The Zennist

Transcending a world in constant flux

We want to imagine a permanent and stable world but this permanence is only an illusion; in fact, it only serves to mask a world in constant flux—a never-ending succession of changes.  We even go so far as to defend this view by trying to create a fake stability—or at least the hope of one.  But it fails every time. 

If we examine these efforts, we are only adding more strength to our prison by refusing to acknowledge that we live in a world (loka) of never-ending change which includes never-ending cycles of birth and death for us.

But such change may also carry an overlooked heuristic side and even the possibility of being transcended which is what Buddhism seems to be saying with the words, “cessation of the world” when it faces an impermanent world. 

“It is friend, in this fathom-high carcass endowed with perception and mind that I make known the world, the origin of the world, the cessation of the word, and the way leading to the cessation of the world” (S. i. 62).

Thus far, we have only been content to look outside rather than within this ‘fathom-high carcass’.  This will not bring the cessation of the world for us but only more never-ending suffering and rebirth.  We will not attain the transcendent (lokuttara) by taking such a path that hides our liberation from this world.  We will not find the sphere where suffering ends.

“There is that sphere, monks, where there is no earth, no water, no fire, no air, no sphere of infinite space, no sphere of infinite consciousness, no sphere of nothingness, no sphere of neither perception nor non-perception, no this world, no world beyond, neither moon nor sun. There, monks, I say there is surely no coming, no going, no persisting, no passing away, no rebirth It is quite without support, unmoving, without an object,—just this is the end of suffering” (Udāna 8.1).

This is neither extinction nor annihilation nor non-existence.  One has simply realized the unconditioned upon which all dependent originations depend.  All that appears, from the largest to the very smallest thing, is only a formation of the unconditioned, the truly permanent.

 

A raging battle between the physical and the psychical

The West’s reflection-correspondence view of knowledge means that any expression of our language which cannot be immediately interpreted in terms of observable, physical objects, is meaningless and misleading.  Where I am going with this is that immaterial things like awareness, the observer, consciousness, and thoughts tend to be of less interest in the West in the sense of having less importance and value than the physical.

When we turn to Buddhism the whole realm of mentation, as psychical objects, is considered to be both important and observable.  This also includes the physical body and the world we normally perceive through the body’s senses.

The Western view appears to exclude the non-physical and immaterial, while the Buddhist view is much more inclusive and includes the non-physical.  Also, it is important to add that the fundamental ground (you could use the One Mind or any number of like Buddhist terms) includes both the physical and the psychical—in fact, they emerge from it and return to it.  The separation between the physical object/fact and the psychical object/fact is overcome from the perspective of the fundamental ground which is realized through dhyāna which is a direct intuitive realization of this ground.

This is a far cry from the view of today’s materialism that physical properties are ontologically prior to psychical objects like consciousness or even our personal thoughts.  In fact, the physicalist believes that mind is derivative, arising from matter.  For the Buddhist both the physical and the psychical are derivative, being configurations of the fundamental ground of reality which is ontologically prior to the physical and the psychical.

The split between the physical and the psychical is overcome in Buddhism whereas for the Westerner there is still a war going on, a raging battle between the physical and the psychical which borders on a kind of madness.  Frankly, I think the physicalists are stark raving mad.

Buddhism is unlike most religions

Buddhism is not like other religions.  It different than Judaism, Christianity and Islam insofar as the direct, personal realization of the unconditioned absolute, which would be nirvana, is what Buddhism teaches. 

Siddhartha Gautama set the example with his own awakening teaching others who followed him how to awaken.  In this context, what Buddhists believe in is that they can attain nirvana.  There is also the matter in Buddhism of how does one go about attaining nirvana which makes up the bulk of the Buddha's discourses.

