The Zennist

The danger that consciousness poses

The growth of excessive consciousness has profound consequences for the way we experience ourselves and the world. — Iain McGilchrist

 

Basically, the Buddha is telling us that the arising of suffering is caused by consciousness and that with the complete ending of consciousness there can be no arising of suffering.  This is borne out by this passage from the Sutta-Nipāta:

“Whatever suffering arises, all is caused by consciousness.  With the complete ending of all consciousness there is no arising of suffering” (734).

As humans, before the nine months in our mother’s womb, we were consciousness in the bardo/antarabhāva or intermediate existence (between our last death and a new birth). This same consciousness connects us to a new birth place by attaching to our next mother’s fertilized embryo. 

It is thus from the bardo/antarabhāva, that consciousness causes itself to experience another round of birth and with it more suffering by clinging to the illusory shadows of its previous existence (this is not so for those who have transcended consciousness thus acquiring the intuition of that which forever lies beyond consciousness). 

This backward review by consciousness, if I can call it that, is reified and intensified by the conscious agent who then blindly and willfully attaches to another life, that is, connects with a new embryo.

As a result, the world of conscious agents never seems to leave the enclosure of consciousness.  This enclosing further develops into an individual existence with a head, arms, torso, legs and the rest of the things that make up a body.  This is a catastrophe, opening up new problems and new forms of suffering. 

But, believe it or not, there is an advantage to this.  Because consciousness is compressed into an individual with its outside world together with the subject and their mental and emotional activity it is now possible to overcome the implicit duality that makes up consciousness since it is now disclosed.  By right meditation; overcoming the deceiving power of consciousness; returning to the primordial enlightened state (buddhatā), this new, transformed being is able to help rescue those lost in the enchanting and dangerous powers of consciousness.

Switching gears, I find it odd that latter-day Buddhists don’t realize what meditation is supposed to achieve and overcome.  Not only that, but also the danger that consciousness poses if not transcended.

 

Rejecting the transcendent in Buddhism?

From day one, if we decide to study Buddhism, we are supposed to believe that most Buddhist traditions reject the idea of a transcendent, unchanging atman.  But in many ways this is just an assumption that has found its way into Buddhism with little or no evidence or solid proof that the Buddha ever made such a claim.  In fact, many Western Buddhists would like to believe he denied the atman, but where in scripture did the Buddha clearly and unambiguously reject the atman as if to say, “There is no atman,” and on what grounds?

 Where the no atman proponents are confused is the Buddha only denied the atman relative to the five aggregates which embrace all the essential properties of human beings.  The Buddha realized the true atman and knew the aggregates were not it.  In other words, the aggregates are not your likely candidate for an atman which is supposed to be beyond the reach and range of conditionality which certainly excludes the troublesome and finite aggregates.

In fact, we learn from the Buddha that the instructed disciple doesn’t regard any of the five aggregates to be his atman (P., attā) (MN I.136).  The disciple can distinguish his atman from the five aggregates.  He also understands that it is self or atman that realizes nirvana (MN I.255) which is unconditioned and not connected with the aggregates since they are conditioned.

Logic also tells us that the atman which realizes nirvana, which is unconditioned, must be, itself, unconditioned to realize nirvana.  On the same note, a self that is drawn to the aggregates as being itself, in the example of Saccaka the Aggivessana (MN I.230), is on a fool’s errand.

But perhaps the bigger problem with assuming that the Buddha rejected a transcendent, unchanging atman, is that Buddhism becomes like a magnet for those who are materialists; who refuse to accept even a transcendent state which is a problem with modern Buddhism.  Yet, despite their wish to see Buddhism as a form of materialism they fail to recognize that a Buddha has transcended all things (pāragā sabba-dhammānam) (AN I.162).  Isn’t this what a Buddha is supposed to do?  Later in Mahayana Buddhism it will be declared that the Buddha-nature is the atman.

 

 

Backing up into spiritual territory

We are so weakened by our attachment to the five aggregates/skandhas, namely, form, feeling. perception, volition and consciousness that we have lost almost all sense of the spiritual which transcends these aggregates and the six senses, as well, which includes even mentation (manas) and its objects.

Because our mind is set on the skandhas we have also set our mind upon receiving suffering as our reward because the five skandhas, according to the Buddha, are suffering (DN II.305).

For those who live in accordance with the Buddha’s spiritual teaching which points to what transcends the skandhas, and thus suffering, they have their minds set on what is spiritual and beyond suffering.

To be charmed and desirous of the world of the skandhas, including the six senses, is also to become enslaved to the misdeeds of our biological body becoming even more spiritually blind as we indulge in corporeal passions.  In truth, indulging in the pleasures of the skandhas is contrary to the Buddha’s teaching.

