The Zennist

Spirit in bondage to human appearance

Using the popular words of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin ( some say it was G. I. Gurdjieff who said this): "We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience."  One might also consider it this way: "We are not human beings on a spiritual journey, we are spiritual beings on a human journey." 

I think the Buddha would approve of the above words.  On the other hand, the belief that somehow the human body gives rise to spirit which then makes spirit dependent upon the flesh, seems implausible.  It is even more implausible to believe there is no spirit—this is hopeless nihilism and maybe one of the worst sides of the human predicament.

Our real condition is always one of spirit in bondage to appearance which is never other than dependently originated and conditioned.

From a Buddhist perspective our human experience, which always ends up in death followed by never ending rebirth into still other forms, is never other than suffering in the final analysis.  Spirit is in bondage to form, feeling, perception, volitional formations and consciousness, namely, the five grasping aggregates (pañcupādānakkhandhā).  It is also spirit, which in bondage to the five aggregates, acts contrary to itself.  It is always betraying itself in other words.

 

 

A beginner's mistake is misunderstanding rebirth

The answer to the question of rebirth is found in the Pali Nikayas.  But it is incumbent on the beginner who decides to come to the Dharma to at least become familiar with some of the major tenets of Buddhism, one being the notion of rebirth. 

It may come as a shock to some who are looking at Buddhism for the first time but there is no negation of rebirth made by the Buddha. When the beginner comes across a passage like this, logically, the Buddha is talking about rebirth,

“Therefore, with the breakup of the body, the fool fares on to another body. Faring on to another body, he is not freed from birth, aging, and death; not freed from sorrow, lamentation, pain, displeasure, and despair; not freed from suffering, I say” (SN 12:19).

Good scholars who are familiar with the Buddhist canon know what fares on to another rebirth, it is samsaric consciousness — not to be confused with self (ātman/attā).  A typical beginner's mistake is a misunderstanding of rebirth.

The teaching of the Buddha could not care less if a beginner does not believe in rebirth. It is a fact for those who are enlightened.  Nevertheless, the best students must have full faith in such teachings as rebirth.

Buddhism is a very deep and, mystically, profound religion. There is more to it than some beginner visiting a Buddhist or Zen temple and sitting with some monks.

All the texts mean nothing if the beginner is a materialist who is uncomfortable with the idea of rebirth or the fact that consciousness is the transmigrant from one life to another. Buddhism is a path (mārga) for those who like to think out of the box (typically, the mystic).  Its path is not a visible one but rather a spiritual one.  

Is enlightenment (like gender) socially constructed?

Socially constructed enlightenment, like socially constructed genders, has it purveyors who haven’t proven what they wish to prove although they believe otherwise (this is taken up by Robert K. C. Forman in his book, The Innate Capacity: Mysticism, Psychology, and Philosophy). 

The idea of something ‘socially constructed’ can only begin as a social phenomenon, that is, it stems from an interaction between at least two communicating people which could be thought of as a kind of primitive, limited sharing (but not everything is sharable [asocial] even between two like minded people). 

This is also meant to suggest that our cultural training which includes education, social status, economic circumstances, serve to shape our personal experiences, feelings, choices and, ultimately, who we really believe we are.

Contrary to this, in the example of biological gender, it is not socially constructed, it is set during conception.  The difference between biological sexes includes different chromosomes, for example, female XX, male XY, different reproductive organs (ovaries, testes), etc.  A human being is born as an organic whole which then develops to its potential which could be argued is part of Darwinian fitness.    

Turning to Buddhism, all sentient beings have the enlightened or Buddha nature, potentially.  This means that this nature is inherent in all living creatures but is ever hidden by the biological entity, itself, the life of which revolves around material shape, feeling, perception, volitional formations (choices) and consciousness which are the five grasping aggregates.  One could even argue that it is further hidden by any and all social constructions which are the result of social interactions.

All this falls under the category of ‘constructivism’.  Whether we are arguing about gender being socially constructed or Siddhartha’s enlightenment under the Bodhi Tree, such experiences according to the constructivists are in large part built up through language, concepts, beliefs, and expectations (all acquired by social interactions).

