The Zennist

Trying to remember our Buddha-nature

I remembered his face but I couldn’t remember his name. Still, it was on the tip of my tongue. However, the more I tried to remember it the more it eluded me.

Our Buddha-nature 佛性 or let’s just call it our true nature, is not hiding from us in some corner of our brain.  Our problem is we just can't remember what it is like.  We lack direct contact with it enough to say, spontaneously, “Wow, that’s it — oh my god!”  And yes it is on the tip of our tongue, so to speak.  Still, the more we think about it and try to envision it, the more it eludes us. 

Reading about it takes us no farther—we still can’t remember it, directly.  We can acknowledge to ourself, for example, that it is unconditioned, mysteriously or spontaneously present, and so on, and even become experts on the subject having read many books.  We can call Buddha-nature the sugata-essence, the essence of thought, even though it ever remains unthinkable for us.  This might help us to focus more precisely on what it is, based upon the realization of it by others.  But, eventually, we have to remember it, personally, (pratyātma).  Over time, it may just one day present itself, in its own light.  But it won't do so without a lot of hard work on our part to at least get a clear idea of what it is we are seeking.

This realization is not like any other because the observer and the observed become one.  They go back to their  non-dual origin, in other words.  It is not as easy as remembering the person's name we've forgotten but whose face we recognize.  Those who embark on such a discovery have to put their whole being into it.  They just can hang around the quayside of reality, saving the big voyage for after they retire.  They must cross the great ocean which is a dangerous crossing when they are young, not old.

Critical thinking and this dark force

A general understanding of critical thinking that it is an important condition for both the resolution of disputes and intellectual progress.  But for us these terms are still vague.  This way of putting it allows us to believe we are all critical thinkers when we are not.  We are not on the same page, and why? It is because the term lacks a common definition.  We sense its importance but nobody agrees on a workable definition.  Some might define it as higher order thinking which are capable of producing new knowledge.  But this is still vague.  It is not an easy term to define much less teach.

For me the term comes on the heels of a very subtle implementation of a world vision after World War II which is still within the four corners of Marxism only this time much more subtle.  It is not in religion what we would call the holy lie although the vision of which I am speaking is a lie or if you prefer, a deception, the real purpose being hidden from the masses who must be kept dumbed down. 

I think the notion of critical thinking arose to meet this dark force that had infiltrated our culture but we still have no idea how to use it.  So we just talk about it and publish books and papers on the subject.  And yet we know something other than critical thinking is going on in our universities and even in Buddhism which daily is being changed into something it was never meant to be.  A nihilistic religion.

Buddhism, I think, is better at getting a hold on what critical thinking should be about.  For us it is closer to observing the limitations of thought (i.e., the process of thinking); that much of what we know by way of thought rests upon mere assumptions this being the act of supposing that something is true when it may later be found to be false (Canki Sutta). 

My Buddhist training has been good at teaching me to be very critical of anything that comes out of academia about Buddhism.  Buddhism by 1969 taught me to inwardly pursue, in an extended retreat, the very essence or substance of thought, itself, that I might realize what the Buddha did.  To get there, I had to doubt, fully and completely, approaching kenshõ by thought.

Over time, I eventually learned that the human mind is naturally polarized (left and right hemispheres).  One side, the left hemisphere, is worldly.  It is involved in Darwinian fitness while the other side, the right hemisphere, is transcendent and evolutionary.  They can work together in harmony and should.  But if the worldly, left side takes control, all is lost.  Critical thinking is meant to help us get rid of a lot of false ideas, including false culture both of which are ideologically grounded which is not open to correction.  Ideology, itself, consists of ideas based on physical values and sensations (the left hemisphere).

Half of us is a bestial, half is divine.  Buddhas come into this world to reveal to us the transcendent—not that we should remain here clinging to the bestial aggregates.

A religion about the Buddha or the religion of the Buddha?

There is a critical distinction to be made between Buddhism which can become a religion about the Buddha and Buddhism, the religion of the Buddha. The first is from the perspective of the many (bahujjana) to the Buddha.  This consists of opinions about Buddhism—our guesses.  The second is looking from the Buddha’s enlightenment to the many.  He was trying to teach is unique enlightenment to the many which makes it seem confusing insofar as people are different. 

