The Zennist

Transcendence not resurrection

In the long run, human life given to fleshy existence, is never other than unfulfilling and painful.  Human birth, death, and resurrection (Gk., anastasis) for Buddhism is nothing more than samsara, the endless cycle of birth, death and rebirth (S., punarbhava). 

For a Buddhist escape from samsara involves transcendence not resurrection.  It is superseding of all that is subject to rebirth in the external or outward form that is called “flesh”.  More precisely it is transcendence of conditioned reality.

Death of the flesh only means eventual resurrection/rebirth into flesh again.  Ultimately, Spirit as Theos (πνεῦμα ὁ θεός) is never resurrected.  Nor in Buddhism are those who have attained tathatā reborn.

When spirit comes in to the world of flesh it does not come in the flesh but comes in Spirit only.  Those who resonate with it sense its presence.

"In its very origin, tathatā (sheer spirit) is of itself endowed with sublime attributes.  It manifests the highest wisdom which shines throughout the world, it has true knowledge and a mind resting simply in its own being.  It is eternal, blissful, its own self-being and the purest simplicity; it is invigorating, immutable, free… Because it possesses all these attributes and is deprived of nothing" (Mahayanasraddhotpadasastra).

The burning house matrix

Many liked the 1999 film The Matrix.  The main takeaway of this sci-fi film is our reality is an illusion, a matrix.  It is only a secondary reality.  Those who run it are trying to repress the first reality.  In fact, the secondary reality has almost managed to erase remembrance of the first reality which is most primordial.

Buddhism is actually paving a way to the first reality, the one most feared by those who run the second reality.  But even Buddhism has been changed by those who run the second reality.  They fear the transcendent which goes beyond nescience, formations, and consciousness (vijñāna).  These are the necessary prerequisites for rebirth: to become deeply involved once again in the suffering of the flesh and the second reality.  

But weaning people off of the the second reality proves almost impossible.  They are trained to be hostile to the transcendent and to the means of reaching the first or primary reality. 

Let us not forget that the Buddha reminds us in the Lotus Sutra that this world is like a burning house and we're like the children in this burning house who haven't yet been devoured by the flames.  We don't want to leave. We are too self-absorbed in the matrix.

First get the magic sword

Gaining direct insight into nirvana or the same, the unconditioned, is really the beginning of Buddhism not its end.  Why is this?  Transcendence of this illusory existence (samsara) is not possible if you don't first know what precisely to transcend.  You will eventually be deceived.  In the words of one Zen master, you'll be throwing away the eggs keeping the chicken shit.

This helps the paint a somewhat different picture of Buddhism than is presently marketed.  For example, one who has awakened to the unconditioned knows perfectly well that the five aggregates lack self nature (svabhāva) insofar as they are conditioned.  They are illusory, not real.

It's somewhat like being a great warrior who receives a magic sword which is able to slay all that which is illusory.  And there is a lot there to slay.

“If you want to achieve early fulfillment, brandish the precious sword given by the mind king and march right ahead: if you meet buddhas, kill the Buddhas, if you meet Zen masters, kill Zen masters, if you meet your parents, kill your parents, if you meet the masses of living beings, kill the masses of living beings.  Totally massacre everything animate and inanimate, all forms and appearances, mountains, rivers, and earth, all times and all places, good and bad, right and wrong, plus anything else that appears and disappears, coming and going through the doors of the six senses and the alleys of the seven consciousnesses.  Having killed it all completely, when you turn a flip and appear in the realm of cosmic space, you can be called a real hero.  When yo get to this point, you will not doubt that Buddhas and sentient beings, enlightenment and affliction, samsara and nirvana, heaven and hell, are all illusions” (Bannan Eishu 萬安英種).

But without this magic sword we can’t even slay our false, conditioned self (anātman) much less our imagined Buddha.  Of course, there are ignorant Buddhists who suffer from pride and hubris, who believe that they possess this magic sword, but they don’t.  They uphold the lineage of paper Zen with its paper transmissions but they have no real prajñā /wisdom sword.

The spiritual broadcast continues

Most religions escape religion.  They are quick to turn religion into some kind of orthodoxy that resists a fuller spiritual understanding of mankind, more precisely, resists the truth that human beings are spiritual creatures living entrapped in a biological structure that is limited, being subject to death (and rebirth).

This is the main problem facing mankind which eventually forms itself into materialism which creates an impenetrable curtain around mankind's spiritual inheritance.  This materialism takes on new forms such as Mao’s Four Olds or postmodernism which is essentially the same thing, getting rid of the old to make way for the new.  Whatever that is.

