Sunday, February 27, 2011

Genuine Aspiration & the Fallacy of Goallessness

Genuine Aspiration & the Fallacy of Goallessness
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According to the Buddhist teachings on nonduality (emptiness and interdependence), attempting to divine the significance of Buddha nature by investigating the natural world is futile; any such significance revealed in the world is placed there by the mind’s interaction with it. The material world exists as the fabric from which we fashion a universe and a self; it is not an entity existing independently of us nor is it an objective aspect of us.

Also Buddhism asserts that submission, obedience, or conformity to an “other,” whether an individual, an institution, or even worse, “things as they are,” can only be achieved through the denial or suppression of particular aspects of our own true nature. The vision of humanity’s place in the universe portrayed by the Buddhist masters asserts that true human liberation can only be realized through the actual fulfillment of genuine human desire; full complete enlightenment (annutara samyak sambodhi).

According to the Mahayana sutras and shastras, aspiration (bodhicitta) for universal liberation is the true source of all desire. These teachings emphasize (especially in the Zen tradition) that submission to or compliance with any authority other than that of personal verification serves as an impenetrable barrier to liberation. If that “authority” consists of dualist or naturalistic notions about “things as they are” or “matters of fact,” followers not only obstruct their own liberation, they exchange their human potential for the existence of a beast. Dogen’s most severe attacks were aimed at “naturalism” for good reason; to adopt naturalistic views and practices advocating “detachment,” “goallessness,” “letting things be,” etc. is to sacrifice human intelligence and wisdom for cunning and calculation, compassion and mercy for objectivity and indifference, love and intimacy for the mere instinctual drive for physical pleasure and reproduction, and liberation for bondage.

To ascribe to an “objective” view of nature is to adopt a vision of purposelessness, ferocity, pitilessness, and chaos. Killing and eating and reproducing merely to kill and eat and reproduce. Objective nature brings fire, ice, floods, and plagues as easily and with as little intention or concern as it brings food, clothing, shelter, and companionship. No view of an “objective” world where things (dharmas) are simply ‘as they are’ (regardless of our conscious intentions and efforts) can be reconciled with the wisdom and compassion that characterizes the vision of Buddhism.

Authentic practice-realization requires us to make accurately understood, precisely directed, concerted effort toward specific goals.

The first such specific goal is to expand our capacity of perception beyond the fallacy of the subject-object split and thereby personally verify the truth of the Buddhist teaching refuting the existence of “objective” reality. Those that choose instead to conceive of and follow an elemental or impersonal Buddha, only succeed at the cost of subverting the very significance of Buddhism. The former approach is to expand the human capacity to perceive reality as it is; the latter approach attempts to reduce reality as it is to the undeveloped capacity of perception of the average unawakened human being.

But, it may be argued, if the stupid drive for mere survival envisioned by the “objective” view of nature is mercilessly bloody, it is innocently so; the eagle does not devour the eyeball of the living rabbit from malice, the parasite does not burrow into the fox’s eardrum from a desire to cause pain. The capacity for evil demonstrated by man far surpasses anything that can be witnessed in nature – what possible reasoning can Buddha offer for suggesting human beings are superior to other forms of life? The Buddhist reasoning is grounded in the doctrine that all evil has its source in the human capacity for self-restriction (ignorance, avidya); evil does not arise from human actualization – evil arises from a failure of human actualization. It is in the failure to actualize the inherent human capacity to rise above “objective” nature that causes the creative potential of humanity to stagnate and putrefy into the greed, hatred, and ignorance. The eagle and the parasite are incapable of envisioning a better world – even if they could wish for “more,” it would only be for “more of the same.” According to the Buddhas and ancestors, however, human beings are inherently equipped with the capacity to envision and realize greater possibilities of existence – up to and including universal liberation from old age, sickness, and death.

It is impossible for us to know whether animals experience anything like human doubt, but it seems unlikely that even the more advanced animals wonder why things happen as they do or wish things could be different – much less commit themselves to bringing about the changes they desired. When so-called Zen teachers advise followers to be “goalless” and teach them to practice simply “being aware of the world as it is,” or “just sit and let things be as they are,” etc. they are advocating and fostering a doctrine with a very specific goal: the goal of giving up humanity and adopt the life of a mere beast.

As human beings mature and come to realize they can imagine a reality better than the one they exist in, they cannot help but feel a sense of frustration.

The naturalist and the pseudo-Zen cultist advocate meeting such frustration with acceptance of and submission to the “facts of life.” They proscribe practices designed to cut out or eradicate those aspects of humanity that facilitate the power to envision and create, while fostering the diseases of self-doubt and fear that lead to compliance and conformity to the “way things are.”

Authentic Zen masters, like all true sages and visionaries, point in the opposite direction. Where the timid and servile attempt to escape the suffering of unfulfilled desire by eradicating, diminishing, or suppressing aspects of themselves (thus of Buddha), the sage overcomes suffering by clarifying and actualizing the genuine goal of that desire. Thus, the vision of Buddhism is centered on the truth verified by Shakyamuni Buddha; not only is it possible to envision and actualize a better world, it is possible to actualize a realer world. As all real dharmas are mind-forms (mental images) all mind-forms are real dharmas.

In Buddhism, “samsara” (the round living-and-dying) is the world of suffering in which beings are in bondage to old age, sickness and death. “Nirvana” is the world of liberation from suffering (the round living-and-dying) in which beings overcome old age, sickness, and death. The former is the realm of craving (unfulfilled desire), the latter the realm of satisfaction. For the dualist or pseudo-Zen cultist that sees some things (dharmas) as “real” and “unchanging” and other things as “illusory” or “provisional,” samsara is conceived as something ugly, delusory, temporary, etc.; samsara is something to be escaped, eradicated or overcome. Nirvana, on the other hand, is conceived of as pure, blissful, real and permanent; nirvana is something to be attained, achieved, or realized.

Now, of course, in the Buddhist doctrine of samsara and nirvana – samsara is truly as the Mahayana sutras say, the wheel of living and dying, the realm of suffering; nirvana is, as Buddhism asserts, liberation from the wheel of living and dying. However, this doctrine, like all Buddhist doctrines, is only genuine when samsara and nirvana are actualized as real dharmas through experiential realization. As real expressions of Buddha nature, samsara and nirvana are experienced in genuine practice-realization as nondual – samsara/nirvana.

Simply put, living and dying is what nirvana is, for there is nothing to despise in living and dying, nor anything to be wished for in nirvana.