So much of what is believed to be Buddhism these days is not about the religion of the Buddha but falls more into a religion about the Buddha.  One of the most glaring examples of a religion about the Buddha is secular Buddhism. Tied to this is a book by Stephen Batchelor titled, Buddhism Without Beliefs.  In addition, I would also include Dōgen’s Soto Zen tradition which centers on the practice of ritual sitting.  Arguably, even Abhidharma could be included in this list which was likely compiled after the first major schism around 250 BCE.

One noticeable element of a religion about the Buddha is its lack of repeated emphasis on the transcendent nature of his enlightenment this being the actual goal.  This also includes a marked de-emphasis on dhyāna as a process of de-conditioning and detachment from the five senses, all of which are conditioned, the most important one being manas or mentation. 

These senses are part of the outer shell (the five skanhdas) which the self is attached to in the belief that this is who the self really is.  “This is mine”, “I am this”, “this is my self”.  But this shell tells us nothing about the self attached to the shell except that the shell is painful.  Nor does it tell us how we might turn away from the shell and realize who we really are which is transcendent and independent of the shell, this spiritually independent state being, in fact, the Buddha’s perspective.

The religion of the Buddha is always about his awakening to the absolute which is unconditioned and certainly transcendent.  The student of the way seeks to practice in such a way that he or she draws closer to the deathless place, the unconditioned.

“When I heard (of) the Deathless place, the unconditioned, the Teaching of the Tathagata, the Unrivaled One, I was well and highly restrained in precepts, firm in the Dhamma taught by the Buddha, the most excellent of men” (Vimanavatthu 16).

A culture in imminent collapse?

True Buddhism views life in this carnal body of our birth as transient, suffering and filled with unconscious desires we have difficulty understanding much less controlling.  Still, far beneath this external shell, according to the Buddha, lies a light-like divine body which is unchanging and perfect. 

This divine body, which is our true nature or our Buddha-nature is, paradoxically, denied by us because of our ignorance (avidyā) which we constantly reinforce with the help of the limiting, five hindrances (pañca nivāraṇa) not to mention our bad karma.  As a result, we are not only greatly confused but also must dwell in the illusory realm of appearances which includes even our thoughts (manas).  This is a life of Darwinian fitness according to science.

Even those who are more advanced, which means they are more spiritual, can only reach the intellectual perception of this divine body of light which nevertheless helps to pave the way for its direct cognition although there is no guarantee of success.

Our defense mechanism for being situated in this horrible predicament is, oddly, faith that with our death this is the ending of all future suffering (the implication here is that there is no rebirth—life after death).  Death we believe is final and absolute freeing us completely.  This gives rise to hedonic materialism in which pleasure is sought for comprising something like the first two-thirds of our life followed by the acceptance of our doom (i.e., old age and the finality of death).

This defense mechanism contains many smaller, daily, defense mechanisms.  We are a veritable collage of defense mechanisms it would appear.  This is also part of our ego (Freud) of reason and circumspection that keeps our id from destroying us outright.  However, with the subversion of Western culture (the cultural superego) the ego and the id become gradually more indistinguishable (the ego reverting back to the id).  This merging reminds one of the Stalinist era which continued through the Frankfurt School (Critical Theory).

Today it is impossible to set up a Buddhist culture without it falling prey to the culture of postmodernism, the last phase of Western culture (Christendom, Age of Reason, Postmodernism/Critical Theory).  Buddhism, historically, had it much easier since Buddhism was already safely nestled in the culture of Vedic Brahmanism.  Given this, it is easy to understand why Buddhism flourished as it did by the time of King Ashoka.

The same will not happen in the West.  Buddhism and with it Zen and Tibetan Buddhism will not flourish except in Asian populations and still exist in academia.  The average westerner is just too far gone to grasp the context of the Buddha’s religion to make it popular.  Already Buddhism is being changed, used as a form of self-help therapy to help the typically fucked-up modern person cope with the ups and downs of a culture, seemingly, in imminent collapse in which the individual ego can no longer control the id to a civilized degree.

