The Zennist

Clinging to the false self?

The Buddhist teaching of no-self (anātman) is better stated: overcoming the false self.  If one decides to read Buddhism this way it ceases being so enigmatic. 

At the same time, we can see that Buddhism is a path of transcendence which is about overcoming the powerful attraction of the false self (anātman).  Nowhere in the Buddhist canon did the Buddha teach there is no self (P., natthattā).

Adding to this, the Buddha also teaches that no-self is suffering (yaṃ dukkhaṃ tadanattā).  This is not a good state to be in, in other words.  Logically, the Buddha would not teach no-self as a refuge (saranā) from suffering. 

But if our actual self mistakenly yoked with a false self, yes, there would be suffering.  And we would have to learn how to overcome this suffering by first comprehending just what the false self is.

But the modern Buddhist is not interested in learning anything about the false self.  Sometimes I think that modern Buddhists, who are agnostic or atheistic, imagine that Buddhism is a religion just made for them.  It is not.  Buddhism is perhaps the most profound religion on the face of this planet.  When we follow its path it gets more profound.

Dangerous knowledge

Dhyāna (Zen) like its counterpart gnosis moves in the direction of transcendence, that is, transcendence of all phenomena.  It seeks to go beyond even the human range of perceptions and this includes perceiving and perceiver.  It is like a cup of water poured into a vast ocean.  Nothing fundamentally changes, but there is a decisive shift that takes place from the amount (quantum) of water to a boundless ocean.

Accomplished transcendence in Buddhism is our first connection with unconditioned spirit which is beyond all the six senses and our dualizing consciousness (S., vijñāna).

Spirit has found itself and looking back it understands that it really never left its home.  While others have to take this on faith the one who has experienced spirit by  spirit, directly, knows it absolutely; yes it even transcends faith.

The result of this gnosis is to throw light on the amazingly unreal status of human beings and maybe to help them escape from the seemingly endless cycles of suffering.  Mankind in its present state of ignorance still does not understand how the passing of one life connects with the cells of the next life, only to become another life subject to suffering.

The great wisdom gained from gnosis has been repeatedly under attack throughout history.  Incredibly, it is knowledge that is even considered dangerous for the religious and for the political authorities.  This type of knowledge cannot be allowed to spread.  But it does, especially in Buddhism.

Cannot be allowed to spread

Dhyāna (Zen) like its counterpart gnosis moves in the direction of transcendence, that is, transcendence of all phenomena.  It seeks to go beyond even the human range of perceptions and this includes perceiving and perceiver.  It is like a cup of water poured into a vast ocean.  Nothing fundamentally changes, but there is a decisive shift that takes place. 

Spirit has found its home and looking back it understands that it really never left its home.  While others have to take this on faith the one who has experienced spirit by  spirit knows it absolutely; yes it even transcends faith.

The result of this gnosis is to throw light on the amazingly unreal status of human beings and maybe to help them escape from the seemingly endless cycles of suffering.  Mankind in its present state of ignorance still does not understand how the passing of one life connects with the cells of the next life, only to become another life subject to suffering.

The great wisdom gained from gnosis has been repeatedly under attack throughout history.  Incredibly, it is knowledge that is even considered dangerous for the religious and for the political authorities.  This type of knowledge cannot be allowed to spread.  But it does, especially in Buddhism and Vedanta.

Is information stored in our brain absolutely true?

The most difficult kind of lies to overcome are the lies in our own mind, lies that we believe are not lies but factual and reliable information.  But then who seeded our fertile minds with all these facts many of which are lies? 

We actually live in a fictional world in which assumptions work well in this fictional world .  Yet we are being deceived.  We believe also that the information stored in our brain is absolutely true.  But then it's only true relative to the fictional world we are living in.

When we have to look within at the information stored in our own mind, we have to admit that much of it for us is questionable.  Some of it or most of it could well be false in the final analysis.

In the big picture, we have so much to learn but we can't possibly learn it if we have a lot of wrong information stored in our brains.  And when somebody undertakes the practice of Buddhism or Zen Buddhism does it benefit them to have a mind full of what might be false information?

And what does it mean to have an open mind, just be a sucker or a stooge?  In Buddhism we have to look at our mind, not in terms of the information stored in it but how mind really functions and the limits of that functioning where begins our journey to the true world.

According to the Buddha, even although something be thoroughly believed in, it may be empty, void, false; on the other hand, something not thoroughly believed in may be fact, truth, not otherwise (M. ii. 170).