This living and dying is precisely what the treasured life of a Buddha is. If we hate life and want to throw it away, that is just our attempt to throw away the treasured life of Buddha. And if we go no farther than this and clutch onto life and death, this too is our throwing away the treasured life of Buddha by limiting ourselves to the superficial appearance of Buddha. When there is nothing we hate and nothing we cling to, then, for the first time, we enter the Heart of Buddha.
Shoji, Hubert Nearman

By relying upon our physical body and spiritual abilities, we turn the mundane into the sacred, and by relying upon their effects and consequences, we surpass Buddha and transcend Ancestor. By relying on these causes and conditions, we take hold of dirt and transmute it into gold. By relying upon effects and consequences, we receive the Transmission of the Dharma along with the robe.
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The Gate of Skillful Means is the unsurpassed meritorious functioning of the fruits of Buddhahood. It is the Dharma that resides in the place of Dharma and It is the form of the world as it constantly manifests. The Gate of Skillful Means does not refer to some momentary skill.
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‘To open the Gate of Skillful Means’ means to point to the genuine Real Form of things. Even though we chop time up into moments of beginning, middle, and end, pointing to the genuine Real Form of things covers the whole of time. The underlying principle of momentarily opening the Gate of Skillful Means involves opening It by opening the whole universe. At the very moment when you catch sight of the opening of the whole universe, it will be something that you have never encountered before. By our grasping once or twice at an intellectual concept of what opening of whole universe is and then grasping at it for a third or fourth time as something real, we cause the Gate of Skillful Means to open. Accordingly, it may seem that the whole universe is identical with opening the Gate of Skillful Means, but it appears to me that an immeasurable number of whole universes have each taken a small piece from the opening of the Gate of Skillful Means and have made that small piece into the form that each universe displays. But their grandeur is due entirely to their being encompassed within the present discourse.
Shobogenzo, Shoho Jisso, Hubert Nearman


Peace,
Ted

Tuesday, February 22, 2011

Zazen: Polishing a Tile to Make a Mirror - Becoming Buddha

Zazen-Only - Polishing Tiles, Making Buddhas
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The perfection of each person is unique; a particular human becomes a Buddha when that human wholly becomes that particular human. The Buddhahood of an individual being is the perfection of the “integral character” of that particular being “as it is.” Zazen-only is the perfection of the “normal mind,” that is, a particular body-mind that is fully seated in and as the wholeness of its particular existence ceaselessly advancing in harmony with the true nature of its own integral character. One of the clearest of Dogen’s numerous presentations of this aspect of the Buddha Dharma is revealed in one of his masterly commentaries on a classic Zen koan.

One day when Nangaku came to Baso’s hut, Baso stood up to receive him. Nangaku asked him, “What have you been doing recently?”

Baso replied, “Recently I have been doing the practice of seated meditation exclusively.”

Nangaku asked, “And what is the aim of your seated meditation?”

Baso replied, “The aim of my seated meditation is to achieve Buddhahood.”

Thereupon, Nangaku took a roof tile and began rubbing it on a rock near Baso’s hut.

Baso, upon seeing this, asked him, “Reverend monk, what are you doing?”

Nangaku replied, “I am polishing a roof tile.”

Baso then asked, “What are you going to make by polishing a roof tile?”

Nangaku replied, “I am polishing it to make a mirror.”

Baso said, “How can you possibly make a mirror by rubbing a tile?”

Nangaku replied, “How can you possibly make yourself into a Buddha by doing seated meditation?”

For hundreds of years now, many people have held the view that, in this story, Nangaku is earnestly endeavoring to encourage Baso in his practice. This is not necessarily so, for, quite simply, the daily activities of the great saintly teacher were far removed from the realm of ordinary people. If great saintly teachers did not have the Dharma of polishing a tile, how could they possibly have the skillful means to guide people? Having the strength to guide people is the Bones and Marrow of an Ancestor of the Buddha. Even though the tile was the thing that came to hand, still, it was just an everyday, household object. If it were not an everyday object or some household utensil, then it would not have been passed on by the Buddha’s family. What is more, its impact on Baso was immediate. Be very clear about it, the functioning of the True Transmission of Buddhas and Ancestors involves a direct pointing. We should truly comprehend that when the polished tile became a mirror, Baso became Buddha. And when Baso became Buddha, Baso immediately became the real Baso. And when Baso became the real Baso, his sitting in meditation immediately became real seated meditation. This is why the saying ‘polishing a tile to make a mirror’ has been preserved in the Bones and Marrow of former Buddhas.

Thus it is that the Ancient Mirror was made from a roof tile. Even though the mirror was being polished, it was already without blemish in its unpolished state. The tile was not something that was dirty; it was polished simply because it was a tile. On that occasion, the virtue of making a Mirror was made manifest, for it was the diligent effort of an Ancestor of the Buddha. If polishing a tile did not make a Mirror, then even polishing a mirror could not have made a Mirror. Who can surmise that in this act of making, there is the making of a Buddha and there is the making of a Mirror?

Further, some may wonder, “When the Ancient Mirror is polished, can It ever be polished into a tile?” Your state of being—your breathing in and breathing out—when you are engaged in polishing is not something that you can gauge at other times. And Nangaku’s words, to be sure, express what is expressible. As a result, in the final analysis, he was able to polish a tile and make a Mirror. Even we people of the present time should try to pick up today’s ‘tile’ and give it a polish, for ultimately it will become a Mirror. If a tile could not become a Mirror, people could not become Buddha. If we belittle tiles as being lumps of clay, we will also belittle people as being lumps of clay. If people have a Heart, then tiles too will have a Heart. Who can recognize that there is a Mirror in which, when a tile comes, the Tile appears? And who can recognize that there is a Mirror in which, when a mirror comes, the Mirror appears?
Shobogenzo, Kokyo, Hubert Nearman


The "ancient mirror" is the Buddha mind; more specifically, it is an aspect or quality of the Buddha mind that is traditionally referred to as the "universal mirror prajna." The “universal mirror prajna” is the first of the “four prajna's (or “cognitions”) of Buddhahood.” This prajna is described as the aspect of mind that, like a mirror, perfectly reflects the world as it is in the immediate present – the world in its ‘thusness.’ Unlike an ordinary mirror, this prajna is not only reflective, it is also luminescent. It is the initial realization of this “prajna” (or “cognition”) that is traditionally regarded as the practitioners entrance into awakening (often called "kensho" in Zen).

Dogen’s commentary on the koan illumines the same principle informing his teaching that “clear seeing is prajna itself” – here the principle is formulated as “when the polished tile became a mirror Baso became Buddha.”

A “tile” is only a tile by virtue of being experienced as a mind-form unity (dharma) as it is. In the koan, “Baso” is only Baso (his true self; Buddha) by virtue of experiencing mind-forms as they are. When “the tile became a mirror Baso became Baso” – Baso became Baso (his true self; Buddha) when the tile became a mirror (its true self; a mind-form). Moreover, because the mirror (that which verifies) is never separate from the tile (that which is verified), the mirror (Baso) was actualized as a real mirror (the real Baso) by virtue of experiencing the tile.