But when a student  leaves their religious culture which could be a Zen monastery or a university class on Buddhism and elects to go into a self-imposed retreat looking for their true nature, the  social world is left behind.  There is no interaction with another in the example of even the teacher-student dyad. 

Over time, solitude washes away and lessens the impact of past social interactions which are outside the subject who is in retreat.  If anything, there is a shift from social interaction to personal intra-action.  In the latter, the gap between observer-observed or subject-object duality which makes up consciousness (vijñāna) is closed through meditation (dhyāna) until the original one is reached or in Sanskrit, ekatva, this being enlightenment which transcends even the biological domain.

Sorry, it's outside of my comfort zone

Ideally, a teacher is suppose to teach the student something that they don’t already know, rather than what the student expects or, personally, wishes to learn. 

Maybe to avoid this problem, before the student looks for a teacher they should begin to make a list of what they believe Buddhism teaches.  Then they need to do the research on their own to see if what they believe Buddhism is about is actually true (find the actual verses the Buddha spoke).

Students who want to be taught what they expect Buddhism is all about when it is not that way; who cannot tolerate a teacher who takes them beyond their comfort zone, I would call ‘beginners’ who never advance because they came to Buddhism with their minds already made up as to what Buddhism is all about.  Their source?  They’ve read a few “pop Buddhist or pop Zen books” or talked to a few people who are also beginners. 

For a sincere beginner, he or she has to be prepared to abandon their assumptions about Buddhism, for example, that Buddhism is not religious, or the Buddha denied the self, or that Zen Buddhism is learning to live in the here and the now.

Unfortunately, there are too many students who are searching for teachers who agree with their ideas about Buddhism which I dare say can be very superficial.  I find this to be true when it comes to the subject of “emptiness” or the “void” as just one example. 

Unfortunately, today’s Buddhism, that is outside Asian circles, is becoming too interested in secular Buddhism which I find to be Buddhism in name only.  It’s both nihilistic and anti-religious which puts it into the category of postmodernism.

The real goal of Buddhism

The goal of Buddhism is the attainment of nirvana which is unconditioned. The world of suffering is never other than this conditioned world which our present rebirth has brought us to.  Let's not forget that the first noble truth is about the suffering of the five grasping aggregates (pañcupādānakkhandhā) which make up our human existence.

"And what, bhikkhus, is the noble truth of suffering? It should be said: the five aggregates subject to clinging [pañcupādānakkhandhā]" (SN V.425).

Despite the overwhelming proof that attaining nirvana is the real goal of Buddhism there are those today who are interested in Buddhism but not interested in the attainment of nirvana.  These people expect Buddhism to help them deal with depression or other issues such as anger or drug addiction. They are looking for some kind of panacea other than attaining nirvana.  Will it work? No, is the short answer.  And why won't it work?

These people who come to Buddhism looking for help are lying to themselves.  They come to Buddhism not for nirvana but, instead, to learn how to get rid of their problems because they sense, and rightly so, that they have almost become social outcastes.  In other words, they are not liked by their peer group.  They expect Buddhism to clean them up just enough so they can pass as being normal human beings and hopefully be liked by other people.

Wrong headed Buddhist teachers like to cater to such people as if to say, we have a panacea for you.  It is called zazen.  Just sit and all your problems will eventually go away as you become more Buddha-like!  Did the Buddha actually teach that 'just sitting' will get rid of most problems?  No he did not.

Do not mistake a ring or a bracelet for gold

Various conceptualizations or patterns of thought, including thought, are really shapes of spirit or Mind.  But wise Buddhists whose spiritual depth is great do not mistake shape for the substance or the actual content, itself, which is shapeless and most primordial.

We would not mistake a 'ring' or a 'bracelet' (i.e., shapes) for gold (the substance).  The world of the manas (the sixth sense) is never other than thought-shapes. Thought, including our everyday thoughts, cannot take us to dharmatā, i.e., what Siddhartha intuited, directly.

We can say that dharmatā (essence, inherent nature) is outside of texts which is covered by the second verse of the Zen quatrain which is: do not depend on written words (不立文字 ).  We have to aim for direct intuition or gnosis of dharmatā.