To escape this predicament, we have to gradually withdraw our attachment to our body with its 37.2 trillion cells (an estimate).  This is when our spiritual side begins to kick in, so to speak.  Unbeknownst to us, to back away from the corporeal with its various passions is to back into spiritual territory—not much at first.  This is the basic training of Buddhism, 101.  The life of a monk or a nun is a backing away from the skandhas and sensory attachment, and thus entry into the spiritual world like a blind person gradually regaining their sight.

To be sure, it can be a long process and one not without its share of ups and downs because we are dealing with nature and an attachment to our body so deep as to believe we are this body rather than what actually animates it which is incorporeal and not a body.  

It seems that consciousness is a closed system

Buddhism’s notion of consciousness (vijñāna) has implicit within it a subject and an object or if you prefer, an observer (me!) and observed things in front of me.  The English word "consciousness" doesn't have this.  Because it is missing this dyadic quality it doesn't help to light up our understanding of Buddhism.  That aside, unnpacking the Sanskrit word vijñāna, it is vi (in two parts) and jñāna (knowing) which we translate with our English word “consciousness.”

Consciousness is a closed system from which there is no apparent escape for us or so it would seem.  We are born in it and we die in it and are reborn again and again in it owing to our karma and craving.  We can say that consciousness contains a deceptive dyadic relationship that seems absolute but is not. There is a chink in its armor.

The observer needs the observed object has much as the object needs the observer.  Neither can stand independent of the other.  In a way, we are constructing our lived in world by our very act of observing it.  We are participates in making reality not just its victims.  The universe, believe it or not, also needs the observer.

We would be wrong to think that consciousness is fundamental.  It is not fundamental.  It is a construct with a subject/observer component and an object/observed component that depend on each other.  They are implicitly linked but we know not through what they are linked.  It could also be thought of as a hyper-reality that we are not privy to in our unawakened state.

Our consciousness, from a Buddhist perspective, is making this world with us trapped inside it being always reborn back into it.  But what the actual source of consciousness is, which is mightier than consciousness, we have no idea.  In fact, any attempt on our part to be conscious (vijñāna) of this mysterious hyper-reality is doomed to fail for obvious reasons. 

Transcending consciousness can only be done through meditation (P., jhāna or jhānāni) which has different levels that reside in places of consciousness.  In other words, consciousness accompanies all but the last meditational state when consciousness ceases to function as it did previously.  The adept has now realized that there is not the slightest difference between the subject/observer and the object/observed.  This is really a return to the original one (eka), the most primordial or what the Buddha called the "unconditioned".

The downfall of religion is the imagination?

The religious imagination, ironically, can be and often is the downfall of religion.  God of the imagination is no more real than a person imagining winning the lottery and becoming rich beyond belief. 

When, for example, Christians speak of feeling the Holy Spirit it is their imagination that is working at a somatic level thanks to the power of autosuggestion that neither their will nor their intellect can overcome.  This is also applicable to Buddhists who like to do seated meditation or zazen or some kind of Tibetan Vajrayana practice.

All this attests to the power of the imagination—not religion—when it comes, especially, to Buddhism.  If anything, Buddhism represents a transcendence of man’s mental world which includes his imagination.  Buddhism is interested in what our thoughts are made of and how consciousness (vijñāna) works to keep man caught in the trap of samsara (the cyclic realm of suffering) always taking its bait.

We humans are neither free nor liberated.  We have only experienced relative freedom and relative liberation of a limited duration.  We invent fictions with our imagination to help us believe that we are free, or about to become free if we join this cause or believe in this dogma.  However, we are constantly deluding ourselves being unable to see the big picture; to enter the stream of true reality.   

The power that our imagination has over us is not waning but, instead, waxing, being fed by those who wish to manipulate us; leading us to our downfall.  Still, it’s our responsibility to chain the monkey as the Zen masters say which is a metaphor for controlling the mind (manas) which includes the imagination with all its fictions.

It is logical to assume that the absolute knows itself and does not mistake itself with something other than itself.  To get here, one must make an extraordinary journey into illusion to find its end.  By this I mean, ordinary beings (puthujjana) are always mistaking their real self with something that is not really who they are in the example of the five aggregates (skandha) which make up their life; which they call their self.  Still, they want to imagine that this is who they are. They refuse to make the journey.

“They who imagine truth in untruth and see untruth in truth, never arrive at truth but follow vain imaginings” (Dhp. 11).

Taking up the inner Odyssey

Religious disaffiliation, it would appear, is on the rise in present day youth culture.  It borders at times on irreligion which can easily turn nihilistic.  What appears to have replaced the need for religion are, mainly, pragmatic goals such as sexual fulfillment and financial happiness which facilitates consumerism.