In terms of the prajna paramita literature, tile and mirror (forms) is emptiness, Baso is Buddha, emptiness is tile and mirror, Buddha is Baso; therefore, emptiness is emptiness, tile is tile, mirror is mirror, Buddha is Buddha, Baso is Baso. When Baso is Baso the whole universe is solely Baso; when zazen is zazen, the whole universe is solely sitting.

In Dogen’s view, the only reality is reality that is actually experienced as particular things at specific times. There is no “tile nature” apart from actual “tile forms,” there is no “essential Baso” apart from actual instances of “Baso experience.” When Baso sits in zazen, “zazen” becomes zazen, and “Baso” becomes Baso. Real instances of Baso sitting in zazen is real instances of Baso and real instances of zazen – when Baso eats rice, Baso is really Baso and eating rice is really eating rice.
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Peace,
Ted

Saturday, February 19, 2011

Dogen: Who Hears? Getting to the Heart of the Matter

Dogen on Who Hears? Getting to the Heart of the Matter
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Once you have arrived at the heart of the Matter, the time when you did not understand will not have impeded your arrival. Further, getting to the heart of the Matter has not changed the fact that, previously, you did not understand. Even so, in your getting to the heart of the Matter and in your previous non-understanding, there have been the times of spring and the sounds of autumn. The reason why you have not understood even these is because your ears have been wandering about within their voices, despite the fact that they have been giving expression to It ever so loudly. As a result, their voices have not entered your ears. Your getting to the heart of the Matter will occur when their voices have penetrated your ears and you have entered a meditative state. Do not fancy that your having arrived at the heart of the Matter is of little importance and that your non-understanding was something large. You need to realize that because you will be beyond what you conceived of as being ‘you’, you will not be different from the Lord of Dharma.
Shobogenzo, Yui Butsu Yo Butsu (Trans. Rev. Hubert Nearman)

Thursday, February 17, 2011

Dogen: The Insentient Preaching Dharma, Shobogenzo, Mujo-seppo Part 2

Dogen: The Insentient Preaching Dharma, Shobogenzo, Mujo-seppo

Dogen’s Shobogenzo, Mujo-seppo, Part 2
[Dogen’s Shobogenzo, Mujo-seppo, Part 1]


The founding patriarch Great Master Tozan Gohon, while practicing under the ancestral patriarch Great Master Ungan, asks, “What people are able to hear the non-emotional preaching the Dharma?”

The ancestral patriarch Ungan says, “The non-emotional are able to hear the non-emotional preaching the Dharma.”

The founding patriarch says, “Does the master hear it or not?”

The ancestral patriarch says, “If I hear it, then you will not be able to hear my preaching of the Dharma.”

The founding patriarch says, “If that is so, I would [rather] not hear the master’s preaching of the Dharma.”

The ancestral patriarch says, “You do not even hear me preaching the Dharma; how much less [do you hear] the non-emotional preaching the Dharma.”

Then the founding patriarch sets forth the following verse and presents it to the ancestral patriarch:

How very wonderful! How very wonderful!
The non-emotional preaching the Dharma is a mystery.
If we listen with the ears, it is ultimately too difficult to understand.
If we hear the sound through the eyes, we are able to know it.

The truth expressed now in the founding patriarch’s words “What people are able to hear the non-emotional preaching the Dharma” should be painstakingly researched through the effort of one life and many lives. This question is also equipped with the virtue of an assertion. And this assertion has the skin, flesh, bones, and marrow; it is not only “the mind being transmitted by the mind.” Transmission of the mind by the mind is the pursuit of beginners and late learners, but there is a pivotal matter which has been authentically transmitted by means of the robe and authentically transmitted by means of the Dharma. How can people today expect to realize it as the ultimate in only three or four months of effort? The founding patriarch has already experienced the principle expressed in the past by the National Master that “The saints are able to hear the non-emotional preaching the Dharma,” and yet he now asks further: “What people are able to hear the non-emotional preaching the Dharma?” Should we see this as affirmation of the National Master’s words, or as non-affirmation of the National Master’s words? Should we see it as a question or as an assertion? If he does not completely affirm the National Master, how could he speak words like these? And if he completely affirms the National Master, how could he understand words like those?
Shobogenzo, Mujo-seppo, Gudo Nishijima & Mike Cross


Dogen’s commentary on this koan begins with his usual affirmation that it is the “words” of Buddhas and ancestors that constitute the “form” or “body” of the Buddha Dharma. Like practice/realization, delusion/enlightenment, self/other, etc., the expression and the truth of Buddhism are a nondual unity: expression/truth. In other words, just as form is emptiness, and emptiness is form (emptiness/form), Buddhist expressions (sutras, turning words, koans, etc.) are the truth of the Dharma, the truth of the Dharma is Buddhist expressions.

As Dogen sees the ancestors “words” as the very form of the ancestors “truth” he goes on to point out the necessity to apply due diligence of painstaking research – discerning the truth of Buddhas should not be done in haste.

Next, Dogen goes on to give us a clue on how to apply ourselves to this research; “This question is also equipped with the virtue of an assertion.” As Hee-Jin Kim has clearly highlighted in his works, Dogen makes much creative use of interrogatives. That this question is “equipped” with the “virtue of an assertion” means that “There are people who have the capacity to hear the non-emotional preaching the Dharma,” and that these people are known as “what people.” “What,” “how,” “who,” and similar interrogatives are utilized in Dogen’s Zen to indicate the reality of Buddha nature, that is, the “thusness” or “suchness” of reality – the “True person of no rank.”

Now Dogen says that the “transmission of mind by mind” is the activity of beginners and then says “but there is a pivotal matter which has been authentically transmitted by means of the robe and authentically transmitted by means of the Dharma.” Clearly, for Dogen, the “transmission of mind by mind” and the transmission of the “pivotal matter” are not one and the same thing. What is he revealing here?

He shows us where to apply ourselves in order to get to the point by saying, “The founding patriarch has already experienced the principle expressed in the past” (i.e. the principle of the National Master’s saying), then point out, “and yet he now asks further.” In other words, Dogen is pointing out that since Tozan already experienced the principle (verified its truth) in the past, his words are certainly not concerned with the same principle, even if they appear to say the same thing. In short, Dogen is saying that Tozan is not simply repeating himself.