With Christianity, eventually came orthodoxy which tried to get rid of any mystical approach to early Christianity especially a gnostic or intuitive approach.  Buddhism tried its hand at orthodoxy and went so far as to erect a kind of there is no self doctrine thus hiding the more mystical side of Buddhism which understands there is a self that transcends biological being.

But the fog is beginning to clear.  Maybe a new Buddhism is coming. Already we know that the DNA molecule is optimized to be a fractal antenna.  We are more like some kind of electric device that receives and sends a signal like our cell phone.  And when finally the old heart flatlines it may be that the broadcast continues.  Shall we reside in Svarga (P., sagga) or come back to this planet?

Leaving the all too human magic show

We are not born with the knowledge that the world and the body we are connected with is an illusion.  What is real for us is this illusory world and the body that is born and dies within it.  We know no other way than this. 

When we enter into the study of Buddhism we begin to examine this belief of ours.  If things are always changing how can they be real?  If all our efforts ultimately miss the mark how can we find fulfillment?  If we believe this body is our true self why is it always changing and subject to pain and unhappiness?

Here we come to the entrance of Buddhism.  We are attached to what is conditioned and illusory.  We have not the slightest bit of awareness, understanding, or direct knowledge of the unconditioned (true reality), even though the unconditioned is immediate with us.

What we assume to be our self is not our self because an illusion is not real and therefore cannot be a real self.  This perfectly explains why the Buddha said each of the five aggregates is not the self or anattā.  The aggregates themselves are vacant (rittaka), hollow (tucchaka), and coreless (asāraka).  True reality (dharmatā) is a different matter.

When people say that the world has no soul or Ātman or there is only death after this life, they are unconsciously alluding to a fictitious world.  Buddhism takes a much different attitude.  Fictions or illusions just don't happen like a rabbit coming out of the hat during a magic show.  Buddhism exposes the magic act.  When we transcend the human being we leave the magic show.  We enter true reality.

Always beguiled by illusion

An illusion has no own-nature (svabhāva) or ātman.  Still we cling to the illusory body as if it were our self. Then a Buddha says, this is not your self. Then the fool says, so there is no self. The Buddha says, I didn't say that!  Illusion has no self, not that there is no self.

When humans are born into this world they have no idea that it's an illusory world (their biological body included).  Already appearances seem very real. They are the immediacy of these sensations (sense certainty).  They experience them.  They act towards them.  And can recognize subject from object.  Taking this all together in one lump human beings believe this is their self or ātman.

But the Buddha says all this is not the self.  Each of us clings to this illusory self at our own peril.  Overtime we develop a passion for it.  The more we sense the coming loss of this illusory self and its immediate world, the more suffering burdens us.

The death of this illusory self returns is to the origin, absolute Spirit or the true self.  All our past lives stand in front of us.  Then we believe it is necessary to be born again to make amends for our transgressions and acquire new positive experiences. 

But of those who have deeply practiced the Buddha’s dharma they are not so beguiled by this situation as would be an immature person who sees a magician perform his illusion. 

The human passion for illusion binds us steadfastly to the illusion such that we strive and strive, shouldering unbearable agonies hoping to rid ourselves of the torment that we thrust ourselves into.  The Buddha teaches a different means of escape from being always beguiled by illusion.

A stream of unending rebirths

We have not entered into the world of Buddhism if we are attached to the little bundle of love that came out of our mother's birth canal that soon ages, grows old, then dies.  This is a false self or in more precise Buddhist terms, the Anātman. 

According to the Buddha you should abandon desire for whatever is Anātman (SN III.77).  But then the individual might misconstrue the Buddha’s words and assume that he said, there is no self to abandon, problem solved!  The problem is, he never said that or implied it.

The Buddha was a great sage who tried to point out to his listeners that they are living in illusory reality, and by their attachment to this false reality they’ve inadvertently entered into a stream of unending rebirths.  The supreme goal of this life is to escape from rebirth.  That is Buddhism's prime directive.

But humans are so deluded they cannot even read the Buddha’s simple truths correctly.  During my early days in Zen many were interested in Buddhism because they thought that it supported agnosticism or even atheism.  Well they seem to have missed the train. 

Buddhism is really about not falling prey to illusory existence that we believe is our true self.  Once we fall prey to illusion we will fall prey to the next illusion and the illusion after that.  And as strange as it seems to our minds while we are transitioning from one illusion to the next we can say no to the process but inevitably we don’t.  And we don't know why other than we have a passion to exist in the flesh.