Still, by and large, most young people are not finding the sexual fulfillment or financial happiness they hoped for or even expected.  The repeated failure to do so, eventually, leads to various degrees of dissatisfaction or a kind of anger towards the world.  In either case, one still feels like they are owed something when in fact they are not owed anything.

People who go down this road are not only self-deceived but their own worst enemy.  They suffer from the attitude that there is no inner Odyssey for them, i.e., a long process of putting aside the false self; hopefully to come nearer to learning who one truly is rather that always attaching to the immature, false self.  As a consequence, they wait around for some great guru to save them or some wild new drug to transform them which, by the way, never comes in the way anticipated.  Or there arises in them some grandiose, political passion to change the world.

By the way, I lived through all this during the 1960s — it still continues today unabated.  The bulk of youth never fails to be stupid insofar as they are unwilling to enter upon the Odyssean character arc setting aside their old, false self.  Luckily in 1965, I took up this inner Odyssey which is at the core of Buddhism where the hero Siddhartha sets forth to find the end of suffering.

Starting out on life’s difficult road is best if we have learned something about our real self which most never manage to do.  And Buddhism is best for teaching us this if we are willing to go on this inner Odyssey although Buddhism is not without its factions and battles.  But since the religious life is under appreciated and somewhat under siege, I expect to see more of the same which I lived through in the 1960s which was kind of a late adolescent rebellion.  But a few of you get it like I did — and I am happy about that.

Postmodernism: rationalized decadence (beware Buddhism)

What makes postmodernism so odd and problematic is its tolerance for decline.  In this light, it can be thought of as rationalized decadence both, social and personal, which has been presented to the public as inevitable.

The traces of this decadence might be seen in these tense and conflicting dyads such as normal vs. perverse, nation vs. anarchy, education vs. indoctrination, responsibility vs. untrustworthiness, humility vs. self-esteem, conscientious vs. unprincipled, lazy vs. industrious, meaning vs. meaningless, and so on.

We see this problem unfold before our eyes in the tents popping up in California’s coastal cities which are mainly inhabited by people who abuse drugs and/or alcohol.  The governments of those particular cities have not only rationalized such decadence but tacitly permit this decline to take place, letting these cities look like they belong to the third world.

Postmodernism’s impact on both Zen and Buddhism if you just study the literature is allowing a profound shift to take place in Buddhism.  Enlightenment (nirvana) is no longer pivotal which determines the path and the attitude towards taking it not to mention the entire context of Buddhism.  It has been supplanted by people who could not care less about enlightenment or kenshō (intuiting one's true nature).  Such people have more or less succumbed to narcissism which is an over-preoccupation with what is not the self  (anātman) as if it were the authentic self or atman which is synonymous with Buddha-nature.  In this condition, the narcissist needs constant admiration and attention from others to prop up this weak, illusory self or persona (for Buddhists it is a self that is not a self, a kind of anti-self).

Heading a Buddhist or Zen temple is the perfect place for a narcissist in this postmodern world.  They have followers who rely upon them, get lots of attention and admiration, and can do about what they like.  They are always above reproach.  They have ample narcissistic fuel, in other words. 

Zen is especially susceptible to being taken over by narcissists.  They just need to be charming with the ability to manipulate people in the direction they want.

If you think about it modern religion has been taken over by narcissists, especially, Christianity with is odd assortment of preachers and ministers who are unable to grasp the real purport of Christianity.  Such people are like fruit from the tree of decadence that is being cultivated, presently, in the West who will insure the further decline of religion and especially Buddhism.

 

 

Zen's intuition of the absolute comes suddenly

As I have mentioned before, Zen is really about a special kind of intuition that cannot be pinned down by our intellect or rational mind no matter how hard we try.  Zen asks us to look within and intuit ultimate reality, sometimes referring to it as our true nature or true essence.  In fact, it comes in many different names from pure Mind to the One mind or just Suchness. 

When we look at this picture below it seems confusing — like something from a modern art museum or is it a reconnaissance photo of land taken of the Earth from 60,000 feet?  I mean what the heck is it? 

 

To see what it really is requires intuition.  It comes suddenly.  To help us in that direction we might need a few clues.  Zen is a lot like this but far more difficult even with the clues.  Zen is about intuiting our true nature or essence which is completely devoid of mental activity.  So look into your mind and try to intuit this nature.  Any luck?  No sudden intuition? 

Back to our picture.  It’s much easier to see what this is if I tell you that it is a cow’s face looking right at you.  It will take only a few seconds to see it or a few minutes — maybe longer.  But don’t worry, you’ll see the cow’s face.  Notice that when I said it was a cow’s face looking at you how that helped?  Zen literature (and this includes Buddhist literature also) is supposed to do that.  Let me give you an example from Zen master Ta-chu.