Turning to present day politics, it is just a reflection of the cultural superego undergoing change from a world of individual nations each with their unique culture, to a repressive central government which can only be described as psychopathic; totally bereft of empathy being, horribly, manipulative and destructive of timeless human values.  Buddhism can find no good soil for its growth in such a terrible condition.  In fact, modern culture is the very antithesis of Buddhism.

On catching the bodhi-fish

If we are to catch the big bodhi-fish in the sea of samsara—hopefully to become Buddhas—we will need a good fishing pole and the proper bait.  The fishing pole will have to be a special one, a dhyāna or Zen fishing pole. We will also need some special bait for our hook.  But what kind of bait will attract our bodhi-fish?  It can't be just any bait from a run-of-the-mill bait shop.  We have to go the Mumonkan Bait Shop.  It’s somewhere near the Twilight Zone last I remember!

The owner, Mumon 無門 sells only one kind of bait.  It’s the bait of wúniàn 無念 (no-mentation).  Yes, I know, it’s a very strange bait but works every time!  Many Zen masters in old China and a few elsewhere used this bait.

One important thing we have to keep in mind is that the Zen fishing pole is not the bodhi-fish.  The pole is something made, a constructed thing while the bodhi-fish is not a thing at all.  It is transcendent.  Those who have pulled the magnificent bodhi-fish out of these dark waters can attest to this fact. 

Unfortunately, Zennists today who want to catch the bodhi-fish worry more about their Zen fishing pole than the bait.  Most haven’t even bothered to go to the Mumonkan Bait Shop to obtain the bait of wúniàn.  Without this special bait how can these Zennists expect to catch the bodhi-fish?  Hasn’t the Buddha said that the best Zen (dhyāna) pole is still constructed and whatever is constructed and produced by our human effort is impermanent and subject to cessation?  The bait is key!  It is unconstructed.  What else can attract the bodhi-fish?

Bringing us to the brink of our seeming disaster

Dhyāna is a very important term in Buddhism (in Pali it is jhāna).  In Chinese dhyāna is Chan and in Japanese, Zen.  This is what a beginner must know.  But knowing it well—well, that ain’t easy. 

It is also true to say that scholarly types who study Zen Buddhism and monastics who practice Zen find the term problematic.  If you don’t believe me read Keren Arbel’s book, Early Buddhist Meditation: The Four Jhānas as the Actualization of Insight (2017), or Johannes Bronkhorst’s book, The Two Traditions of Meditation in Ancient India (1993).  Hoping to see the forest for the trees in both books proves difficult.  One thing for sure, both authors do not believe that dhyāna leads one to a mere conceptualization of ultimate reality.  Ultimate reality is beyond any conceptualization and dhyāna is the means. 

Something else is going on with dhyāna.  It is more of a process of opening us up to the unknown while at the same time having us abandon our conditioned mind with its way of doing business.  In other words, dhyāna is a kind of de-conditioning process that takes us to the edge where the leap of intuition takes place.  Notice, that in these lines I have not mentioned the word ‘sitting’.  Why?  Because dhyāna has nothing whatsoever to do with physical posture. 

Before Siddhartha became the Buddha (that is awakened to the absolute) he practiced dhyāna.  It was the means for getting him there; maybe to the edge but certainly not enlightenment, directly.  Even the fourth dhyāna is considered to be constructed.

“This fourth jhāna is constructed and produced by volition. But whatever is constructed and produced by volition is impermanent, subject to cessation” (AN V.344).

The above also seems to chime with what the Lankavatara Sutra has to say:

“The Dhyanas, the immeasurables, the formless, the Samadhis, and the complete extinction of thought (nirodha)—these do not exist where the Mind alone is” (121).

We can surmise from the last quote that we are still short of the absolute, even with the practice of dhyāna.  We are still caught in a mental construction, albeit, a very subtle one.  Dhyāna has only managed to take us to the precipice, that is, the brink of our seeming disaster but one that in J.R. Tolkien’s language will be a “Eucatastrophe”this being a sudden unexpected turn; a brief glimpse of ultimate reality and with it the good news (evangelium) so that there is a happy ending for us.