When we consider the koan to this point in terms of this clue; the “principle in the past” and the question “now” things begin to fall together. Next, Dogen goes on to bring some of the implications of this into the light:

The ancestral patriarch Ungan says, “The non-emotional are able to hear the non-emotional preaching the Dharma.” Following the authentic transmission of this lifeblood, there can be learning in practice that is free of body and mind. Saying “The non-emotional are able to hear the non-emotional preaching the Dharma” may be, in essence and in form, [the same as saying] “the buddhas are able to hear the buddhas preaching the Dharma.” An assembly that listens to the non-emotional preaching the Dharma, whether of sentient beings or insentient beings, whether of common people or sages and saints, may just be the non-emotional itself. Relying upon its essence-and-form, we can tell the true from the false among [masters of] the past and present. Even if they have come from India in the west, if they are not true ancestral masters of the authentic transmission, we should not rely on them. Even if they have been learning continually for a thousand myriad years, if they have not received the transmission as rightful successor to rightful successor, we cannot succeed them. Now that the authentic transmission has already spread throughout the Eastern Lands, it may be easy to tell the true from the false. We might be able to receive the bones and marrow of the buddhas and the patriarchs even by listening to the expression “living beings are able to hear living beings preaching the Dharma.” When we hear the words of the ancestral patriarch Ungan and listen to the words of the National Master Daisho, if we truly evaluate them, “the saints” expressed in “The saints are able listen” may be the non-emotional, and “the non-emotional” expressed in “The non-emotional are able to hear” may be the saints. What the non-emotional preaches is the non-emotional—because the non-emotional preaching the Dharma is the non-emotional itself. Thus, the non-emotional is the preaching of Dharma and the preaching of Dharma is the non-emotional. The founding patriarch says, “If that is so, I would [rather] not hear the master’s preaching of the Dharma.” The words “If that is so,” which we now hear, take up the principle that “the non-emotional are able to hear the non-emotional preaching the Dharma.” It is in accordance with the truth of the non-emotional being able to hear the non-emotional preaching the Dharma that “I do not hear the master’s preaching of the Dharma.” The founding patriarch at this time is not simply taking a back seat for the non-emotional preaching the Dharma; his own zeal to preach the Dharma to the non-emotional has shown itself and is piercing the sky. Not only does he physically realize that the non-emotional preaches the Dharma; in non-emotional preaching of the Dharma he has physically mastered [transcendence of] hearing and not hearing. Going further, in emotional preaching of the Dharma he has physically realized [transcendence of] preaching and not preaching—in preaching just past, preaching just now, and preaching just coming. And beyond that, in the preaching of the Dharma [that transcends] being heard and not being heard, he has completely clarified the truth [of knowing] that this is emotional and this is non-emotional.
Shobogenzo, Mujo-seppo, Gudo Nishijima & Mike Cross


If this teaching by Dogen has not sent some sparks up and down your spine, go back over it; it is truly a remarkable passage.

First, notice his stress on what we mentioned earlier about the “form” and “meaning” of the Buddha Dharma as a unity; the “essence and in form” of the “saying” of Buddhas.

Next, when Dogen says “may be” (the “Saying ‘The non-emotional… [may be] the same…”) he means it “is” the same.

Next, Dogen makes one of the clearest statements of a teaching that is repeated throughout his works; that by relying on the “essence-and-form” (the words and their meaning) of the expressions of Buddha ancestors (masters of the past and present) “we can tell the true from the false.”

Wow! True or false teachers of the past and present are not discerned by “sect,” “school,” “lineage,” or even “transmission certificates” – but by the essence-and-form of their expressions.

Not only does Dogen say we can discern true and false teachers (of the past and present) by investigating their expressions – but he says it will “be easy to tell true from false” because the “authentic transmission” has “already spread.” Thus, having the “form” (sutras, sayings, etc.) of the Buddha Dharma, we can discern the truth of the Buddha Dharma.

Herein lies the significance of the “pivotal matter.” What is the pivotal matter? Dogen illumines it in detail in his following commentary:

In general, hearing the Dharma is not confined to the spheres of the ear as a sense organ or of auditory consciousness: we hear the Dharma with our whole energy, with the whole mind, with the whole body, and with the whole truth, from before the time our parents were born and from before the time of [King of] Majestic Voice until the limit of the future and into the limitless future. The Dharma is heard prior to the body and after the mind. There is benefit to be got in each of these cases of hearing the Dharma. Never say that there is no benefit in hearing the Dharma without the involvement of mind-consciousness. Those whose mind has ceased and whose body is spent are able to benefit from hearing the Dharma, and those who are without mind and without body are able to benefit from hearing the Dharma. The buddhas and the patriarchs, without exception, pass through series of such instants in becoming buddhas and becoming patriarchs. How can the common intellect be fully aware of the influence of the Dharma connecting with the body-mind? It is impossible for us fully to clarify the limits of the body-mind. The merit of hearing the Dharma, once sown as a seed in the fertile ground of the body-mind, has no moment of decay; sooner or later it will grow, and, with the passing of time, it is sure to bear fruit. Stupid people think: “Without progressing on the path of understanding, and unless our memory is good, even if we listen to the Dharma tirelessly there will be no benefit. The most important thing, whether in the human world or in the heavens above, is to devote one’s body and mind to the pursuit of wide knowledge. If we immediately forget, and leave the seat a blank, what benefit can there be? What educational merit can it have?” They say this because they have not met a true teacher and have not seen a person of the fact. One who does not possess the traditional face-to-face transmission is said not to be a true teacher. One who has received the authentic transmission from buddha to buddha is a true teacher. [The time] that stupid people describe as [preaching the Dharma] being temporarily remembered in the mind-consciousness is the time when the merit of hearing the Dharma is subtly covering the whole mind and covering the whole consciousness. In this very moment, virtue is present which covers the body, which covers the moment before the body, which covers the mind, which covers the moment before the mind, which covers the moment after the mind, which covers causes, conditions, results, actions, forms, natures, substance, and energy, which covers buddhas, which covers patriarchs, which covers self-and-others, and which covers skin, flesh, bones, marrow, and so on. Realized throughout speaking and preaching and throughout [daily actions] such as sitting and lying down, the virtue pervades the meridians and pervades the sky. Truly, it is not easy to recognize such virtue of hearing the Dharma; nevertheless, if we come upon the great order of the Buddhist Patriarch and investigate the skin, flesh, bones, and marrow, there will be no time when the good influence of preaching the Dharma does not lead us, and there will be no place where we do not spread the Dharma influence of hearing the Dharma. In this way, allowing moments and kalpas to be fleeting or slow, we will see results become real. We should not deliberately throw away wide knowledge; at the same time, we do not see it, in isolation, as the pivot. Practitioners should know this. The founding patriarch has realized it in physical experience.