So a time comes in the life of every devoted student when they become overwhelmed by the various shapes of thought.  Still, they haven’t come close to realizing spirit or dharmatā.  But have their teachers forewarned them that even a single thought is still hiding dharmatā?  How is this thought-shape stripped away?  With more thought?

More and more thought (the process of thinking) leads to discursiveness.  But the intuitive, which is opposed to the discursive, does not function by formulating abstract concepts and then arguing on this basis to a conclusion which is the way discursiveness works.  Enlightenment is attained by means of immediate intuition.  Nagarjuna, in his Mahāprajñāpāramitaśāstra, says that “non-discursiveness is the seal of the Dharma (dharmamudrā)”.

Zen's superficial believers

Does convincing evidence always have to come before our belief (most likely it doesn’t)?  Or does our belief come first followed by our search for evidence?  Or maybe our belief, at this point, is just an evidentless trust that our belief is true. 

It seems, or should seem obvious, that belief is a kind of immediate certitude that is limited and uncritically accepted, but still can be easily changed or even, stubborningly, resist change.  The worthiness of evidence may not be all that critical in the beginning of belief.   

As to the ‘belief holder’ they are seldom addressed or even asked the reasons for their particular belief, for example, “Why do you believe that when you die that's it — no postmortem survival?”  Or another example, “Why do you believe that Mary loves you Paul?  You had a few drinks with her at the tavern; she kissed you on the cheek — so what?”  Such beliefs can leave the belief holder searching for words.

Turning to Buddhism, belief in it usually comes to the average person as more of a hypothesis, something proposed to be believed in but not yet believed in.  More study is needed to accept the tenets of Buddhism which might not be fully understood, properly.  On the other hand, a college class on Zen, for example, might make one curious enough to begin to believe that Zen is about a special kind of gnostic awakening (this is what happened to me).

Marketing Buddhism or Zen to the public is more about the acceptance of a special kind of hypothesis that demands a different way of living and viewing the world.  Much of what is proposed amounts to a not-so-apparent-argument against the present day culture in defense of Buddhism, although it may not seem like it. 

Most likely many people are not happy with nihilism: the overall meaninglessness of their everyday life that will tragically end in death.  They want to try something else, for example,  Maybe I should learn how to meditate.  Sounds good.  How many will stop here believing in seated meditation but advance no further?  My guess, many.

The real difficulty is to get these superficial believers to see that Zen is not really about sitting and meditating but coming into direct contact with the animative principle of life this being Spirit or Mind which is undying.  In the words of Bodhidharma:

“Everyone wants to see this mind, and those who move their hands and feet by its light are as many as the grains of the sand along the Ganges, but when you ask them, they can't explain it.  They're like puppets.  It's theirs to use.  Why do they not see it?”

Lots of people believe in Buddhism or Zen but few believe deeper, that enlightenment can be personally achieved.  They go to a certain point then stop.  They are not interested in the teaching found in the Lankavatara Sutra, the Avatamsaka Sutra, or the Lotus Sutra which is an enlightenment greater than sitting on a zafu for forty minutes, maybe less.  They have other beliefs that do not accord with Buddhism.

Unpacking the abbreviated quality of passages

I have noticed over the years that a certain abbreviated quality can often be found in the discourses of the Buddha in the example of the first noble truth which is suffering.  It is only after going through the Pali Nikayas does one find what exactly it is that suffers.  The answer is the five grasping aggregates (pañcupādānakkhandhā).

Yesterday, I was looking at this passage from the Sutta-Nipāta (H. Siddhattissa’s translation).

“In the world, such a wise monk who is freed from desire and attachment attains the immortal, the tranquil and deathless state of Nibbana” (204).

I also looked at K. R. Norman’s translation.

“Having discarded desire and passion, the bhikkhu possessing knowledge here as arrived at the undying, peace, the [unshakable state of quenching].”

I ask myself just what kind of desire and attachment/passion is this wise monk freed from so that he attains nirvana?  Here is the obvious answer.  It is desire and attachment/passion for the conditioned which includes the five grasping aggregates that he is freed from.

The deathless, quenching state of nirvana is beyond our conditioned world and certainly beyond the five grasping aggregates, including the six senses the most difficult being the last, which is our mental life.

To get to this divine place we have to go back to 203.

