The Zennist

Natural born killers

 According to Zen master Bassui (1327–1387) the failure to see into our true nature, thus maintaing a deluded mind, is breaking the five precepts.  Of especial interest is the first precept, which is the precept not to take away life (prânâtipâta).  According to Bassui:

“The power from seeing into your own nature will extinguish all delusion and bring life to Buddha-nature.  This is the precept not to kill living things” (trans. Arthur Braverman).

On the other hand, by failing to realize Buddha Mind; being more interested in keeping a deluded mind in the belief it is otherwise, this is killing our own Buddha Mind or Buddha-nature.  In this sense we are natural born killers who are attached to the psychophysical body (skandhas) which the Buddha equates with a killer (S. iii. 189).

Lacking insight into our true nature, everyday becomes a day of killing for us since we are attached to a killing machine which obstructs our ability to see the deathless Buddha Mind which gives life (prânâ).

 

The lost children of the Buddha

Okay, time for a brain break.  I just came across this nice documentry film, Buddha’s Lost Children (2006) by Dutch director Mark Verkerk.  I really enjoyed this film.  This is a blub from the offical site.

In the borderlands of Thailand's Golden Triangle, a rugged region known for its drug smuggling and impoverished hill tribes, one man devotes himself to the welfare of the region's children. A former Thai boxer, turned Buddhist monk, Phra Khru Bah Neua Chai Kositto travels widely on horseback, fearlessly dispensing prayers and tough-love. With his Golden Horse Temple he's built an orphanage, school and clinic - a haven for the children of the region, who see him as a shaman, father figure and coach.

 

Let me say that Phra (monk) had an extraordinary spiritual experience that seemed to empower him and guide him on this special path.

The moment I became a monk, my heart and mind changed...I felt a great calm that I just couldn't explain...I ended up sitting on a rock for 15 days and 15 nights. 

I felt such a peace...and then a swarm of bees...built a nest around me and I couldn't move.

It was like a dream in which...the forest was filled with wise men...who taught me their Buddhist ways...When I finally awoke after the 15 days...the sun was bright and the bees were gone. 

 

Is there life after death?

The Scole Experiment provides the uninformed and deniers with more than satisfactory scientific evidence that there is life after death. Witnessed by trained scientists and paranormal debunkers including hundreds of visitors the Scole Experiment proves to be a watershed moment in our understanding of life after death.

For the materialists among us, it is a shocking revelation; one that throws materialists into a state of cognitive dissonance.  For Buddhists the Scole Experiment offers a chance to rid Buddhism of the materialists who are presently trying to take control of Buddhism, putting in its place a counterfeit, materialistic Dharma.  These Buddhist materialists need to be exposed who will be the ones challenging the Scole Experiment.

I have read the book, The Scole Experiment by Grant & Jane Solomon.  For those who haven't this documentary will be of great help in understanding what the experient was really about.  It will no doubt cause the materialists and Buddhist materialists to wrestle with their beliefs, one important one being the brain is consciousness, or the same, consciousness is an epiphenomenon of the physical brain.

Enjoy the documentary.

 

 

 

Let's enlighten up!

Maybe I have mentioned it before on an earlier blog, but Buddhism, especially Zen, is going to follow, more or less, the fate of yoga which has become, in some respects, too westernized to the point of being an almost ludicrous simplification of the original.  

The documentary film, Enlighten Up! (2009) is a good place to start.  This synopsis I took from Netflix tells us basically what the film is about.

Armed with the belief that yoga can positively transform anyone's life, documentarian Kate Churchill tracks journalist Nick Rosen's investigation into the ancient discipline, which launches the yoga cynic on a journey halfway around the world. Searching for the true meaning of yoga, Rosen meets a variety of yogis, devotees and gurus who espouse widely different views on the purpose and significance of the age-old practice.