The ancestral patriarch says, “You do not even hear me preaching the Dharma; how much less [do you hear] the non-emotional preaching the Dharma.” Here, [confronted] with the founding patriarch’s sudden manifestation of the state of continuing to experience, on the basis of real experience, the [Buddha’s] state of real experience, the ancestral patriarch loosens his collar, and seals and certifies the state as the bones and marrow of the forefathers. [He is saying,] “Even while I am preaching, you are beyond hearing!” He does not speak thus because [Tozan] is ordinary flotsam; he is certifying that the non-emotional preaching the Dharma, though multifarious, does not require the activation of the intellect. The succession that takes place at this time is truly a secret. Those in the states of the common and the sacred cannot easily arrive at it or glimpse it.

Then the founding patriarch composes and presents to the ancestral patriarch Ungan a verse which says that “the mystery of the non-emotional preaching the Dharma” is “How very wonderful! How very wonderful!” So the non-emotional, and the non-emotional preaching the Dharma, are each difficult “to consider intellectually.” How are we to see “the non-emotional” described here? We should learn in practice that it is beyond the common and the sacred, and beyond the sentient and the insentient. Common and sacred, sentient and insentient, are always, whether preached or not preached, within the orbit of intellectual consideration. The present “[non-emotional],” which may indeed be “a mystery,” and “very wonderful,” and again “very wonderful” is beyond the wisdom and the consciousness of common people and sages and saints, and is beyond the reckoning of gods and human beings.

“If we listen with the ears, it is ultimately too difficult to understand”: Even with supernatural ears, or even with universal ears that pervade the whole world and all of time, when we aim to listen with the ears, “it is ultimately too difficult to understand.” Even with an ear on a wall, or an ear on a stick, we cannot understand the non-emotional preaching the Dharma, because it is beyond sound as matter. It is not that there is no “possibility of listening with the ears,” but even if we exhaust hundreds of thousands of kalpas of effort, “it is ultimately too difficult to understand.” [The non-emotional preaching the Dharma] has the dignity of the undivided truth which is originally beyond sound and form; it does not reside in nests and dens near the common and the sacred.

“Hearing its sound through the eyes, we are able to know it.” Interpreting this expression, certain individuals think: “The activity of grass, trees, flowers, and birds being seen in the present by human eyes may be described as ‘hearing sound through the eyes.’” This point of view is completely mistaken and is not the Buddha-Dharma at all. The Buddha-Dharma has no such theory. When we learn in practice the founding patriarch’s words “hearing sound through the eyes,” the place where the sound of the non-emotional preaching the Dharma is heard, is the eyes themselves; and the place where the sound of the non-emotional preaching the Dharma is realized, is the eyes themselves. We must investigate the eyes still more widely. “Hearing sound” through the eyes must mean the same as “hearing sound” through the ears; and for this reason, “hearing sound through the eyes” can never be the same as “hearing sound” through the ears. We should not learn that “there are ears in the eyes,” we should not learn that “eyes and ears are one,” and we should not learn that “sound is realized inside eyes.” An ancient says, “The whole universe in the ten directions is a Å›ramaṇa’s one eye.” We should not consider, by intellectual comparison, that to hear sound through this eye may be as in the founding patriarch’s words “hearing sound through the eyes.” Although we study the words of the ancient that “the whole universe in the ten directions is one eye,” the whole of the ten directions is just one eye, and furthermore, there are thousands of eyes on the tips of the fingers, there are thousands of eyes of right Dharma, there are thousands of eyes in the ears, there are thousands of eyes on the tip of the tongue, there are thousands of eyes on the tip of the mind, there are thousands of eyes of the thoroughly realized mind, there are thousands of eyes of the thoroughly realized body, there are thousands of eyes on top of a stick, there are thousands of eyes in the moment before the body, there are thousands of eyes in the moment before the mind, there are thousands of eyes of death in death, there are thousands of eyes of liveliness in liveliness, there are thousands of eyes of the self, there are thousands of eyes of the external world, there are thousands of eyes in the concrete place of eyes, there are thousands of eyes of learning in practice, there are thousands of eyes aligned vertically, and there are thousands of eyes aligned horizontally. Thus, we study that the totality of eyes is the whole universe, but still this is not physical mastery of “the eyes.” We should make it an urgent task to investigate, through the eyes, [the action of] just hearing the non-emotional preaching the Dharma. The point expressed now by the founding patriarch is that it is difficult for the ears to understand the non-emotional preaching the Dharma. It is the eyes which hear the sound. Going further, there are instances of the thoroughly realized body hearing the sound and instances of the whole body hearing the sound. Even if we fail physically to master hearing sound through the eyes, we must physically realize, and must get free from, [the truth that] “the non-emotional are able to hear the non-emotional preaching the Dharma,” for this is the truth that has been transmitted.

My late master Tendo, the eternal buddha, says, “A bottle gourd vine entwines with a bottle gourd.”

This is Dharma preaching of the non-emotional state, in which the ancestral patriarch’s right eyes have been transmitted and in which the bones and marrow have been transmitted. Relying upon the truth that all Dharma preaching is in the non-emotional state, the non-emotional preach the Dharma, which is the ancient standard, and the non-emotional preaches Dharma to the non-emotional. What do we call “the non-emotional”? Remember, those who listen to the non-emotional preaching the Dharma are just it. What do we call “preaching the Dharma”? Remember, not knowing oneself to be the non-emotional is just it.

Great Master Jisai of Tosuzan in Joshu (successor of Zen Master Suibi Mugaku, called Daido Myokaku in his lifetime, also called the eternal buddha Tosu), the story goes, is asked by a monk, “What is the non-emotional preaching the Dharma?” The master says, “No abusive language.”

What Tosu expresses here is the very Dharma plan of eternal buddhas and the ordinance of the patriarchs. Such [preaching] as the non-emotional preaching the Dharma, and Dharma preaching of the non-emotional is, in short, not to speak abusive language. Remember, the non-emotional preaching the Dharma is the whole charter of the Buddhist patriarchs. Followers of Rinzai and Tokusan cannot know it; only Buddhist patriarchs devote themselves to its investigation.
Shobogenzo, Mujo-seppo, Gudo Nishijima & Mike Cross


Peace,
Ted

Saturday, February 12, 2011

"Ordinary Beings" and "Buddhas" - Not One, Not Two

"Ordinary Beings" and "Buddhas" - Not One, Not Two
...
Shakyamuni Buddha once said in verse:

If any people give voice to this Discourse
Then they will surely be able to see Me.
But to express It for the sake of even one person
Is indeed something difficult for them to do.