Measured against Buddhism, Judaism and Islam do not believe that their followers have the obligation to have the same vision as their founders.  Followers are taught to be obedient to a certain message.  There is, however, an exception within Christianity which is found in the Orthodox and Oriental Churches  which is theosis (theopoesis) or the same, divinization.  St. Clement of Alexandria said:

“Yea, I say, the Word of God became a man so that you might learn from a man how to become a god.”

Neither theosis nor divinization is accepted by Catholicism.  The Catholic Church makes up a large portion of the Christian faith which broke away from the old Christian tradition in 1054 and seems, presently, to be on the brink of collapse because it, essentially, went against Christianity although Catholics would argue otherwise.

Theology, which is the interpretation of religious beliefs in relation to contemporary thought and life, has had a hard road to travel in the modern era having to fight against scientific materialism, a corrupted Christianity, and an increasingly militant Islam. 

Turning to Buddhology, which has its own set of problems, it is trying to find its place in contemporary culture.  There are many forces acting on it, trying to get it to adapt to a world view unlike its own.  Buddhism’s reformers want, eventually, to reduce the importance of nirvana, karma and rebirth because these particular tenets don't exactly chime with their doctrine of nihilism and moral relativism.  Instead of Buddhism acting as a light by which to guide people in a dark world, that light is being extinguished by some very arrogant and misguided people who think they are doing good but are not.

Illiberalism is not good for the future of Buddhism

Into my seventies, I have found many in this generation to be, ironically, quite illiberal in the sense of being almost close minded as opposed to being open minded; willing to accept ideas that run contrary to present day dogmas but ideas, nevertheless, that are reasonable to hold such as reincarnation or rebirth. 

Illiberalism is not good for the future of Buddhism because so much of Buddhism has not been unpacked.  The more I unpack the implications of Buddhism the more they turn out to be quite astonishing and way beyond the intelligence of the average modern who will not likely accept them for that reason. 

Illiberalism makes this all so much worse.  It tells this generation shut your mind down when confronted by something that you don’t understand.  Nevertheless, you must allow it to speak for itself on its own terms.  This has not been the situation with Buddhism which for a long time has all but been revised into some weird kind of nihilist religion.

This is not entirely a blame game on my part.  The real finger of blame as to be pointed at academia.  The fact is that academia and other sources have been brainwashing students since the 1990s (and arguably way before) with a steady diet of postmodern claptrap which finally came to a head in the example of Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington (founded in 1967), where its unstructured—sort of—egalitarian model finally collapsed like a cheap card table.

The illiberal mindset of these students is in no way compatible with the message of the Buddha or Buddhist training—and I would argue that a retired battle hardened Marine would stand a better chance of becoming enlightened than most of today’s college graduates.

Buddhism, and what is going on in academia and the arts have nothing in common.  The good news, however, is that Buddhism pretty much escapes a postmodernist deconstruction by academia because those in academia still believe Buddhism to be a kind of ‘lite’ materialism.  And as we might guess, many professors are more or less hardcore materialists having fallen prey to the Marxian/postmodern dog whistle. 

Hopefully one day the crazy illiberals will run out of steam and stop kicking at the goad, finally having to wake up to the fact that their education has been costly and they’ve received very little bang for the buck—if any bang at all!  Their education has been to some degree an academic Ponzi scheme which boils down to robbing Peter, the student, whose tuition pays for the salary of Chancellor Paul and his administration, which also provides the necessary money for funding major building projects.

What is most disturbing is that authentic Buddhism is not resonating all that much with the general public.  The Buddhism and Zen that people are attracted to is in name only.  What is omitted is, ironically, the marrow of the teaching which is how to transcend the psychophysical organism, the false self, and realize what Shakyamuni Buddha realized and other Zen masters.

 

Drawing water and chopping word is not Zen

Layman Pang (740–808) is credited with saying:  My supernatural power and marvelous activity is drawing water and chopping wood.  For a Westerner new to Zen who reads this, anything mundane they do, well, they are being just like Layman Pang.  This is Zen according to them!  But their attitude also fits in with the adage, a little knowledge is a dangerous thing.  These kinds of people are really boneheads.  I, too, was once a bonehead. 

