The Zennist

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.

A kind of all-too-real seductive matrix

We can think of consciousness, which is the fifth skandha of the five skandhas or aggregates, that the Buddha likened to a magician’s illusion, as the mechanism of illusion.  Consciousness is also what gets reborn as we go from one existence to next (consciousness is the third nidāna/cause, starting from avidyā in the list of the 12-nidānas or the tenth cause starting from jarāmāraṇa/old age and death). 

In later Buddhism, consciousness appeared to grow in importance becoming the ālayavijñāna, that is, the “abode or store-house of consciousness” (it could be plural, too) which is said, according to D.T. Suzuki, “to store all the memory of one's past deeds and psychic activities,” in the form of vāsanā or “habit energy.”  It seems to me that vāsanā plays an important role in keeping us in the confines of the ālayavijñāna in which we ever remain victims of the magician’s trick which is always hidden from us.  For us, the world we live in and hold dear and will one day die in seems very real. 

There is yet, for us, no parāvṛtti in the ālayavijñāna, which would be a major change from being caught in the magician's enchanting sphere of consciousness to being, actually, liberated from it (not just imagining).  According to Suzuki,

To gain this inner perception, a man retires into a solitary spot all by himself, and, by applying himself assiduously to abstract meditations and deep reflections, his inner sense (prajñā) or self-knowledge (svabuddhi) begins to shine out from underneath the residual accumulation (vāsanā) of the past thoughts, affections, and deeds since time immemorial.

Unfortunately, most of us are not like the wise adept who lives a solitary life struggling to have the required change/revulsion or parāvṛtti so that he or she might escape from the insidious power of the ālayavijñāna.  The wise adept also knows that there is no end to rebirth without the victory of parāvṛtti.  According to the Lankavatara Sutra, 

“When a revulsion (vyāvṛtti, generally parāvritti) takes place, the citta [Mind] is disengaged from turbidity; as it understands all existence, I state that the citta is the Buddha."

Short of parāvṛtti, the sincere student, who is not yet disengaged from their impure mind; who has not gone to a solitary spot, should begin to see that this world is not a real refuge—far from it.  It is a place of suffering.  Of our revulsion towards it, it must begin with accepting the fact that we are living in a kind of all-too-real seductive matrix (remember the 1999 sci-fi movie?).

 

Using profit in a moral way

Let’s imagine as a Buddhist you’ve discovered a new kind of disposable plastic bag which if buried is totally biodegradable in a matter of a week.  You’re wealthy because everyone wants your new bag—every grocery and department store in the world.  This takes us to a story in one of the Jatakas where the Bodhisatta who was ploughing in his field discovers a huge bar of gold after his plough accidentally struck it.  As one mass it was too heavy for him to carry so he divided it into four manageable parts. One part to live on, another to save (he buried it), another to barter with, and the last for charity and good works.

Lets further imagine that our Buddhist with his biodegradable plastic bag fortune decided to do, essentially, what the Bodhisatta did in the past, naturally, with some modification.  He takes care of himself and his family with a quarter of his fortune, invests a quarter in his company and with the other quarter bought other companies related to his interest, and used the last quarter to help further the Dharma, taking care of many monks and nuns.  The profit after break-even resulting from his unique discovery of a perfect biodegradable plastic bag has not turned into greed (one of the three poisons).  The profit seems to be used in a moral way.  Take away the moral side and our wealthy Buddhist is heading in the direction of greed. 

One day he decides to move his company to China because the cost of labor is cheaper and the taxes are so much lower.  This would increase his profit.  He also decides not to be charitable no longer using a quarter of his profit.  He divorces his wife and only gives a small portion of his profit to her and the children.  He spends most of this money on prostitutes and living, as we say in the U.S., ‘high off the hog’.  He ends up saving no money using it for his lavish life-style, instead.  Does this appear to be greed?

We can see from the above that our Buddhist plastic bag baron has been infected by greed.  Everything he does is for the sole purpose of personally delighting in sensual joys and experiences.  He could not care less about the long term consequences of his behavior or the society he conducts his business in which he uses as a mere means to enrich himself.  Nor does he realize that greed is not a strategy let alone a business strategy.  Greed leads to further excesses which end up benefiting a small minority at the expense and harm of the huge majority.  A bird’s eye view of this from Kant’s categorical imperative: “act as if the maxim of our action were to become by our will a universal law of nature,” and we can see that corporate greed is truly a recipe for global economic disaster.