So it follows from this that to be able to express the Dharma is to see Shakyamuni Buddha because, when ‘such a one’ comes to see ‘Me’, he is Shakyamuni Buddha.
Shobogenzo, Gyobutsu Iigi, Hubert Nearman


Here, I would like to consider the question concerning an apparent gap, or inconsistency between Dogen’s teaching that the reality of dharmas is dependent on individual experience, and his teaching that all beings share a common reality (Buddha nature). To frame the question; if real dharmas can only be verified by individual (subjective) experience, on what does Dogen base his affirmation of a common reality shared by all beings? In other words, if there is a reality beyond or outside of the six streams of our immediate sense perception how can we know it?

The fact is that as long as we fail to see the nonduality of reality as it is – nonduality/duality– we cannot know it. While it can be understood intellectually; such has no real liberating effect.

When we do actually verify the nonduality of reality we see it as it is, which means we see through it. According to Dogen, “Buddhas” and “ordinary beings” are distinct insofar as the former are enlightened about delusion while the later are deluded about enlightenment. This distinction recognizes the real differences between awakened and unawakened beings; it does not, however, imply a real separation between Buddhas and ordinary beings. From the common, unawakened perspective, Buddhas and ordinary beings are separate entities, from the awakened perspective of transcendent wisdom (prajna paramita), Buddhas and ordinary beings are nondual (not two).

Thus, the apparent gap between the reality experienced by Buddhas and the reality experienced by humans is itself nothing more than a misperception of reality.

Even if we misunderstand that it might be beyond the triple world, that is completely impossible. Inside, outside, and middle, beginning, middle, and end; all are the triple world. The triple world is as the triple world is seen, and a view of something other than the triple world is a mistaken view of the triple world. While in the triple world, we see views of the triple world as old nests and see views of the triple world as new twigs. The old nests were visions of the triple world, and a new twig is also a vision of the triple world.
Shobogenzo Sangai-yuishin, Gudo Nishijima & Mike Cross


Peace,
Ted

Tuesday, February 08, 2011

Dogen: The Insentient Preaching Dharma, Shobogenzo, Mujo-seppo

Dogen’s Shobogenzo, Mujo-seppo, Part 1


Preaching the Dharma in preaching the Dharma is the realized universe that Buddhist patriarchs transmit to Buddhist patriarchs. This preaching the Dharma is the Dharma preaching. It is neither sentient nor insentient. It is neither intentional doing nor nondoing. It is not causally connected with doing and nondoing, and it is not something that arises from circumstances. At the same time, it does not follow the way of the birds; it is given to a Buddhist assembly. When the great state of truth is completely realized, preaching the Dharma is completely realized. When the Dharma treasury is transmitted, preaching the Dharma is transmitted. At the time of picking up a flower, preaching the Dharma is picked up, and at the time of transmitting the robe, preaching the Dharma is transmitted. For this reason, the buddhas and the patriarchs have, in like fashion, paid homage to preaching the Dharma since prior to the King of Majestic Voice, and have practiced preaching the Dharma as their original practice since prior to the buddhas themselves. Do not learn only that preaching the Dharma has been orchestrated by Buddhist patriarchs; Buddhist patriarchs have been orchestrated by preaching the Dharma. This preaching the Dharma is not merely the expounding of the eighty-four thousand gates of Dharma; it includes countless and boundless gates of Dharma preaching. Do not learn that later buddhas preach as Dharma the Dharma preaching of former buddhas. Just as former buddhas do not come back as later buddhas, so it is also in preaching the Dharma: former preaching of the Dharma is not used as later preaching of the Dharma. For this reason, Sakyamuni Buddha says, “In the same manner that the buddhas of the three times preach the Dharma, so now do I also preach the Dharma that is without distinction.” Thus, in the same way that buddhas utilize preaching the Dharma, buddhas utilize preaching the Dharma. And in the same way that buddhas authentically transmit preaching the Dharma, buddhas authentically transmit preaching the Dharma. Therefore, having been authentically transmitted from buddhas of the eternal past to the Seven Buddhas, and having been authentically transmitted from the Seven Buddhas to today, there exists “the non-emotional preaching the Dharma.” In this non-emotional preaching the Dharma the buddhas are present, and the patriarchs are present. Do not learn that “I now preach the Dharma” expresses an innovation that differs from the authentic tradition. And do not experience the time honored authentic tradition as if it were an old nest in a demon’s cave.
Shobogenzo, Mujo-seppo, Gudo Nishijima & Mike Cross

As observed in recent posts, Shobogenzo distinguishes between the vision of prajna (enlightened wisdom) and common abstract, biased vision. Prajna is the integral unity or the center of gravity of the combined causes and conditions that not only make humans human, but makes each human a unique character. In short, prajna facilitates and informs the meaning and significance of an individual being’s characteristic attitude toward the experience of life.

Seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, touching, and thinking are the six streams of experience that constitute human existence. These never-ceasing, ever-advancing streams are the common reality of Buddha nature/mu-Buddha nature shared by all beings.

The prajna of each human being (either actively or passively) arranges these six streams into the existence experienced by them. Active actualization is consciously directed prajna; passive actualization is unconscious and haphazard. This is what informs Dogen’s view that true wisdom is most clearly revealed in and as “expression of truth,” here called “preaching Dharma.” To clarify these points, Dogen follows his opening passage with this Zen koan:

National Master Daisho of Kotakuji in the Western Capital in the great kingdom of Tang, the story goes, is asked by a monk, “Can the insentient really preach the Dharma, or not?”
The National Master says, “They are always preaching ardently; they preach without interval.”
The monk says, “Why do I not hear it?”
The National Master says, “Whether or not you hear it yourself, you should not disturb others who do hear it.”
The monk says, “I wonder what kind of person is able to hear it.”
The National Master says, “Saints are able to hear it.”
The monk says, “Does the Master hear it or not?”
The National Master says, “I do not hear it.”
The monk says, “If the Master himself does not hear it, how does he know that the insentient preach the Dharma?”
The National Master says, “It is convenient that I do not hear it. If I heard it I would be on the level of the saints, and then you would not be able to hear me preaching the Dharma.”
The monk says, “So living beings are without the means [to hear].”
The National Master says, “I preach for living beings. I do not preach for saints.”
The monk says, “What are living beings like after they hear?”
The National Master says, “At that time they are beyond living beings.”

Shobogenzo, Mujo-seppo, Gudo Nishijima & Mike Cross

Expressions of truth (preaching Dharma) are actualized by the whole body-mind. Dogen taught and demonstrated that the immediacy, energy, and authority of the Zen masters do not come from some super-human capacity or a super-enhanced capacity of the human body-mind. The expressions are wholly alive because the masters are wholly alive. Bodhidharma, Matsu, Linchi, Dogen, and Hakuin do not simply speak to our mind or our body, much less to some particular aspect of the body-mind; they speak to the wholeness of our being; for, like the expressions of Mozart, Bach, Michelangelo, and Picasso, they are expressions of wholeness.

