The Zennist

Appearance hides the pristine essence of mind

Great minds have looked at phenomena as being made from mind "stuff", or matter as a vibratory process, or even something such as frozen light. Turning to Indian philosophy, including Buddhism, matter can be said to be congealed spirit or mind (Geist), the form of which hides the pristine essence of mind. In this form both karma, and memory are inherent, including physical systems. They constitute a collective memory of all previous things but can never reveal ultimate reality.

But for Buddhism, we are involved with this in the wrong way. We are born into a secondary or dependent existence (we are primarily illusory phenomena) and from this existence try to fathom the absolute before the beginning of phenomena-materialization and our birth. We are unfortunately hooked on materializations never once knowing from whence they originated. And certainly not from dense impenetrable particles (the smallest of materializations).

But here is a problem. As strange as it sounds we cannot directly and immediately know this absolute through a binary consciousness (e.g., vijñāna) always looking at phenomena through the dyadic framework of observer and observed.  Nor can we choose one over the other.  Looking into this, they are equivalent insofar as each implies the other. This equivalency becomes an inseparable negative unity. Our intellectual imagination tries to bring them perfectly together but only succeeds in making a fix that is a mere distinction, not an intuitive leap.

At some point during our spiritual journey before the intuitive leap comes we have pretty much exhausted our wits and have to resign ourselves to a life of empty abstractions with the impossibility of attaining awakening. This doesn't come so much as a deep shock or a feeling of great sorrow. Something else happens.  Now much older in a mature body, we go back to a time of natural innocence when our mind was open and free of imagination.  Mumon Ekai's barrier (關) disappears; the seeker and his lost ox vanish.

Realism and locality are both useful but false

The Alan Watts and Shirley McClain view of spirituality helped to shed a little light into an otherwise closed modern mind—yet a mind always open to materialism and new ways of presenting it. The controversy between spiritualism and materialism was never well understood or well tolerated. Still, the spirit (Geist) is able to make its way through the barriers of materialism. This was the advent of the term non-local reality (the real second coming).

Jumping ahead, realism and locality are both useful but false. Oddly, physics doesn't contradict this claim (read Donald D. Hoffman's book, The Case Against Reality). We are free to conclude that spirit has defeated materialism. Surprisingly, what now lies before us as appearance or māyā has its origin in the non-appearing, the transcendent. This is what the Buddha meant when he taught the following:

“There is, monks, an unborn, unbecome, unmade, unconditioned. If, monks there were not that unborn, unbecome, unmade, unconditioned, you could not know an escape here from the born, become, the made, and conditioned. But because there is an unborn, unbecome, unmade, unconditioned, therefore you do know an escape from the born, become, made, and conditioned” (Tatiyanibbānapaṭisaṃyuttasutta).

The Buddha's awakening granted him supreme knowledge that local realism is not fundamental; moreover that it's illusory.  The fact is, physical objects do not have actual definite values or own-nature (svabhāva). Locality is the assumption that physical things in their own way are 'sort of' true' in a relative way. Realism has survived a long time while the world of spirit (non-locality) has been greatly diminished as a result. But the prison break has already started. The llusion of separation, a duality (dvaya), has never been other than an illusion.

How to escape from the tyranny of realism is what the Buddha actually discovered.  As expected, the other part of Buddhism is about samsara/saṃsaraṇa (√saṃsṛ) our continuous re-involvement in suffering under the mistaken belief (avidya) that appearances are primary and not secondary. Without first awakening to primary, base reality (Zen's kenshõ) which is non-local we are stuck in samsara. Even death falls within the domain of samsara. Continuous re-suffering is always the case with samsara.

 

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.

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.

You are now living in a simulation

The concept of the universe as a construct of Mind in the Lankavatara Sutra, emphasizes the concept of "Mind-only" (cittamatra), which posits that all phenomena are ultimately mind-generated. 

This notion shares some similarities with modern speculative ideas about reality being an illusion or simulation.  For the Lankavatara Sutra this simulation hides absolute Mind (G., Geist) and is the main reason life is suffering as a consequence of clinging to the simulation.

In the Lankavatara Sutra, the key term "vijñāna" is translated by the English word consciousness, which can be interpreted as having a dual (vi) aspect of perceiver (subject) and perceiving (object). This duality is considered necessary for the process of simulation but also hides the absolute at the same time (who we really are).

Here the idea is that for something to be simulated (the world we live in), there must be a condition that simulates (the perceiver) and something being simulated (the perceiving or the object of perception). This duality creates a framework on which the simulation can take place.

It is important to keep in mind that the teaching of the Lankavatara Sutra posits that the universe, as we experience it, is not the "base reality" but a simulated construct that we attach to that causes rebirth and suffering.  In fact, nowhere in the simulation is the absolute to be found.

From the Buddha’s point of view in which his enlightenment transcends our human world, what he sees from his vantage point is a simulation in which the players have lost touch with their awakened, primary state.  Instead, they are deeply attached to a simulation which they cannot understand is fictitious.  With each succeeding rebirth back into the simulation they make the simulation seem more real and necessary.

Mistakenly believe them to be who they are

According to Buddhist teachings, the attachment to the five aggregates (form, feeling, perception, mental formations, and consciousness) and the identification with the six senses (sight, hearing, smell, taste, touch, and mind/manas) is considered a fundamental cause of suffering.

The Buddha emphasized the impermanent and conditioned nature of these aggregates and senses. He taught that clinging to them as a sense of self or as a source of lasting happiness leads to attachment, craving, and ultimately suffering. The worldly, or puthujjana, who are unaware of the peril of these aggregates and senses, tend to identify with them and mistakenly believe them to be who they are.

Instead of clinging to the notion of a self within the aggregates, etc., the Buddha taught that the true essence, known as the Tathagatagarbha or Buddha Nature, resides within all beings.  As stated in the Mahaparinirvana-sutra,

"The ātman is the Tathagatagarbha. All beings possess a Buddha Nature: this is what the ātman is. This ātman, from the start, is always covered by innumerable passions (klesha): this is why beings are unable to see it."  

However, due to the influence of numerous afflictions, this inherent Buddha Nature remains obscured and difficult to perceive. By understanding this concept, one can embark on a path of uncovering and realizing their true nature, thereby transcending the limitations imposed by attachment to the aggregates and senses.