Zen is not about loving the mundane, having an everyday mind, washing bowls or drawing water and chopping firewood.  The famous quatrain attributed to Bodhidharma tells us in a nutshell what Zen is really about.  The last verse is about “seeing our true nature and becoming a Buddha” 見性成佛.  Is this easy?  Didn’t Siddhartha, before he became the Buddha, struggle to awaken?  Maybe he just should of chopped firewood!

Layman Pang made his famous Zen remark after he awakened—not before.  His awakening is what made him the great sage—not the mundane tasks.  I have put the critical enlightenment parts into bold about Layman Pang. 

During the Chen-yüan era of T'ang, the Ch'an and Vinaya sects were in high favor, and the Patriarchal doctrine likewise flourished, diffusing its brilliance abroad, spreading rampant as a hop vine, and effecting its entrance everywhere. Then it was that the Layman initially visited Shih-t'ou, and in an instant his former state [of mind] melted away; later, he saw Ma-tsu and again sealed his Original Mind. [From that time on] his every act manifested his penetration of the Mystery, and there was nothing about him that did not accord with the Way. He had the boundless eloquence of Mañjuśrī,8. and [everything he said] was in conformity with the Mahāyāna treatises on reality.

After that he went about everywhere testing [men's] attainment of the Ultimate Principle (Yun P'Ang, The Recorded Sayings of Layman Pang: A Ninth-Century Zen Classic, trans. Dana R. Fraser, Ruth Fuller Sasaki, and Yoshitaka Iriya, 40–41).

Are you starting to get the picture?  Zen is not easy and those who go out of their way to make it easy are really charlatans.  They hide behind their robes and the glitter.  They hope you are awed.  If you are awed by these externals, it is much easier to make you believe the nonsense they hand out.

Now, I am going to let you on to a little secret.  When Layman Pang made his eloquent Zen remark, what was the power and why was it so marvelous?  When he awakened, to what did he awaken?  Okay, it was the Original Mind and the Ultimate Principle.  But what was it really?  Layman Pang did what only a few could do, he awakened to the animative principle of his psychophysical body which is described as being luminous or in Sanskrit, prabhāsa.  The functioning of his mortal body was just an expression of the luminous Mind or spirit which—and this is really important—he personally realized!

There is more.  This animative spirit is unconditioned.  What it moves is never other than conditioned.  The moving principle is first; what appears is after, which is always conditioned.  The after part is what we are stuck on.  It is only after the 'after part' suddenly disappears that we witness this animative spirit. 

Gautama the Buddha taught after death survival

Gautama the Buddha puts the average worldling into an awkward position.  Either we believe that Gautama taught that we are this perishable body of flesh, muscles and bones or he did not.  If the former, which amounts to materialism, when our physical body perishes so do we perish.  If the latter, when the body perishes we do not perish.  And the reason is easy, it is because we truly are not this perishable body even though we might believe otherwise. 

If we read the words of the Buddha, he appears to be teaching his students that they should not regard their perishable body made up of the five aggregates of material form, feeling, perception, volitional formations and consciousness as who they really are.  In the discourse of the Alagaddūpama Sutta the Buddha says:

“But, monks, an instructed disciple of the pure ones, taking count of the pure ones, skilled in the Dhamma of the pure ones, well trained in the Dhamma of the pure ones, taking count of the true men, skilled in the Dhamma of the true men, well trained in the Dhamma of the true men, regards material shape as: ‘This is not mine, this am I not, this is not my self;’ He regards feeling as: ‘This is not mine, this am I not, this is not my self;’ He regards perception as: ‘This is not mine, this am I not, this is not my self;’ He regards the habitual tendencies as: ‘These are not mine, this am I not, this is not my self;’ He regards consciousness as: ‘This is not mine, this am I not, this is not my self;’ And also he regards whatever is seen, heard, sensed, cognised, reached, looked for, pondered by the mind as: ‘This is not mine, this am I not, this is not my self’.”