It is true that Nick is somewhat cynical but not to the point of being a hardcore skeptic.  He is doing his best to keep an open mind without being credulous.  What is of major interest for me is what the film doesn’t mention or cover.  This is the main yoga text, itself, the Hatha Yoga Pradipika (lit. light of severe yoga) by Maharishi Swatmarama (16th century C.E.) which is online.  While Swatmarama’s work describes the various postures or asanas, it also goes into three other subjects under the heading of yoga.  They are breath or pranayama, mudra, and samadhi, samadhi being where the first three have their implicit aim.   

The yoga Nick encounters is pretty much physical that stresses postures, ignoring samadhi.  This, unfortunately, is what many Buddhist Dharma centers are doing:  relying far too much on formal sitting meditation which was never at the center of Shâkyamuni’s teaching.  Buddhism is wholly spiritual which is to say it doesn’t take the form of modern religion nor is it secular.  It has no dependence on physical postures.  No careful reworking of the physical body is going to win deliverance, in other words.  Buddhism is focused on the spirit that animates the body—not the body.

 

The calling

I just got done watching the four-hour PBS documentry, The Calling.  The documentry follows Muslims, Catholics, Evangelical Christians and Jews.  (Where are the Asian religions?  Oops!).  

I guess one can describe all of them as having been called by God to do his work.  The calling for each, however, appears to be subjective this calling going no further than the religious culture each elects to follow which is hardly ‘spiritual’.

Let’s face it, the followers of the major religions of today generally use religion for other than its intended purpose, its intended purposed being to realize one’s true nature which is absolute spirit.   A historical case in point.  The Christian Paul said that the New Covenant is one of spirit (pneuma); not one based upon letters.  Paul even says that the Lord is spirit ((O de kyrios to pneuma estin).  It is safe to say from Paul’s letters that those who take Christianity at a literal level belong to the Old Covenant which keeps the spiritual covenant veiled.    

But the obvious references to spirit or “pneuma” in Paul’s letters, as we know, did not stop the followers of Christianity from making a counterfeit Christianity which is arguably, anti-spiritual; which has been used primarily as a means of social control—mainly to keep the rich, rich and the poor, poor.  As a result of many years of being despiritualized, the Christian ministry, itself, has been transformed into a “ministry of condemnation” (II. Corinthians 3:9).  Does all this sound familiar dear Buddhists?  It should.

The same mind that made a counterfeit Christianity is busy destroying Buddhism; turing it into something which is spiritually dead.  It always seems to be the case that what emerges after the flowering of true religion, over time, paradoxically turns into a system which destroys true religion, making the soil for its growth and development, barren.  Thus religion eventually becomes its own hangman.  What is originally spirit, over time, becomes veiled.  The clergy not only become the guardians of the veil, they also become overseers and guardians of herd values, values which insure the veil will never be lifted!

Buddhism is the last stronghold of true religion which is still growing in the soil of mysticism which includes shamanism.  But its destruction is likely given the fact that it is being rapidly “westernized” which is to say, it is being turned into a religion that celebrates herd values; that, in addition, makes the profane man (prithagjana) the great hero despite the fact that this man’s history in recent memory has been one of genocide and the destruction of earth’s biosphere.

 

The Zennist, certainly no Dr. Strangelove

The Zennist, not intentionally, stands in sharp contrast to popular Buddhism and Zen.  This doesn’t mean that it lacks credibility.  For anyone who has bothered to read and think about what the Buddha taught in both the Nikayas and the Mahayana canon The Zennist doesn’t come as a shock.  Mainly, it helps to unpack much of what the Buddha really taught.  For this reason, the author of the blog is certainly no Dr. Strangelove.

There is a lot wrong with religion these days—Buddhism included.  Those who follow a particular religion, for the most part, don’t like to read what the founder of their religion actually taught and then have to think about it for any extended period of time.  They much prefer to attend a religious service or sit in zazen at their local Zen center, then call it a day.  This whole process is quite superficial.  It also finds the clergy often catering to some religious fantasy the pop religionists have conjured up about their religion which can’t be found in the canon.  

