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.

 

 

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.

Zen’s obsessions

Two of Zen’s obsessions are doing zazen (lit. sitting Zen) and koans.  Both can easily become an exercise in futility—and often are.  Zazen, which is physical, is really about letting go of the physical whereas koans are about letting go of mentation (S., manas).   

As the reader can quickly see neither are a straight path to enlightenment.  One neither physically nor mentally sets foot in the enlightened state (buddhatā) by these practices. 

The use of both is to help us to see, first of all, the futility of attachment to the physical and secondly, the futility of attachment to thought (S., manas).  Enlightenment or awakening has nothing whatsoever to do with either the physical or mentation.

Still, it seems that most Zennists are incapable of understanding the limits of both zazen and koans.  The exploration of one’s physicality while sitting in zazen including the constant arising of thoughts is no more than learning to face Mumon’s barrier 關; being unable to pass through it.  Zazen and koans always take us to the barrier.  Our face is smack against it.  The more we push the harder the barrier seems. 

Only when thought suddenly ceases and the immediate intuition of thought’s very substance or essence occurs do we pass through Mumon’s barrier and meet all the Buddhas on the other side.

This essence is certainly beyond spacetime which is no more than, in reality, a thought-construct.  This includes the entire universe with its objects, from galaxies to the finest particles.  They are not fundamental.  Only this mysterious intuited essence is fundamental.  Call it One Mind, unconditioned,  suchness or spirit (tathatā), it alone is fundamental.

 

Can you handle the truth?

In the 1992 film, A Few Good Men, a memorable exchange takes place when Navy Lt. Kaffee asks Marine Col. Jessep:  I want the truth! and Marine Col. Jessep forcefully responds:  You can’t handle the truth! 

In a number of ways, it is true that most of us can’t handle the truth.  Looking directly at truth can either be totally frightening which means that it is something we want to avoid at all costs or looking at truth can, literally, be enlightening.  In both cases, it takes courage to face the truth.

Handling the truth about ourselves and our world takes a long time—some never manage it.  Many new to Buddhism have a hard time handling rebirth, that after a person dies, they will be reborn into some other form.  Other Buddhists I have met over the years, can’t handle the truth that within us is the unconditioned which is eternal and undying.  When it comes to Zen, many Zennists I have met can’t handle kenshō but believe sitting in zazen is the natural unfolding of Buddha nature.

Eventually, it gets down to a battle, a contest of wills, in which a preponderance of evidence, like in the film, does matter and makes Navy Lt. Kaffee’s arguments better than Marine Col. Jessep’s persuasion argument. 

But also, evidence can be untrustworthy especially in science where evidence is derived from models or when correlations are confused with causation.  After all, science fundamentally deals with causation, not with hypothetical models or as if causation.

In Buddhism the truth is in us which we have to realize.  It is Buddha-nature which, essentially, is no different than the ātman (the animative principle) or Christianity’s, “God [is] Spirit/pneûma]” (John 4:24). But this truth has to be seen face to face—really seen.  We have to go through the crucible of transformation out of which the truth is finally realized and accepted.  Can we handle it?  Most can't.

The serious practitioners try and clean up their act from day one

At some point in our practice as a beginner we usually stop reading the Buddha’s words, or read them, carelessly, if not at all.  It is because we think we already know, pretty much, what his teaching is all about.  But guess what, we don't! 

But if the Buddha speaks about the unconditioned or transcendent spirit, something he has personally intuited, who is it that can understand his words except those who are very close to awakening.  Certainly, the average run-of-the-mill person is incapable of understanding the Buddha’s words as he wants them understood. 

Of those people who have difficulty understanding his words, in stands to reason, they are unlikely to awaken in this lifetime.  His words are a mass of confusion for them.  They take what is straight and make it crooked.  They take what is clear and make it dark and what they call practice is a circular path that always return to that part of them that refuses to change so as to behold, personally, the unconditioned/transcendent.

