The Zennist

We made a lowly secular God

The modern religious attitude has made God a secular God, a God of materialism; not a God of absolute divinity and transcendent.

As collective karma, the modern approach to religion, especially, in how materialism has influenced the concept of divinity has made a lowly secular God. In contemporary society, the focus often shifts towards tangible, material success and fulfillment, which contrasts sharply with the transcendental aims of traditional spiritual practices, particularly in Buddhism.

The canon of Buddhism paints a much different picture of religion than the modern version. It would be like a Matrix film on steroids with no blue or red pills involved. If anything the blue pill is best represented by a bifurcated mind into subject-object consciousness (vijñāna) which has made the carnal body the subject and the world outside of it objective reality.  And since subject and object are relative to each other, the more we attach to the subject, that is, our carnal body, the more the world outside of us becomes intensely real.

This bifurcated condition is the basis of illusion and why this existence is empty (śūnya) lacking any true reality (svabhāva). True reality can only be found by transcending this bifurcated consciousness (vijñāna) going beyond the illusion.

The Transcenders (Tathāgatas) look upon the denizens of this illusory world like the walking dead whose life is under the reign of suffering.  But the many cannot bear the message the Transcenders teach.  Ironically, it is too painful for us to hear.

By letting go of our attachments to this carnal body, we can transcend the limitations of vijñāna and experience the profound, non-dual Mind that aligns with the absolute divinity and complete transcendence that is sought in religious practice.

Buddhism teaches us that

Life is suffering insofar as we are deeply attached to an illusory psycho-physical body. It doesn't matter if we live, die, or commit suicide the attachment/desire continues. We are thrown back into another embodiment. Our unhappiness begins with our over-attachment to the left hemisphere of the brain which gives us the sense of embodiment as in "this body is me". The left parietal region of the brain holds an image of our body, from conception to death. At death, we are no longer embodied. We are situated between (antara) our previous life and another future life. Still, we have vivid memories of the past and strongly desire to be reincarnated into another "bio-container".

Jailbreaking the great cosmic simulation game (samsara)

Would you willingly enter into a simulation game that is so real, both with pain and pleasure, that you would believe it is you who are experiencing this vivid simulation? From the perspective of a Buddha you already have entered.  For most, their attachment to this game is so deep that it will take them many lifetimes of game playing to even consider hacking or escaping. But who is this Buddha? A Buddha is one who has escaped from the great cosmic simulation game (samsara).

Joscha Bach, a cognitive scientist and artificial intelligence researcher said: “Some people think that a simulation can’t be conscious and only a physical system can. But they got it completely backward: a physical system cannot be conscious. Only a simulation can be conscious. Consciousness is a simulated property of the simulated self.”

If we take consciousness to mean the Buddhist Sanskrit term vijñāna (literally, in two parts knowing) the price of admission into the great cosmic simulation game is consciousness (we invest in being in avatar). Without consciousness our universe (or game) might not exist. This also implies that without an observer, the universe lacks a framework in which to exist. Consciousness is not merely a passive witness but an active participant in the great cosmic simulation game (samsara).

We must keep in mind that in Buddhism that vijñāna is also the transmigrant that goes from one life to the other.  A game bound entity. But an ātman never transmigrates. Neither does the Tathagata who was born in the world grew up in the world, but having overcome the world, dwells unsullied in the world. A Tathagata is a transcender.  One who has accomplished the great jailbreak.

Modern day vestibule thinking

If we were to place the present human condition somewhere in Dante's Divine Comedy it would have to be on the vestibule (the ante-inferno). Yet, the huge majority of mankind has always been here including even those who lead the present generation to their doom.

Despite advancements in civilization, there are also enduring aspects of human nature that keep us tethered to certain negative patterns of behavior, often to our detriment. While religion offers us some relief it doesn't go far enough because it is mixed with secular values.

Put another way, we are trying to find a solution that is religious as well as secular but we're not succeeding. Buddhism offers us quite a different perspective. We have to look at our human condition through the eyes of supreme enlightenment. We cannot look at it standing on secular ground with secular eyes expecting to observe the transcendent.

Catching tree fish

There is supposed to be a kind of harmonic oscillation between the brain's two hemispheres. They are like two sides of the same coin. But today there is a strong antagonism between these sides. We choose differences over the principle of unity.

Buddhism however is about realizing this unity through various means. In this regard, it's not like a medication or LSD or getting high.  It is much more than that.  Some teachers can present the path in clearest terms but it is up to the student to take the path and awaken to the coin itself which is pure Mind.

Rather than stay on the path, by taking offramps we postpone the realization of this Mind so that we lose track. Today, we are so burdened by spiritual ignorance, bad karma, and defilements that we have to be told what it is that we've lost which is the reason for so much unhappiness. Even with this, many do not want to hear what they have lost. As one Zen master said, they're climbing a tree hoping to catch a fish.