Eventually, the authentic notion of religion gets lost and buried in the glitz and glitter of being externalized to satisfy the common people (prithagjana).  Perish the thought that anyone dare tell these people that their religious practices and ideas are a dead-end.  In fact, they run counter to real religion if by religion we mean “an awareness of something outside and beyond nature” (Schleiermacher).  This awareness or better still, gnosis/jñâna, is not just a belief—say, a belief in God.  It is a direct, intuitive acquaintance with the absolute.  Certainly, it goes beyond even words and ideas, including feelings.

For now, let’s say The Zennist is on a mission to show the general Buddhist public that the Buddhism they practice isn’t really Buddhism at all, for example, secular Buddhism.  It is just a westernized adaptation of Buddhism leaving out its most essential elements, like nirvana because nirvana is about transcendence—an odious term for any secular materialist.

The Zennist will continue to show no mercy to pop Buddhism lest such mercy allow a wrong view of Buddhism to settle in where it does not rightfully belong.  And from what I can see, most of the commentators to The Zennist have a low tolerance for views which are not in the canon which is a good sign that a truly authentic Western Buddhism is emerging that fully understands in what direction real Buddhism is pointing as opposed to the wrong direction which pop Buddhism has elected to take.

 

We the prisoners

Yesterday, I was watching the new updated television miniseries, The Prisoner (2009).  It is a remake of the 1967 British television series of 17 episodes which starred Patrick McGoohan who also co-created the series.  The Prisoner, one of the most innovative of television series being right up there with Twilight Zone, is not without deep philosophical underpinnings.  This is picked up by Keith Booker, in his book Strange TV, who observes The Prisoner (1967) is “roughly contemporaneous with the arrival of Continental “theory,” especially of a French structuralist and poststructuralist variety.”  Booker informs the reader that the French postmodern theory revealed that “the stable, autonomous subject of bourgeois ideology is a myth and that the individual subjects are not just controlled, but actually constructed by impersonal forces larger than themselves (such as “language”), forces that the subject can thus subsequently never entirely escape or resist" (p. 72).  This, to an noticeable measure, is exemplified by both television works of The Prisoner.  

My first reaction to the 2009 version of The Prisoner, which I put down in my notes, was this:  The trick is to make the prison big and spacious enough—hiding the bars— so that one has a false sense of freedom; so the inhabitants don't realize they’re prisoners.  As I thought about this more relating it to Buddhism and my recent reading of Vaihinger’s book, The Philosophy of “As If” (1925) and Jeremy Bentham’s, The Theory of Fictions, which is in C.K. Ogden’s book, Bentham’s Theory of Fictions (1932), I realized that our modern world is a fictional construct—if you like, a grand illusion—that is equally a grand diversion, always leading us away from the horizon of true reality as if truth is to be greatly feared.  It even provides us with the illusion of escape.

I certainly think it is true that modernity which began with the Enlightenment with its carefully crafted fictions found in science, jurisprudence, philosophy and psychology, to name just a few categories, has either consciously or unconsciously created a prison so immense and deadly, so as to cause us to wonder, like Number Six in, The Prisoner, shall I ever escape?  

This leads to the picture of the dystopic postmodern world which is actually the truth of modernity.  It is through postmodernism that we are able to see the illusion of modernity—the Wizard of Oz behind the curtain, so to speak.  But unlike Dorothy and Toto we have no home to go to since we are products of modernity.  We are in the condition of Number Six—we can’t remember our home except in bits and pieces.

The only real escape from the world Number Six has, which is not portrayed in either television series, is the mystical path that runs invisibly perpendicular to our palpably fictional modern world and its postmodern counterpart which is also a fiction.  But even the mystical path can become manipulated so that awakening is an illusion in the example of learning to live in the here and the now in which the person is unknowingly condemning themselves to a perpetual present which is a form of spiritual paralysis or the same, the skeptic’s ataraxia.