“The essence of mind is formless, this itself is the subtle body of reality.  The essence of mind is inherently empty; this itself is the infinite body of space.  Demonstrating arrays of practices is the body of reality of virtues.  The body of reality is the root of myriad emanations, which are named according to the situation.  Its knowledge and function are endless; this is the inexhaustible treasury.”

Did this help?  Next, how is this quote from the Samadhiraja Sutra?

“The true nature of all phenomena is non-arisen, signless, markless, unmanifest, not disappearing, inexpressible by letters, empty, quiescent from the outset, pure by its very nature.”

No sudden intuition?  Well, there is an intuition.  It is quite real.  Don't listen to the doubters.  It comes as fast has seeing the cow's face emerge in the time of a finger snap.

The failure of Zen to thrive in western culture

Let’s be honest with ourselves, modern Zen is a vestigial practice: the small remains of a once greater devotion and practice of Buddhism where the adept had full faith that enlightenment was real and could be achieved in this lifetime.

While western culture is being deconstructed and undermined by a most degenerating force as if to destroy all of what culture stands for, Zen has also been affected along with Buddhism.  Neither are free of this degenerating force.  This only hastens the breakdown and the passage of the Buddhist religion into the dustbin of history as Buddhism is marketed to the wrong types of people.

Historically, in strong, religiously tolerant cultures Buddhism thrived.  Surplus wealth could afford homeless monks and nuns.  Buddhism grew and expanded as a result especially under the Mauryan emperor, Ashoka.  Many monks were healers in the sense of being physicians and veterinarians who came to help sentient beings as much as they could.  Buddhist missionaries under Ashoka came into Greek and Aramaic-speaking cultures Hebrew, I hasten to add, being a close relative of Aramaic.  They even came into Egypt, particularly at Alexandria where much of Christian religious thought began.

Buddhism in America, and I include Zen, came to a prosperous middle-class culture but one that was being challenged and even changed by the new left which is never other than irreligious unlike traditional Indian culture.

As with traditional Buddhism it was not meant for the bāla (i.e., the puerile and immature).  In other words, it didn’t come to save fools (bāla) from themselves but to awaken those who might have the capacity to see beyond the obstructing convolutions of their senses, the most powerful sense being mental activity (manas). 

Zen in the 1950s and 1960s was something middle-class culture could support and help to grow.  But it was not to last long with the growing power of the new left — and that is about the time that I came into Zen.  Living with an abbot of a Zen temple and having read most of the books in the temple’s meagre library, I had enough good karma to realize that the Zen I was studying with the abbot was not Zen but a remnant of Zen if not a degenerate practice of it which was solely dedicated to sitting meditation. 

Eventually on my own in a retreat, I saw that Zen, which in Sanskrit is dhyāna or in Pali, jhāna, had its limit.  Doing seated meditation was not a road that might take the serious adept to enlightenment but only made direct intuition more likely — walking, too, was important.  In fact, the Buddha says of the highest meditation:

“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).

As the reader might guess (and be right) Zen can only take its students to the point where their intuition can receive the mysterious vision of the absolute which occurs suddenly.  This point is only arrived at when the student goes to their wits’ end.  But this is too much for modern Zen to understand let alone practice which has become a victim of the new left with its bizarre agenda.  I don’t care if the teacher is a great Lama or Zen master — they will fail.  It is that bad.  Nothing spiritual can grow in the soil of the new left.

What if Galileo had decided to go one step further?

Galileo wrote, "I think that tastes, odors, colors, and so on are no more than mere names so far as the object in which we locate them are concerned, and that they reside in consciousness. Hence if the living creature were removed, all these qualities would be wiped away and annihilated” (The Assayer, 1623).  I find Galileo’s words rather profound if not also beyond his time. 

From my Buddhist perspective, Galileo’s words cause me to think that consciousness could be far more fundamental than the biological body.  It may even be the case that consciousness comes first before the world of physicality (nāmarūpa). 

If we remove the body (let’s say it dies) we don’t necessarily also remove consciousness (this is verified by NDEs in my opinion).  As we Buddhists understand, it is consciousness or in Sanskrit, vijñāna, that is the samsaric transmigrant from one life to the next. It doesn't die with the carnal body.

The only way this samsaric consciousness ends is by being absorbed into the original One whereupon it becomes the One’s reflection into itself.  This is a higher consciousness, nirvana.

Where consciousness is signless, boundless, all luminous. (DN I.223).

This is also the Buddha’s Mind which is beyond transmigration/rebirth which for us is inconceivable in our unawakened state.

So, what if Galileo had decided to go one step further and postulate that all things reside in consciousness, even human bodies with their brains, including spacetime.  Where would we be as a culture?   I speculate that the West would be far more advanced than it is today.  It would be closer to Buddhism in this regard.  Back to our time, we haven’t been successful at proving consciousness comes from our brain.  Frankly, it's been a failure.