Stopping desire

When we look at an infant or a small child their desires seem both natural and simple.  It is basically about food.  Adult humans who want to study Buddhism don’t have desires that are natural and simple.  They are more complex.  I should add, too, that these desires easily become addictions.  I need my cigarettes and my beer, just to name a few such addictions.  Then I have a lot of things spinning around in my noggin.  Lot’s of fantasies and dialogues going on—fear and anxiety, too.  Even loneliness than I can’t seem to get rid off.  All this can be thought of as blowback from our desires.

Now the question we need ask is where do these desires come from?  Do they come from outside or inside?  And if we want to control them do we look to the inside or to the outside?  The obvious answer is desire starts from the inside.  In a way, we are desire-beings existing through our conditioned psycho-physical body, enjoying the pleasures it offers (mainly sexual) while, at the same time, working to make more desires a reality.  But as I briefly mentioned earlier, there is blowback from desire especially when it has turned into addiction: a certain desire that has to be repeated for fear that its absence should turn into psychological suffering.

In Buddhism the second noble truth which is about the origin of suffering is actually about clinging to the psycho-physical body, otherwise known as the five skandhas.  We have to keep in mind that the first noble truth which is pain, is the five skandhas consisting of physical form, feeling, perception, volitional formations, and consciousness.  Our connecting with the body of suffering—the origin of suffering—occurs at conception so that we constantly desire it without a break except at the body’s death.  According to the Buddha the only way to stop such desire is realize what is other than suffering, impermanence and not the atman.  This is the unconditioned.  With this realization we can then progressively liberate our actual self from its entanglement with the conditioned psycho-physical body.

Flickering with his eyes

I was looking through my old copy of Sohaku Ogata’s book, The Transmission of the Lamp.  Incidentally, I was flabbergasted to learn later on that it’s selling for well over a hundred and fifty bucks! I bought it shortly after it was published.  Lucky me.  In any case, it has a few gems in it.  Here is one I just came across.

Two monks, T’an Jan and Huai Jang, arrived to ask about the message of the Patriarch who came from the West.

The Master [Hui An of Sung Mountain] asked them, “Why do you not aks about your own message?”

They asked, “What is the message of ourselves?”

The Master replied, “You should observe your secret function.”

They asked, “What is our secret function?”

The Master demonstrated by flickering with his eyes. T’an Jan comprehended where it returned and stayed on the place. Huai Jang missed the point and left the Master to go to Ts’ao Ch’i Monastery. (Sohaku Ogata, The Transmission of the Lamp, p. 115)

For most, this is a difficult conversation to make heads or tails of.  It’s not about a gay Zen master trying to pick up a monk!  The “secret function” is such because both monks have neither knowledge nor the right view of true reality.  In other words, they are unawakened to the unconditioned which is the animative principle (ātman).  When the Master flickered his eyes he essentially did the same thing as when the Buddha held up a flower then blinked transmitting the Dharma to Mahākāśyapa who just smiled.  This of course is anagogical: it has a particular spiritual meaning and significance.  Likely the Buddha didn’t actually transmit to Mahākāśyapa.  The profound Dharma is not like a flower.  You just don’t hand it over to someone.  Nevertheless this myth works well as an enigmatic koan.

Few Buddhists and few Zennist are open to the idea that what is absolute and unconditioned is always animating us.  In fact, we are it but don’t know this yet. And why? Because we crave and covet the animated—all appearance, including our carnal bodies and thoughts.  So deluded are we, that we imagine this animated world to be the true world.  It ain’t.  What animates it is.  It is not the flickering, but what causes the flickering that is Dharma.  The flickering is the function while what initiates the flickering is the essence.  The study of dhyāna (contemplation) is the means by which we come into communion with the animative principle, i.e., the ātman or Buddha-nature.

Manifestations of one fundamental dynamic substance

It is a cardinal principle of Buddhism, if not somewhat of a hidden principle, that all conditioned things are dependent originations, being manifestations of one fundamental dynamic substance this being Mind.  Following this trail, conditioned things include our most intimate, subtle thoughts as well as the entire cosmos.  Whatever we perceive in our composite, conditioned bodies is also conditioned.  From this we might gather that it is a daunting task to see the unconditioned.  It is not some object out there or some inner psychological state such as the smell of roses, sitting in zazen for twenty minutes, or watching the sunset in Sedona Arizona. Far from it.