It should not surprise any of us that mysticism is almost a taboo for those who cuddle their chains and choose to live in a world built upon fictions.  The Christians hate it and not far behind are the pop Buddhists who are content to live in the surreal village of modernity that Number Six is trying to escape from teaching us that just sitting is all we have to do to be happy.  Incidentally, these same Buddhists want to argue that the Buddha’s path was not mystical despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary.  And since they know they can’t win their only alternative is to expunge or simply ignore all that speaks of the mystical from the canon of Buddhism thereby guaranteeing a life of imprisonment and suffering for all those who come to Buddhism trying to escape. 

 

Was the Buddha the first enlightened dude?

Was the Buddha a dude somewhat like the character “The Dude” played by Jeff Bridges in the film, The Big Lebowski (1998)?  I ask this question because I remember something Bodhidharma had said about the Buddha that sounded dudistic. 

“A buddha is an idle person.  He doesn’t run around after fortune and fame.  What good are such things in the end?" (Red Pine, The Zen Teaching of Bodhidharma, p. 35).

While it is speculative on my part to take up the subject of dudism as regards the Buddha, the life of the Buddha is certainly not far from the contemporary ‘dude profile’.  As I have observed throughout my life, every true dude is always trying to go with the flow, avoiding needless hassles.  This is what the Buddha did which eventually led him to the babe Sujata, her magical elixir, and then the Bodhi-tree where he sat and took on Mara the Evil One finally to win full enlightenment.

Backing up a little, the ‘dude path’ opened up for the Buddha after he found out that doing painful ascetic practices to achieve enlightenment were not going with the flow.  The true means to enlightenment—and the dude flow—is more akin to Gertrude Stein’s wonderful insight who said:  “It takes a lot of time to be a genius, you have to sit around so much doing nothing, really doing nothing.”  The really doing nothing part, I hasten to add, is not even caring to agitate one’s mind so that the unagitated, clear-light Buddha Mind is instantly seen.

When the Buddha rejected the path of painful ascetic practices, which we can guess went against the way of the dude, his colleagues were not too happy.  They said:

“By the achievements of this path, the Sramana Gautama [the Buddha-to-be] will never be able to manifest the saintly wisdom which is above the highest human knowledge.  As he is now eating food in abundance, and as he is begging food, he is clearly an ignorant and a stupid fellow” (Lalitavistara Sutra).  

Yes!—Gautama the Buddha, at this point, became a full-fledged dude.  But even before the Buddha came to reject such asceticism to go with the flow, he showed dude tendencies.  According to the Lalitavistara Sutra, he always practiced asceticism with ten young village girls by the names of Bala, Balagupta, Supriya, Vajayasena, Atimuktakamala, Sundari, and Kumbhakari, Uluvillika, Jatilika, and of course Sujata.  This prompts me to say that no one can be a true dude and neglect women—and least of all a young woman like Sujata bearing her magical drink that would insure the Buddha’s enlightenment.

No doubt the foremost and the greatest of all religious dudes, was the Buddha.

 

Richard Gere vs Stephen Batchelor

I just got back from seeing the Dalai Lama, fellow Georgian, Alice Walker of The Color Purple fame, and Richard Gere, internationally renowned film actor, social activist, and philanthropist.  

The conversation held at Emory University called, “The Creative Journey” asked the question: “How do the arts help us to express, or perhaps to uncover, our spiritual yearnings, questions, or certainties?”

A little over two hours there wasn’t a dull or boring moment during the conversation.  Richard Gere often served as a catalyst that helped to make the conversation profoundly informative, down to earth, and lively.  Alice Walker held the center who at times I saw as a Buddhist nun who had much wisdom to share.  As usual, if you have never seen the Dalai Lama in person, he is a great comedian in addition to being sagacious—oh, and compassionate!  