This is the reason that, from the perspective of Shobogenzo, direct experience is truer and more alive than maxims, formulas, ideas, memories, concepts, etc. Direct experience is not “pure consciousness” or mere “open awareness.” In Dogen’s Zen, authentic practice-realization is never construed as passive perception, observation, or simply experiencing things “as they are.” Zen practice-realization is the actualization of the universe (genjokoan). To personally verify that “clear seeing is prajna itself” is to clearly see that the fashioner of the universe is nothing other than our own true self. To be unaware that “clear seeing is prajna itself” is to be unaware of our inherent liberation. According to Zen, our very existence is facilitated by our experiential capacities; when the Dharma-Eye is not activated, existence is fashioned by (haphazard) experience; when it is activated experience (intentionally) fashions existence.

Thus, the authenticity of Zen practice-realization is dependent on the “ordinariness” or “normality” of the mind of the practitioner. This means the ordinary or normal mind of an awakened being of course, not the “average” or “common” mind of the unawakened being. The expressions of Buddha ancestors reveal the wisdom of the true nature of human beings because Buddha ancestors are wholly awakened (ordinary, or normal) human beings. Strictly speaking, in Zen, there are no such things as “Buddhists,” there are common, deluded beings and there are Buddhas. For, to “clearly see” the wisdom of Buddhism (prajna) is, by definition, to actualize prajna itself – that is, to be a Buddha.

The Buddha-Dharma cannot be known by people. For this reason, since ancient times, no common person has realized the Buddha-Dharma and no one in the two vehicles has mastered the Buddha-Dharma. Because it is realized only by buddhas, we say that “buddhas alone, together with buddhas, are directly able perfectly to realize it.”
Shobogenzo, Yui-butsu-yo-butsu, Gudo Nishijima & Mike Cross

In Shobogenzo “clear seeing is prajna itself” (experience is existence itself), and that the reality of dharmas are unique to individuals, as well as truer and more extensive for those that have more fully developed their “eyes of practice,” a task with an infinite potential for expansion. For those unfamiliar with this way of looking at things, this can be difficult to reconcile. For those attached to dualistic or representational views of knowledge, it can seem nonsensical.

That the realities of things (dharmas) are more or less real based on how they are perceived is hard to concede, how much more the notion that “expressions” are more or less true for the same reason. Also, some might ask, if existence is actualized only as immediate experience, expressions, being “post-experiential” products, are as disconnected from reality as abstract concepts aren’t they?

No. Why?

First, for Dogen, expressions of truth are no more fixed than is actual experience; second, expressions need not be “post-experiential”; in fact, if they are post-experiential they are not expressions of truth. Expressions that merely repeat, represent (re-present), or correspond to previous real experiences or expressions of truth, even experiences or expressions of Buddhas, are only imitations of reality, replicas of truth.

Beginners and later students who wish to learn in practice the non-emotional preaching the Dharma should get straight into diligent research of this story of the National Master. “They are always preaching ardently; they preach without interval.” “Always” is a concrete time of many instants. “They preach without interval”: given that “preaching” is already manifest in reality, it is inevitably “without interval.” We should not learn that the manner in which “the insentient preach the Dharma” must necessarily be as in the case of the sentient. [To suppose that the manner in which “the insentient preach the Dharma]” might accord with the voices of the sentient, and with the manner in which the sentient preach the Dharma, and thus to wrest voices from the sentient world and to liken them to the voices of the insentient world, is not Buddhism. “The insentient preaching the Dharma” may not always be sound as matter—just as the sentient preaching the Dharma is not sound as matter. Now, asking ourselves and asking others, we must endeavor to learn in practice what is the sentient state and what is the insentient state. That being so, we should painstakingly apply our mind to learning in practice how the non-emotional might preach the Dharma. Stupid people think that the rustling of trees in the forest, and the opening and falling of leaves and flowers, are the non-emotional preaching the Dharma, but they are not practitioners of the Buddha-Dharma. If it were so, who could fail to know the non-emotional preaching the Dharma, and who could fail to hear the non-emotional preaching the Dharma? Let us reflect for a while: in the non-emotional world are there any “grass,” “trees,” and “forests” or not? Is the non-emotional world infiltrated by “the emotional world” or not? [No.] To recognize, on the contrary, that grass, trees, tiles, and pebbles are the non-emotional is to be incomplete in learning. And to recognize the non-emotional as grass, trees, tiles, and pebbles, is not to have experienced satisfaction. Though we shall now consider the grass, trees, and so on that are seen by human beings, and discuss them as the non-emotional, those very grass, trees, and so on are beyond the common intellect. For there are great differences between the forests of the heavens above and those of the human world; the produce of a civilized nation is not the same as that of a remote land; and grass and trees in the ocean are totally unlike those in the mountains. Still more, there are trees that grow in space and there are trees that grow in clouds. Among the hundred weeds and myriad trees that sprout and grow amid wind, fire, and so on, there are generally those that can be understood as sentient, those that are not recognized as insentient, and those weeds and trees which seem to be humans and animals: sentient and insentient have never been clearly distinguished. Still more, when we see a hermit’s trees, stones, flowers, fruits, hot springs, and cool waters, they are utterly beyond doubt—but how could they not be difficult to explain? Barely having seen the weeds and trees of China, or having become familiar with the weeds and trees of Japan, do not think that similar situations may be present through the whole universe in myriad directions.

The National Master says, “The saints are able to hear it.” That is, in orders where the non-emotional preaches the Dharma, the saints stand on the ground to listen. The saints, and the non-emotional, both realize hearing and realize preaching. The non-emotional does indeed preach the Dharma to saints, but is it sacred or is it common? [It is neither.] In other words, after we have clarified the manner in which the non-emotional preaches the Dharma, we are able to realize in physical experience that what the saints hear is as it is. Having attained realization in physical experience, we are able to fathom the state of the saints. Thereafter we should learn in practice, further, action on the road through the night which transcends the common and transcends the sacred. The National Master says, “I do not hear it.” Do not suppose that even these words are easy to understand. Does he not hear because he transcends the common and transcends the sacred, or does he not hear because he rips apart the nests of the common and the sacred? With effort like this, we should realize the [master’s] expression. The National Master says, “It is convenient that I do not hear it. If I heard it I would be on the level of the saints.” This elucidation is never one truth or two truths. The “convenient I” is beyond the common and the sacred; might the “convenient I” be a Buddhist patriarch? Because Buddhist patriarchs transcend the common and transcend the sacred, [what they hear] may not be exactly the same as what the saints hear. Researching the truth of the National Master’s words “Then you would not be able to hear me preaching the Dharma,” we should consider the bodhi of the buddhas and the saints. The point is this: when the non-emotional preach the Dharma the saints are able to hear, but when the National Master preaches the Dharma that concrete monk is able to hear. Day upon day and month after month we should endeavor to learn this truth. Now I would like to ask the National Master: I do not ask what living beings are like after they hear, but what are living beings like just in the moment of hearing you preach the Dharma?
Shobogenzo, Mujo-seppo, Gudo Nishijima & Mike Cross