The better question Buddhists should be asking is not whether or not the Buddha taught a self or ātman, but if the Buddha taught that we are this perishable body made up of five aggregates or not?  If we are, in fact, this perishable body wouldn’t the Buddha teach with regard to each aggregate, this aggregate is mine, this aggregate I am, this aggregate is my self?  Logically, he would also not teach rebirth or karma. But he taught that we are not this perishable body or aggregate body.  He also taught karma and rebirth.  In a nutshell, Gautama the Buddha taught after death survival.

The real noble truth is that the ātman is good

The so-called four noble truths of Buddhism are more about what is actually suffering than suffering itself.  In other words, something has to suffer.  In previous blogs I have pointed out that it is the five aggregates that constitute the first noble truth of suffering (S. v. 425).  These aggregates are who we imagine we are.  As a result, we humans are the one’s who suffer.

According to the Buddha these aggregates have no ātman or in Sanskrit, anātman and in Pali, anattā.  It’s very important to understand this.  In fact, anātman or anattā is synonymous with the aforementioned aggregates.  Form is no ātman along with feeling, perception, volitional formations and consciousness.  

So where is this all taking us?

Very simple.  The first noble truth of suffering is anātman!  That’s right.  The first noble truth is that the absence of ātman is suffering.  The Buddha said it this way:

“What is suffering is nonself [anātman/anattā].  What is nonself should be seen as it really is with correct wisdom thus: 'This [nonself] is not mine, this [nonself] I am not, this [nonself] is not my self.’" (S. iii. 45).

So now we have another, perhaps stranger four noble truths, but still valid.

The first noble truth of suffering is not the self (anātman).

The second noble truth is the origin of suffering this being the desire for what is not the self.

The third noble truth is the cessation of desire for what is not the self.

The fourth noble truth is the means to the cessation of desire for what is not the self this being, logically, the realization of the self or ātman.

This, as I suspect, will drive many in the Buddhist community crazy insofar as they have based all their hopes on the belief that the Buddha taught that no ātman is a good thing and the ātman is bad.  But they have all been deceived.  The real truth is that the ātman is good and what is not the ātman is suffering and bad. 

Letting go of the the false self to reach the true self

Average Western Buddhists do not comprehend Buddhist negation which if not rightly comprehended will give a totally different reading of Buddhism.  It will be a reading that strays into nihilism; even becoming dogma, i.e., becoming authoritative without adequate grounds.

Buddhist negation is never other than negation with positive implication which serves to orient us to the unconditioned nature or the same, the absolute.  In other words, the unconditioned can only be approached by a logic of negation.

For the worldling who lives in a state of ignorance (avidya), such negation means nothing to them.  In a state of ignorance, the worldling delights in the entity of the five aggregates (pañcaskandha)—their psychophysical organism.  This is not any different than believing I am this entity (asmimāna) even though the truth the Buddha discovered is otherwise. 

When the curious begin to study Buddhism, their first impression is that it teaches there is no such thing as a self or ātman.  For the typical Western Buddhist this sounds almost the same as saying there is no God which appeals to many who are atheists which includes many Buddhists.  But this is not what Buddhism is about.  The Westerner has it all wrong and will, in all likelihood, continue the rest of their life with a wrong view.

In order to find out who we really are we have to set aside what we are not.  This is the false self or the same, the not-self.  The entity of the five aggregates the Buddha tells us is not our self.  Forms are not our self, along with feeling, perception, volition, and consciousness.

The positive implication of negation, that is, setting aside, completely, these aggregates is the revelation of the true self which is the Buddha-nature.  Not only this, by this realization we can now see what is appearance and what transcends appearance which is absolute.  No longer do we cling to the false self, i.e., the entity of the five aggregates.