“He compares this body to a corpse and thinking that this body is the same as a corpse and a corpse the same as this body, he removes desire for his own body.”

K. R. Norman’s translation is as follows:

‘As is this, so is that; as is that, so is this’ (Understanding this) one would discard desire for the body both [inside and outside.]

Everything that the monk, not yet feed, beholds is conditioned; far from the other shore of nirvana.  Our monk is still unable to discard, totally, desire for the body both inner and outer.  But he is making progress.  He is making intuition possible.  He can at least tell what has to be discarded which is take away everything as Plotinus would say.  And in that sudden removal of everything conditioned, one reaches the yonder unconditioned shore of nirvana!

The restoration of Zen

I am always looking for something to blog about that fits with The Zennist.  Today I was watching YouTube as some guy restored a Kenwood cassette deck X76 which he found on a beach while he was driving with a lot of other trash people had tossed away.

Then I asked the question, How might one restore Zen?  It would be a project of restoration, that is, of bringing Zen back to its former state.  But unlike the restoration of the cassette deck which was about disassembling it then cleaning all the components of the deck, repainting the housing, and finally reassembling it, Zen is more of restoring the goal of Zen and then restoring its methodology.

If anything that has turned Zen into some seaside piece of junk like the cassette deck, it is our corrosive misunderstanding of mysticism in addition to our failure to see it alive and well in Zen. 

No, Zen is not that far away from Plotinus or the negative theology of Dionysius Areopagita. 

To be sure, like the mystics Plotinus and Dionysius, Zennists who have had kenshō understand even when demonstrated by the Zen master's cryptic words or gestures it remains hidden and ineffable for us, and when conceived by our intellect, always unknowable and frustrating.  We see this when a monk asked Yunmen 雲門 this question: "Where do all the Buddhas come from?" Yunmen answered: "The East Mountain walks over the water."  Yet, this is what each and every koan is about for the faithless unawakened.  Koans hide a mystical path; only the awakened Mind sees the golden thread that runs through all of them. 

Zen’s kenshō, in mystical terms, is really the sudden joining of the transcendent (apophasis) and the immanent (kataphasis).  There is return to what is most primary and undivided.  With this is also the overcoming of the dualizing power of consciousness or vijñāna that keeps sentient beings in samsara.

With a mystical overview, Zen can be restored; all the corrosive misunderstanding from its present day body that is so harmful to it, removed.

The source of our thoughts

We take it for granted that there is an implicit unseparatedness between a body of water and its waves, also an unseparatedness between gold and the many shapes of gold in the example of gold jewelry.  What we are blind to is the fact that there is also an implicit unseparatedness between our thoughts and the absolute basis or foundation of our thoughts which for us is unthinkable and almost unbelievable. 

Alas, our prized inner awareness is only aware of thoughts, not their source or foundation.  Our backs are up against it, so to speak, making us spiritually blind. 

In order for us to see the foundation of our thoughts there would have to occur a total suspension of thought, like a lake becoming waveless, the wave-making breeze having stopped.  For us, this suspension of thought is direct intuition of thought’s foundation or ground (or you could even say thought’s substance). 

Forcing or willing suspension, on the other hand, would not work.  Such interference with thought is itself a thought.  It would be the imposition of the adept’s wish rather than allowing for intuition, itself, in which the sought for state, unexpectedly, presents itself (satori). 

Yes, the source of our thoughts is from somewhere that our searching thoughts cannot reach.  Yet, this foundation is not separate from the thoughts themselves.  Thoughts are just an amount or derivative of it, a quanta.

Turning to death, for those who have intuited thought’s foundation, death is only a decoupling of physical contact with the former body.  Now, one finds they are fully a manomayakaya or mental body over which they have total control, no longer thirsting (tṛṣṇā) for another embodiment and with it birth and eventually old age and again death.  This is because they realize and see firsthand that everything is illusory or māyā like as compared with the true foundation of reality.

This foundation is also the transcendent, universal Mind that is open and unenveloped, a Mind imbued with luminosity (SN V.288).  One might even think of this foundation as the field of Mind 心田 from whence all conditioned things arise so as to appear; which is beyond the range of the six senses.  This would also be like the ocean of the Ālaya from which the waves of manifoldness/diversity (citra) arises.