Yes, dhyāna is what the Buddha tried to teach his followers.  It makes up part of the Buddha narrative.  But the part of awakening, itself, is beyond the reach of dhyāna.

 

The demonic nature of consciousness

As sentient beings we live within the sphere and conditions of consciousness (vijñāna = vi [in two parts] jñāna [knowing] ).  Consciousness, a unique Buddhist term, is not to be confused with thought (the process of thinking) or mind (S., manas)  both of which fall within consciousness.  I hasten to add that consciousness‚ not the ātman—is the transmigrant from one life to the next. 

There is no evidence in Buddhism that we are unaffected by consciousness or can in some way ignore it.  Instead, the dual makeup of consciousness has to be overcome if we are to attain enlightenment.  The subject-observer and object-observed must become one, or the same, singular, in what can only be described as a mystical transformation which occurs, suddenly. 

Thus, it turns out that consciousness, because it is dual (vi), has its origin from the one which is non-dual.  During this mystical transformation, just mentioned, ‘dual-knowing’ (vi-jñāna), instantaneously, returns to the one.  Such terms as One Mind, pure Mind, unborn Mind, Suchness/tathatā, Buddha-nature are metaphors used to describe this singular state which is also the underlying substance or essence of the universe. 

I need to add that this singular state is also the beginning of religion which is metaphorized into God, Theos, the Father, the Maker, the Godhead, Allah, Jehovah, the Great Spirit, etc.  Such divine names, it must be kept in mind, still fall within the dual nature of consciousness which is responsible for the cosmic illusion.  The various names mean nothing as compared with the actual attainment of the one by which consciousness returns to its origin which excludes duality, absolutely.  And so it is ever the case that duality is never other than dumb and unspeaking before the one.  To face the one with consciousness is called in Buddhism, avidyā (non-knowledge, nescience, ignorance).

If some demonic mind could invent a trap to keep sentient beings on a fruitless path, seemingly forever, it would be the trap of consciousness whereby the one is split into subject-observer and object-observed.  What, implicitly, connects the two sides (i.e., the one) is beyond the reach of consciousness yet as conscious being we still aim to find what connects the two sides but never manage to succeed.  Only the Buddhas succeed.

Is Buddhism a form of nihilism?

In the West, Buddhism can easily become a form of crypto-nihilism since it is believed that the Buddha taught, essentially, there is no self or ātman and taught also, emptiness (S., śūnyatā; P., suññatā).  I have made a case over the years on this blog, based on both the discourses of the Buddha and common sense, that the most fundamental part of us is not only the ātman but also the Buddha-nature.  According to the Mahaparinirvana Sutra:

“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” (Bhikkhu Thich Thien Chau, The Literature of the Personalists of Early Buddhism, p. 141, note 550). (The bold is mine.)

Moving to the subject of emptiness it offers what seems to be a latitude of meaning depending upon the context.  But nowhere does the newly awakened Siddhartha mention it.  It is not directly related to his enlightenment whereby he attained nirvana through four meditations or dhyāna. 

Nirvana or the unconditioned is not the same as emptiness.  According to Nagarjuna in his Lokātītastava, “The ambrosial teaching of emptiness aims at abolishing all conceptions,” which for Zen means “no-thought.”  Thought/concepts or mentation stands in the way of the direct intuition of nirvana or the same, ultimate reality, which is inconceivable and unthinkable.  It is not a graspable thing.

Logically, a conceptualizable ultimate reality is not any closer to the Buddha’s ultimate reality than any other kind of mundane conceptualization. 

In the Heart Sutra, the five skandhas or aggregates are considered to be empty because they are empty of svabhāva which refers to a state of being or inherent nature.  In other words, the five skandhas are illusory and unreal being nothing in themselves.  They are not who we are—certainly not our self.  This, incidentally, is pounded into our heads in the Pali canon.  These five aggregates, in fact, belong to Mara the killer (SN III.189).  They are evil and corrupt and hide our Buddha-nature.  The Buddha tells us that none of the aggregates can be our self (MN I.136).