Their first steps in understanding the teachings of the Buddha are often those of imitation which is superficial so that with this type of practice such people fall prey to becoming pious hypocrites.  There is almost an overly pious quality to their practice and far too much reliance on the teacher (sucking up) and not enough personal reliance on the teaching itself.

I could go on and on listing the faults of most people who take up the practice of Buddhism.  For the serious practitioners, they try and clean up their act from day one; who from the beginning of their practice are humble and self-effacing.  They understand to reach the summit, so to speak, is a hard and challenging climb.  Over time they know they will have to cut their ties with the ordinary world so as to turn the light of mind back upon itself—a journey which goes beyond thought to the very substance of thought which, paradoxically, is no-thought.

On becoming incarnated

Rebirth occurs when our consciousness (vijñāna) attaches/interfaces with the fertilized egg (nāmarūpa) so that a zygote is formed which is under the process of rapid cell division.  During this process of division consciousness becomes more and more embodied or incarnated.  After birth it is impossible to tell that our consciousness is prior to this physical form of ours with its eventual 37.2 trillion cells, all of which are interconnected through consciousness.

Our body has become us and we are this body or so it would seem.  Still, we have to remember the importance of how we got into this situation in the first place.  Consciousness attached to, and thus interfaced with the fertilized egg and its ongoing division.  The fact of this interfacing is of crucial importance in the enlightenment/liberation process.  Enlightenment is a sharp—but brief—clean break from our attachment to the body’s 37.2 trillion cells!

This sudden break for us consisted in overcoming consciousness; its implicit doubleness (dvaya) by which this illusory world is exhibited which appears real to us.  This may explain why in the Lankavatara Sutra the Buddha says: I enter into nirvana when the vijñāna which is caused by discrimination ceases. 

Only with the sudden realization of tathāgarbha which is single, not double; which is often equated with buddhadhātu (the element of awakening), does such discrimination cease.  As I have pointed out before in other blogs, when the pure subject meets the pure object only then does the dual nature of vijñāna come to an end but only long enough to merge with the buddhadhātu or tathāgarbha.  As a result, spirit is beheld which is absolutely universal and non-dual (advaya).  All illusion falls within it, even vijñāna together with its phenomena.  This was not so before our enlightenment.  What has been primordially hidden because of consciousness is now revealed.

Gaining power over illusion

The one (P., ekattatā; S., ekatva) makes a demonstration of itself through consciousness (vijñāna), in which consciousness being binary (i.e., subject and object or for you computer nerds, 0 and 1) creates the illusion of multiplicity implying diversity, that is, infinite variation.  Consciousness, in other words, is the one's difference from itself but a difference that is illusory.

This means that our human world including our human body with its brain originate from consciousness which is, itself, an illusory bifurcation of the original one.  What is real is only the one; what is illusory is always samsaric consciousness which the Buddha likens to a magical illusion.

This magical illusion we see as our body and its world, in other words, depends upon consciousness but never reveals the actual one.  The one is always hidden by the illusion.  On the other hand, the perfect convergence of the two sides of binary/samsaric consciousness creates an automatic return to the one. This is absolute consciousness.

Where consciousness is invisible (anidassanaṃ), eternal, luminous all around,
That's where earth, water, fire, and air do not exist.
Here long and short, fine and coarse, beautiful and ugly,
This is where name and form cease
With nothing remaining.
With the transcendence of [samsaric] consciousness all this is ended. (DN I.233)

Binary consciousness or the same, samsaric consciousness, which is the fifth aggregate or skandha, conceals its source and root which is non-binary.  Thus, it seems that consciousness is the instrument of its own oppression and liberation.  By craving its illusions it oppresses itself so as to be always in a state of rebirth and duhkha.  It has only two options (which means that we, as humans, have only two options).  Consciousness can either keep falling prey to the illusion of multiplicity (i.e., samsara) or see through it by converging with the original one (overcoming consciousness’ binary nature) such that the adept gains power over illusion.