The real global catastrophe

A nefarious group of people believe the best way to unite mankind is by inventing a new enemy such as climate change.  Instead of our star, the Sun, being responsible for climate changes or the changing orbit of the Earth around our star, etc., we will become our own enemy! 

The source of climate change will be blamed exclusively on human agency!

"The common enemy of humanity is man. In searching for a new enemy to unite us, we came up with the idea that pollution, the threat of global warming, water shortages, famine and the like would fit the bill” (The First Global Revolution, 1991).

Does that make any sense?  Hardly.  It is still a divide and conquer political manipulation.  First, get the public to believe in the coming of some great global catastrophe.  Then sell them on the solution.  Cut back on the use of petroleum which causes carbon dioxide to accumulate in the upper atmosphere creating a greenhouse like effect.  This solution of course is all wrong.

In the meantime, humanity has been divided not unified.  There are those who believe the hype and nonsense and those who say, wait a minute none of this is true. 

We are at a very low level of carbon dioxide the way it is.  Carbon dioxide is plant food.  It is not poison  The average for the last 600 million years has been 2600 ppm not 400 ppm.  No wonder it takes a long time for vegetation to grow and our forests to regenerate.

Beware of any Buddhist temples or organizations that tries to sell climate change or some other coming global catastrophe.  The biggest catastrophe is to be caught up in the cycles of rebirth (saṃsāra) never to realize the unconditioned.

“Monks, the bones of a single person, running on and wandering in this journey of rebirths for an eon, would make a heap of bones, a pile of bones as large as this Vepulla Mountain if there were someone to collect them and the collections were not destroyed” (Iti 24).

Life the great video game

Our bodies, which came through our mother's birth canal, are like avatars in a video game.  In our ignorance we attached to them.  We believe the avatar is who we really are. 

And so we go from one game to another otherwise called the cycle of rebirth.  When finally we awaken to our true self or ātman which is unconditioned, the game is still going on but now we transcend the entire game. 

Accordingly, all is a grand illusion (māyā) but nevertheless appears and seems real.  By this awakening we no longer attach to illusions.  Our life in the womb, our birth, our adult life and death, even a heaven or hell are all an illusion!

Those who don't accept this vision and don't strive to awaken from the illusion are doomed to transmigrate in a world of suffering.

Monks, this cycle of rebirth (samsara) is without discoverable beginning.  A first point is not discerned of beings roaming and wandering on hindered by ignorance and fettered by craving (SN 15:3).

At the end of the conditioned

War is one of life's reminders of our finitude and eventually our suffering and death.  Peace then is a time not to indulge our sensory pleasures but to successfully escape from life’s coming conflicts.  (By escape I'm alluding to the word transcend.)

To stop this eventual doom we cannot afford live in a utopian fantasyland while the hard evidence shows plainly that we are in deep doo-doo. 

But life is a work (or rather an escape) in progress.  The work is truly complete when we achieve its goal which is nirvana:  a return to life’s very source which is unconditioned. 

Right now, we humans can only imagine what life is about.  Presently, it seems to be about preserving our memories in this particular lifespan.  But they are only conditioned.  But T.S. Elliot said it better with these few lines.

And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.

Where conditionality began for us is not in anything conditioned or even imaginable.  Certainly not in a conditioned womb.  The senses, including the sixth sense or mentation/manas, which make up our conditioned body, serve to localize spirit into a finite, conditioned system.  A mere representation.

And so it follows that what we perceive from this localized position is not true reality or even our true self.  It is a false self or anātmam which is suffering (S. iii. 22) according to the Buddha.

The gnostic journey

The notion of a universal gnosticism cannot be easily dismissed at least when we look at the subject from the side of Buddhism and the enlightenment of Siddhartha which I hasten to add is the actual context of Buddhism. 

Yes, Buddhism is about accomplishing a "gnostic" journey.

This gnosis shows him all beings as like an illusion,
Resembling a great crowd of people, conjured up at the crossroads,
By a magician, who then cuts off many thousands of heads;
He knows this whole living world as a mock show, and yet remains without fear.”
(Astasahasrika Prajñaparamita).

Even religion today, in its various secularized forms (which even includes Marxism), cannot manage to accomplish such a spiritual journey.  The followers of modern day religions, without realizing it, pray to a divine image composed from their imaginations.  A lot of wishful thinking is also to be found here.

The mystery of gnosis is only understood by those who walk completely through the dark forest of the six senses (eye, ear, nose, tongue, body & mentation/manas) by which all phenomenal appearances are experienced.  They alone succeed.  The rest are entangled in the senses and their respective fields like the gastronome is entangled in the flavors of a sumptuous dinner, who is unable to transcend it.