For the Buddha, conceptual truths can never be ultimate truth because they are always constructed (nirvana is unconstructed).  Zen masters teach that our true nature cannot in, anyway, be conceived.  It never arises or appears, in other words, since all things that arise and appear, including our very thoughts are empty and devoid of our true nature.  They also have no svabhāva which is also the Tathagata-dhatu, according to the Mahaparinirvana Sutra [Tibetan version].  To reach the tathagata-dhatu/svabhāva requires no-thought; the complete transcendence of thought and conceptualization.

Buddhist fake altruism?

Most of us have heard of the expression “fake news” which is meant to address the presence of a political secret state which controls the media for nefarious purposes.  This is alluded to in former CIA Director William Casey’s odd remark:

“We’ll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false.”

This is certainly a frightening prospect and may well take down any country if not stopped. 

But my concern is with “fake altruism”.  This kind of altruism, inevitably, leads to its opposite in the example of the Communist revolutions with their promises of a utopia—a better world for all—that ended up with 150,000,000 deaths not including war dead. 

Like fake news which puts out disinformation or keeps the truth hidden, fake altruism is about fake concern for people and their lives.  At bottom there is no real concern for the well-being of others.  A lie is being sold in the form of altruism.  This lie is antisocial to say the least.  To sell such a lie the use of underhanded methods is required.  This fake altruism, however, only benefits an elite few—not the many.

Modern Buddhists seem to be trying to sell their own version of fake altruism under the word “compassion” or karuṇā.  Unfortunately, early Buddhism doesn’t have much to say about compassion, except that the Buddha showed great compassion (mahākaruṇā) when he decided to open the door towards the undying for those who greatly rejoice to hear the Dharma.

This great compassion of the Buddha is not quite like altruism or anything like the various definitions of empathy or Einfühlung which revolve around a person’s ability to read an other person’s intentions, expressions, and feelings such as grief and impulses.  The Buddha’s compassion operates at a much deeper level—a paranormal level you could say.  This means the Buddha’s compassion is transcendent and universal whereas altruism and empathy fall within a sensory, psychological sphere.  We see this idea suggested in the following passage from the Flower Ornament Scripture otherwise known as the Avataṃsaka Sūtra:

“The Buddha’s body is formless, free from all defilements; always abiding in compassion and pity, he moves the distress of all worlds: this is the liberation of Subtle Light.”

To receive such compassion is to receive subtle light the power of which exceeds the body since it is spiritual and not based on feeling.  But few in this world can experience such compassion much less manifest it to others.

Living on the fringes of the absolute

Our thoughts are formations of the absolute which is the ultimate essence of the universe.  Sound a bit woo woo?  Let’s not forget what the Sixth patriarch of Zen Huineng had to say about this.

“True Reality is the substance of thoughts; thoughts are the function of True Reality” (translation by Yampolsky).

What we call ‘thought’ or the ‘process of thinking’ is just the excitation or functioning of true reality. 

Now consider the problem of using thought to apprehend true reality.  Pretty dumb, right?  What does Zen want us to do?  You guessed it, directly intuit acitta or no-thought 無心.  What do we call this mysterious state when awake our thoughts suddenly stop?  Maybe the One Mind?  Or how about pure Mind or the unborn Mind or the unconditioned and many other names for the absolute?

Sitting in meditation we certainly become aware of our thoughts but never what all these thoughts are made of.  But with no-thought, the instant and total cessation of thought, what remains is what is most primordial and who we really are. 

We would rather think and write our way to the absolute as if the absolute could be captured by language.  We foolishly believe that it is just a matter of finding the right words which then will give us the right experience.  This is an intellectual quest.  But this is not what Siddhartha did or even those like Plotinus and even Dionysius the Areopagite who used the apophatic way or the same, the via negativa.   

The only way to arrive at the absolute, face to face, is eventually to not rely on the vehicle of thought (S., manas), thus coming to no-thought.  If we don’t, we shall only put our self on the fringes of the absolute which means for us that we can never enter it, directly.