no part of his body untouched by the white cloth" (M. iii. 94).
As I sit here I am certainly suffused by spiritual light as I type this latest blog. It is a significant amount. It is more like I am in an unmoving magnetic-like field that my body moves around in which, itself, is unmoving. If I were to break off with my psychophysical body I would be this field rather than the body.
If other people are around me they, also, can sense this magnetic-like light. From this position it is much easier to explain Buddhism including how desire for illusory things gets us off track so that we lose our connection with this light. Everything, Buddhist, in other words is easy to explain. This is what I think went on with the Buddha and others. Needless to say, the spiritual light side of the equation has been all but absent in the Western Buddhist discourse. There has almost been a silent war against it. Perish the thought that these people should read this: Light-bringers, dhamma-speakers, open the door of the deathless (Itivuttaka).
Sunn Samaadh: A "view" of atman or eternalism is not the same as the actual atman. During the Buddha's time some teachers held material shape to be the atman, or feeling, or even consciousness was the atman. This the Buddha called a "view of atman"—not to be confused with atman, itself. An-atman referred to conditioned worldly existence such as the five aggregates of material shape, feeling, perception, volitional formations and consciousness. The Buddha even taught us to abandon what is anatman—not our atman. We read in the Dhammapada that the atman is the natha which in Sanskrit means, lord, savior, protector, refuge. It was also an epithet for the Buddha. Most Buddhists are confused because their teachers are confused; who don't understand Dharma. Even in the Mahayana sutras we read: "The atman is the Tathagatagarbha. All beings possess a Buddha Nature: this is what the atman is. This atman, from the start, is always covered by innumerable passions (klesha): this is why beings are unable to see it" ( Mahaparinirvana-sutra).
Posted by: thezennist | January 12, 2017 at 12:02 PM
I know what you mean about the feeling of moving around in a magnetic-like field.
When we release the senses to merge with the sensory objects, it feels as if the senses become less visceral and more admixed/unified.
Have you ever been accused of holding a view of eternalism?
I am often of the notion that the tathatagarbha can be considered synonymous to the soul and that Buddhism just gives expression in one way to a truth that is actually ineffable and thus anatman philosophy arose as an expedient.
What are your thoughts?
Posted by: Sunn Samaadh | January 12, 2017 at 04:42 AM
That is interesting about a "magnetic-like field". The mind can be conceived either as a living field-like being or a more solid-state fixed object or system. The most logical relationship between the two is that of the solid "mind" being a mere receiver of the transmitted "information" field-mind; also the field-mind can be conceived as a source of power, a kind of "wireless charging" of the psycho-physical organism. The field-mind is clearly the higher mind or the "true self"; the ordinary mind is a kind of mixed or imperfect interface between the field-mind and the solid mind; we think perceive the movie on the screen as originating and really existing in the screen. It is truly amazing how all these ideas are found in great detail not only in Buddhism but in Plotinus.
Posted by: mathesis | January 11, 2017 at 08:05 AM