The "dependent" (pratītya) of dependent origination (origination = samutpāda) is a rather interesting term.  According to Edgerton’s Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit Dictionary, pratītya means dependent on, based on.  One eye-opening example he gives is: “on the basis [pratītya] of muñja or valvaja (grass), a rope is produced.” So, in other words, based on hemp, the rope is made, or based on wood the chair is made.  Made things are constructions based on other constructed things finally going back to the ultimate which is unmade, unconstructed, and unconditioned.

We might also say that the conditioned world, including our corporeal bodies, is a creation but, ultimately, based on what, we know not, except to guess and say, God made it!  The world is certainly not a creation of muñja grass or hemp, not anything we might imagine such as atoms or quarks.  With this in mind, before Gautama became a Buddha, fully awakened to what all things are, fundamentally, based upon, he had to get really good at identifying the conditioned so as not to be taken in by it.  To find what the conditioned is based upon requires understanding the basis cannot be, itself, conditioned.  But this is where everyone sooner or later falls prey to mistaking a conditioned basis for the true unconditioned basis.

In a nutshell, this is what Buddhist education is all about: avoiding mistaking a conditioned awakening for an unconditioned one.  This is also the source of great error in Buddhism and how we delude ourselves into believing we've found truth when we have only managed to find another opinion.  It's a thorny issue and a contentious one, too.  Especially, Western Buddhists or those who claim they practice Zen are in the habit of dumbing down Buddhism, for example, it's all about being aware.  This leads us to another problem.  Finding teachers who are not themselves deluded.  For many Westerners, in their eagerness to wear robes and be thought of as a Zen master, they attach to some institution (certainly conditioned) thus failing to see the unconditioned Mind.

Where is this awareness taking us?

Modern Buddhism, including Zen, assures us that there is a payoff to being aware of the moment, which I need add, is only the truth of sense certainty.  That's not much.  What it does not say, there is no certainty as to where all this awareness is taking us.  In the context of traditional Buddhism, there is very little said, if at all, about being aware of the moment.  Nevertheless, awareness of the moment has become what can only be described as pseudo-enlightenment.  This is all the typical Westerner, it seems, can relate to.  Nirvana is out of the picture.  For the average person it sounds like mumbo-jumbo that comes with such baggage as nirvana is deathless and eternal; nirvana is realized in the very self and so on. 

Back to the question. Where are we going with being aware of the here and the now—this very moment?  For example, what is the payoff to practicing awareness at my crappy job, being aware of every crappy moment of looking at a computer monitor doing shit I hate just to pay for a roof over my family's head, not to mention paying the doctor's bill for my kid's recent ear infection? 

Awareness of the moment can help to mollify the inner tension and frustration we often feel at the end of the day—that's about all.  We live in a culture with a Darwinian mind-set where the fittest human animals are trained to prey on the weaker so that life, essentially, is hell despite the fact that animals and humans can be caring, giving and loving were they not always put between a rock and a hard place by the ideologists and their followers who believe in the model of natural selection and survival of the fittest. 

I went through the 1960s optimistic that awakening was achievable.  As I can remember, there wasn't any of this awareness of the moment practice yet as if this was enlightenment.  If there was, it was in the beginning stages.  Aiming for nirvana or kensho (both are the same) is the better course.  Being aware and vigilant; paying attention to details and taking care of the little stuff so you don't have to worry about the big stuff are all important.  Still, nirvana has to be the goal.  It has the real payoff.  Sincere interest in achieving nirvana—not just lip service—helps to ennoble us since it makes us open up more and dig deeper into our being.  Nor are we wont to buy into our crap predatory culture. This is the start of renunciation.

Internet Zen newbies

Getting some of your Zen Buddhism from the Internet is really an okay thing to do.  There are a lot of great ebooks to be found, many of which are free while others can be purchased through Google (the major part of the Pali Nikayas can be found as Google ebooks which are well worth the purchase).  There is also Questia, an online academic library that I use all the time.  It is awesome.  For those who are serious about their Zen Buddhism, the cost for all this is not that much.  On the other hand, for the cheapskates, I assume that using some online Buddhist or Zen chat room is the answer which can be found on Reddit, for example, or some other Buddhist forum.

To go with the latter, let me say, is a huge mistake (the cheapskate route).  The rudiments of Zen Buddhism, and just plain Buddhism, cannot be learned by joining a chat room.  Chat rooms are not for inquisitive minds.  They are mainly for lazy newbies.