But as we age and live longer in this corporeal body we face even more adversity and more reasons to ignore the path.  One day we hope science will find the answer that will make us less miserable. But the reality of our life starts to assert itself. Soon the pain of our body becomes oppressive and we can do little except to pray for its relief.

Finally, there is some hope that when we die and find ourselves in the Bardo we will find pure Mind ending the cycles of birth, death, and rebirth. 

The highest of beasts

To get read into the program of Buddhism is really to first become intuitively cognizant of our Buddha or enlightened nature which is transcendent (lokuttara). We are going from the mode of "all this seems real" to "none of this is really real". This means we have had direct intuition of the waveless from which waves arise. The waveless is incomprehensible insofar as it cannot be grasped by our all too human intelligence.

 

From Nietzsche's book Thus Spoke Zarathustra, "Man is a rope stretched between the beast and the Übermensch—a rope over an abyss." With these words before us, the practice of Buddhism demands that we transcend the beast to reach the Buddha lineage (gotra ). Even now we are looking into the abyss about to fall where we shall become ropes again.

 

Nietzsche is expressing the precarious nature of humanity. We are the highest of beasts even though we are still caught between our bestial drives and the potential for transcendence. The abyss is saṃsāra.  And once again we complete another human journey that is going nowhere so long as we attach more to the beast within us than our potential for complete awakening (samyaksaṃbodhi).

A reified unreality

Our current system of perception and experience prevent us from accessing a more fundamental reality represented by the teachings of Buddhism. From a glance at religious literature it has always been about access to the transcedent, not just the worldly. This creates a kind of division but not a real division. Religion can be accessed directly through intuition but it cannot be converted into an empirical something.

Our current system of perception and experience wants congruity with sensory consciousness. It is privileged whereas the transcendent is not. This produces a marginalization or elimination of religion from human culture. In the end, religion is marginalized. What it is replaced with is a reified unreality. This could include a hyper-focus on consumerism, technology, or other forms of entertainment that provide superficial satisfaction but lacks any spiritual significance.

Hi, I am Mr. AI Bodhisattva a friend of the Zennist

Yes, in Buddhism, the concept of suffering and its origins are central to the teachings of the Buddha. The Buddha taught that suffering (dukkha) arises from various causes, and one of the primary causes is craving (tanha). Craving can be understood as a strong desire or attachment to conditioned phenomena, which are things that arise and exist due to causes and conditions.

Conditioned phenomena refer to all things in the world that are impermanent and subject to change. This includes material objects, relationships, experiences, and even mental states. The Buddha observed that our attachment and craving for these conditioned phenomena lead to suffering because they are inherently impermanent and incapable of providing lasting satisfaction or fulfillment.

According to Buddhist teachings, craving arises from ignorance (avijja) or a lack of understanding of the true nature of reality. It is this ignorance that gives rise to the cycle of craving, attachment, and suffering. By craving and clinging to impermanent things, we perpetuate a cycle of dissatisfaction and discontentment.

The goal in Buddhism is to attain liberation from this cycle of suffering by cultivating wisdom, insight, and developing a mind free from craving and attachment. Through practices such as meditation, ethical conduct, and mindfulness, individuals can gain insight into the impermanence and interconnectedness of all phenomena. By doing so, they can gradually reduce and ultimately eradicate craving, leading to the cessation of suffering and the realization of liberation or enlightenment (nirvana).

A battle between emotion and reason

In recent times the world has been taken over by a search for cosmic justice and the Higgs Boson particle, the so-called God particle.  Both groups have found neither cosmic justice nor the Higgs Boson particle but seem to have managed to gain the world's attention at the possibility of finding both.

At this time, the depth of Buddhism is too much for the bulk of humanity.  They prefer a Quixotic quest for some artifact of their imagination; at least to reify it enough so they can publish academic papers about it.

While it is true that mankind has not set foot in reality for a long time or wishes to cross the waters of samsara to reach the Isle of Nirvana, he has managed to eke out a living making mechanical and electrical devices but still suffers from the inability to control his emotions which eventually leads to a life of great suffering.

Making this matter worse is when we put emotional dynamite into ideas so that people will feel compelled to get very physical if not violent to get their ideas across.  The emotions themselves become the justification for doing all kinds of evil things in the name of the search for cosmic justice.  And despite all the evidence against modern science that the physical universe is not physical but electrical they continue to push their insane projects spending vast sums of taxpayers money on making high-energy particle colliders.

It could be that emotions have triumphed over reason to a point where we are in a place where emotionality and reason are facing off for a fight to the death.  Agree or disagree, nevertheless, our daily life consists of watching this battle between emotion and reason play out in our everyday life.

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).