But what I want to comment on since Emory University will have the whole conversation on the Internet, is Richard Gere in contrast to Stephen Batchelor.  (I know this sounds weird, but please bear with me.)

Like his mentor the Dalai Lama, Gere is not without humor and compassion.  He is also quite intellectual.  But Gere is also very respectful of Buddhism.   

During the conversation at Emory, it suddenly dawned on me that Richard Gere ain’t no Stephen Batchelor.  The two are worlds apart in my opinion.  I have read two of Batchelor’s books, Buddhism Without Beliefs and Confession of a Buddhist Atheist.  To be frank, Batchelor is trying to undermine Buddhism—Gere is not.  Gere never became a Buddhist monk like Batchelor.  Gere still practices Buddhism as a layman.  Batchelor disrobed twice, once as a Tibetan monk the other as a Zen monk.  Apparently, Batchelor found  Buddhism to be inadequate.  He wrote books insinuating that Buddhism needs to be modernized in such a way that it isn’t based on karma, rebirth and Mind (Batchelor scouts Mind in Confession of a Buddhist Atheist on pages 67–68).  Gere never wrote any books critical of the leading principles of Buddhism. 

If I had to pick between the two who might best protect Buddhism it would be Richard Gere not Stephen Batchelor.  Also, I firmly believe Alice Walker would protect Buddhism, too, who being a good Georgian holds all religions in high esteem.

What irritates me about Stephen Batchelor is that he entered Buddhism with his so-called Western prejudices and left Buddhism with them still intact; who now feels it is his duty to save Buddhism by ridding it of old Hindu superstitions so that it will, supposedly, be like the original Buddhism of Gautama which is quite modern teaching, essentially, that when you’re dead, you’re dead. 

 

Escape from modernity

Postmodern doesn't imply that we have arrived at some new enlightenment or some new way of looking at ourselves and our world say, like the Na'vi, in James Cameron’s film, Avatar.  

Postmodern only means that we are moving away from modernity, that is, moving away from the dominance of the subject in which human subjectivity has become the measure of all things.  Where this movement is exactly taking us, minus the subject who controls the picture of reality we daily see, is perhaps anybody’s guess.  But if you’ve guessed this postmodern movement is more like an escape, you might be right.  

All up an down the postmodern escape route are improvised, idealized (and ideological) communities that sense, at some level, what subjectivity really means and entails.  For one thing, they are aware of its commanding power that rides under the banner of Descartes’ “I think therefore I am” (or if you prefer, “I am therefore I think”) which, at bottom, is an attempt to make the subject the authority who then goes about ruthlessly organizing the outer world in the image of itself, that is, by way of its reasons. (We should not forget who was the celebrated goddess of the French Revolution during its reign of terror, it was Reason!)

Turning this light towards Buddhism, opinions may differ about what the Buddha actually taught, nevertheless, Buddhism’s place sits firmly in the makeshift, evolving postmodern world that is escaping from imperious subjectivity.  

Buddhism is a threat to modernity.  Its “no-self” or “nonself” doctrine is a serious blow to the hegemony of the psychophysical being, in particular, the subjective aggregates of feeling, perception, inclination, and sensory consciousness.  In a nutshell, according to Buddhism these aggregates are not our real self but neither is the self to be found in the objective world, this being the first aggregate of material shape (rupa).

Where the real power of Buddhism lies is in its ability to dethrone both the subject and object thus revealing them to be completely empty—empty in the sense of lacking true or absolute reality.  This is especially evinced when, during meditation, a practitioner enters in direct communion with pure Mind.  In this meditation, both subject and object are discovered to be Mind configurations but nothing apart from it.  

As a consequence of this, not only does our subjective world suddenly become illusory along with the objective world which turns into a phantasmagoria, but try as we might, we can find no self in either the subject or object—no real reference point.  Our self, as that which is always itself (never other), remains ever transcendent and certainly beyond the scope and range of subjective apprehension and its reasoning power.