Excess is the nutriment that evil needs to grow

Today, the average modern who rides their car or bicycle to work, has little or no real sense of what evil is (I have covered the meaning in this blog ).  Unless it is depicted in some Hollywood horror movie or in the example of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989), the average person is pretty much in the dark. 

If we were in the midst of an evil apocalypse, the average person wouldn’t be able to see it.  They wouldn't have a response to it.  And why?  It is because the majority of the people have become evil!  Sound crazy?  Let’s think about it.  From the blog previously mentioned The Zennist wrote,

Evil then is about going beyond limits.  In the example of eating, it is gluttony or it is alcoholism which is an addiction to liquor.  It could also be substance abuse.  Add to this all manner of sexual excesses.  We could even throw in plastic surgery—people who are obsessed with how they look!  There are thousands of examples of people who are excessive, hence, evil although each and everyone would deny that they are consumed by evil.

The allowance of excess is the nutriment that evil needs to grow and proliferate.  An evil people must look at progress as a matter of going beyond limits.  Each generation must encourage more excesses tearing down the previous limitations to excess. 

Slowly but surely, evil grows and spreads.  In my home state of California I could see it happening every year.  The San Francisco I knew as a young boy in the 1950s was dead and gone having embraced excess.  The psychedelic generation of the 1960s I recall was also an excess in the sense that LSD-25 was viewed as a shortcut to enlightenment.  “Hey man, just dop this little blue tab—it’s fucking far out.” 

This kind of excess was no short cut to satori or enlightenment.  At that time it was a wrong turn off the Dharma highway that led to some hippie commune where Gabby fucked some guys that night in the glow of a bonfire.  And now things have become a lot more evil (e.g., huge pedophile rings).  And the Dharma is almost finished except around here.  Buddhists I have met are hardcore materialists.  But maybe this is just the darkness before the light.

Breaking our identity with the psycho-physical organism

Sorry that I have to say this, but the huge majority of Western Buddhists seem to be boneheads.  What is more, they really don’t wish to hear why the Buddha spoke of why we should not identify our self with the five aggregates of form, feeling, perception, volitional formations and consciousness.

If we identify our self (you could even say our Buddha-nature) with the five aggregates this will lead to the origin of suffering which happens to be the second noble truth.

“And what, bhikkhus, is the way leading to the origination of identity? Here, bhikkhus, the uninstructed worldling [puthujjano] … regards form as self … feeling as self … perception as self … volitional formations as self … consciousness as self … or self as in consciousness. This, bhikkhus, is called the way leading to the origination of identity. When it is said, ‘The way leading to the origination of identity,’ the meaning here is this: a way of regarding things that leads to the origination of suffering (SN 22:44).

So what is the obvious solution?  It should be not to regard any aggregate as our self or Buddha-nature.  This would be abandoning the second noble truth (S. v. 422).  From the previous discourse we find the answer.

“And what, bhikkhus, is the way leading to the cessation of identity? Here, bhikkhus, the instructed noble disciple … does not regard form as self … nor feeling as self … nor perception as self … nor volitional formations as self … nor consciousness as self … nor self as in consciousness. This, bhikkhus, is called the way leading to the cessation of identity. When it is said, ‘The way leading to the cessation of identity,’ the meaning here is this: a way of regarding things that leads to the cessation of suffering” (SN 22:44).

Clearly, the five aggregates are synonymous with suffering.  When we identify with them as being our self (a huge mistake), this is the origin of our suffering.

We all start out from birth, identifying our self with our psychophysical organism.  As we grow older we become caught up in delight, thirsting for the sensual pleasures of the psycho-physical organism, seeking pleasures here and there. 

Then at the end of our life we want extinction in the face of our suffering in old age.  We hope that death will be merciful and final.  Overall, this is suffering for us.  We have no idea how to escape it—nor do many even care to escape it.

But for those who successfully break their identification with the five aggregates they are free, being no longer subject to repeated suffering and with it, death.