I have been around these kinds of Internet newbies since the first Netscape browser.  I know them well.  They are a most sullen bunch (yes, I said “sullen”) because they really don’t wish to study Buddhism and Zen Buddhism.  They want, so to speak, the quick fix.  Often, they are going through some  kind of mental crisis and are of the opinion that meditation will help them, as if their pattern of behavior didn’t matter at all!  This is a sorry ass way to learn Zen.  It’s not Zen at all.

When I studied Zen with my teacher I had to read Buddhist texts for at least an hour a day—bright and early in the morning.  Not that I understood all that I read (far from it) but I became familiar with the material, which is important.  Let me stress that reading is important; learning Zen by way of zazen is not good enough—it is just part of the picture.  It has to be supplemented by reading (hopefully the teacher knows the material, too).  Also I had to practice awareness all the time.  I would often get hauled on the carpet when my awareness faltered.  You learn to be aware of all that you do, or else.

Newbies, for the most part, bypass this.  There is no mental culture; no changing of old outworn patterns of behavior.  Just the same old stuff: garbage in, garbage out.  Moreover, they are unwilling to learn any new principles.   In this respect they are very conservative.  They cuddle their old patterns afraid to let go.  Most are incorrigible and argumentative.  No average or below average Zen center would put up with these people for a minute.

 

Life goes on for us

When it comes to the question of the recollection of former existences (pûrvenivâsânusmriti), there is an important question raised by Johannes Bronkhorst as to whether or not the Buddha’s awakening originally just mentioned knowledge of the destruction of intoxicants (P., âsava), omitting memory of former lives and knowledge of the births and death of beings.  This is very important if you can imagine. 

“The majority of versions of the long account of the enlightenment of the Buddha describe three insights:  memory of earlier lives; knowledge of the births and deaths of beings; knowledge regarding the destruction of the intoxicants. Only the third insight has an obvious connection with liberation, which consists in the destruction of the intoxicants. The first two insights make the impression of having been added to the text which underlay these versions, and which was therefore without these first two insights” (Bronkhorst, The Two Traditions of Meditation in Ancient India [1993], p. 119).

Bronkhorst, on the next page, informs the reader that in the Madhyama Âgama (T. 26 p. 589c14-23) which is a Sutra of the Sarvâstivâdins, there is only mention of the “destruction of the intoxicants.”  There is “no mention of earlier lives and the knowledge of the births and deaths of other beings”.

This doesn’t rule out further becoming (S., punarbhava; P., punabbhava) after the death of the corporeal body in which the transmigrant is consciousness or vijñâna (never âtman/attâ).  The vijñâna at death is laden with karmic impressions or samskâra which we might think of as akin to a radio signal in search of an antenna to resonate with again.  The antenna would be the nâmarûpa (name-shape) which is the third nidâna of the 12-Nidânas (ni-dâ — to bind down).  To briefly sum  this up, life goes on for us in the form of vijñâna after our death but it is not necessary to know who we were in the past.  However, it is necessary to live this life, properly.  It is not the last.

When did Buddhism start paying attention to Vedanta?

Not infrequently, I encounter a Buddhist newbie informing me of the ills of Vedanta and how the Buddha fought against Vedanta and its theory of Âtman.  So I asked myself this question, “When was Vedanta first recognized as a separate school by Buddhists and by whom, in particular?” 

To my amazement I found this.  According to Hajime Nakamura, it was Bhavya (Bhâvaviveka) of the Madhyamika school, who lived between between 490 and 570, who first recognized Vedanta as a separate independent school who also brought a great deal of academic precision to the task of unpacking it.  Nakamura writes the following providing us with more details:

"Among the works of Bhavya, there is the Madhyamakahrdaya-karika, on which he himself wrote a commentary called the Madhyamaka-hrdaya-vrtti, or Takajvala.  Their Sanskrit originals were lost, but recently the Sanskrit manuscript of the Madhyamaka-hrdaya-karika was found.  Their Tibetan translation has been handed down in the Tibetan Tripitaka.  The work consists of eleven chapters.  Among them the sixth chapter presents and criticizes the doctrines of the Samkhya school; the seventh chapter, those of the Vaishesika; the eighth, the Vedanta; and, the ninth, the Mimamsa” (H. Nakamura, A History of Early Vedanta Philosophy, p. 183). 

Before Bhavya, Buddhists really didn't know or didn't care about Vedanta, enough to be critical of it and other schools.  But this fact, I am guessing, won’t stop Buddhist newbies from their mischief who believe the Buddha was on a mission to destroy the Âtman and make the future safe for scientific materialism.