To be continued in Dogen’s Shobogenzo, Mujo-seppo, Part 2

Peace,
Ted

Sunday, February 06, 2011

New Online Course: Classic Zen Teachings

Free Online Course: Classic Teachings of Zen Buddhism – Lesson 1 Part 1

Realizing the True Nature of Yourself - Yes, "Self"


You need to discern and affirm for yourself the underlying meaning of his saying, “If you wish to see Buddha Nature, you must first rid yourself of your arrogant pride.” It is not that one lacks sight, but the seeing of which he spoke is based on ridding oneself of one’s arrogant pride. The arrogance of self is not just of one kind, and pride takes many forms. Methods for ridding oneself of these will also be diverse and myriad. Even so, all of these methods will be ‘one’s seeing Buddha Nature’. Thus, you need to learn both to look with your eyes and to see with your Eye.
Shobogenzo, Bussho, Hubert Nearman

Putting one’s trust in the authority of the true self is only grandiose and misguided if it is attempted with an inaccurate understanding. Driving a car or installing an electrical outlet with no more than a superficial understanding can be disastrous; pursuing the great matter of life and death under the authority of the true self without clearly understanding what that means would be seriously unwise.

Popular notions about individualistic forms of “personal Buddhism” illustrate how ridiculous things get with superficial views of Buddhism. Assertions that “my Zen” and “your Zen” or “your Dogen” and “my Dogen” are all “just Buddhism” are not at all what Dogen means by trusting the true self; to the contrary, such notions come only from the personal self, from bowing to the authority of ego. Such fanciful ideas are one reason Dogen was so vehemently opposed to notions of separate “sects” of Buddhism.

If the principle of setting up one’s own way was the authentic Way, the Buddha Dharma would have disappeared in India long ago. Who would honor principles that individual people had set up on their own? If each person sets up his own principles, who could determine which were true and which were false? What was true and what was false could never be determined. If the true and the false cannot be determined, who could recognize what was actually the Buddha Dharma? If its principles cannot be clarified, it would be difficult to call anything ‘the Way of the Buddha’.
Shobogenzo, Butsudo, Hubert Nearman


In Dogen’s Zen, just as each real dharma is a unique expression of the wholeness of existence-time, each real expression of Buddhism is a unique expression of the wholeness of Buddha Dharma. Buddhism is not our personal opinions about expressions of truth; Buddhism is the truth that is expressed. From the perspective of Shobogenzo, the uniqueness of human experience – its realm, personal self (ego), and relative depth and clarity – is attributed to the integral character resulting from the specific combination of causes and conditions expressing each individual existence.

By “integral character” I mean the natural or innate propensity toward experiencing the world; it is the integral character of owls to eat meat, not clover; it is the integral character of rabbits to avoid owls, not seek them out. Moreover, not only does a newborn tiger naturally advance to become an adult tiger, it advances to become the adult tiger inherent to its specific causes and conditions, its “integral character.” From the moment of conception (or, in Buddhist terms, from before the eon of emptiness) each human being perceives, and interacts with her experience in a manner that is organically consistent with her integral character.

If not directly inspired by the widespread dualistic views (mostly within the Shingon and Tendei traditions) based on distorted interpretations of “original enlightenment” (hongaku), Dogen’s emphasis on the teachings of nonduality was undoubtedly reinforced by these circumstances. In any case, Dogen’s refutation of such views are primarily aimed at undermining assumptions that human experience (hence, existence) is produced or “fashioned” by the world, rather than being the “fashioner” of the world. The owl egg is not haphazardly transformed by the world into an adult owl; the environment does contribute to conditioning this development, but it does not cause it.

Shobogenzo clearly distinguishes between the vision of prajna (enlightened wisdom) and common abstract, biased vision. Prajna is the active force of integral character, the center of gravity at the heart of the combined energies of the various causes and conditions that makes a human not only human, but that particular human. It is the “clear seeing” (prajna) that is the “fashioner” of a universe and the fashioner of a self that each human calls “myself.” In this sense, prajna is the working force that facilitates and informs the meaning and significance of the individual human being’s characteristic approach to and interaction with their experience of the world.

Shakyamuni Buddha once said in verse:

If any people give voice to this Discourse
Then they will surely be able to see Me.
But to express It for the sake of even one person
Is indeed something difficult for them to do.


So it follows from this that to be able to express the Dharma is to see Shakyamuni Buddha because, when ‘such a one’ comes to see ‘Me’, he is Shakyamuni Buddha.
Shobogenzo, Gyobutsu Iigi, Hubert Nearman

Seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, touching [feeling], and thinking are the six streams that constitute human experience (thus, existence). These never-ceasing, ever-advancing streams are neither fixed, nor prearranged in particular forms or patterns; they are the random, chaotic, ceaseless manifestation of the one mind, the all inclusive realm of reality, the wholeness of existence-time common to all things and beings. This common reality is Buddha nature/mu-Buddha nature (more on this later); owl prajna actualizes it as an owl and an owl realm, tiger prajna as a tiger and a tiger realm, human prajna as a self and a universe.

The experience of this actualization by owls and tigers is known only to owls and tigers. For humans, however, this experience can only occur in one of two ways, actively or passively. Whether actively or passively all humans, being innately human, actualize a universe and a self from (“bits and pieces”) of the six streams of human experience. Active actualization is consciously directed prajna, intentionally enacted; passive actualization is the random, automatically functioning of prajna, unconscious and haphazard.

The Great Way that Buddha after Buddha has Transmitted has continued on without interruption, and the merits of training that Ancestor after Ancestor has revealed have spread far and wide…

At the same time, the inborn abilities of human beings are of many kinds. For instance, there are those who innately know what life really is. Once born, they free themselves from the sufferings and delusions of living. That is, through their own bodily existence they thoroughly master what life really is, beginning, middle, and end. And there are those who realize the Truth through learning. They undertake study and ultimately master themselves. In other words, they thoroughly exhaust the skin and flesh, bones and marrow of learning. And there are those who know what Buddha is. They go beyond those who realize the Truth through living and those who realize the Truth through learning. They transcend the bounds of self and other, are unbounded in the here and now, and are beyond having opinions when it comes to knowing self and other. That is to say, they have a knowledge that has no teacher. They are not dependent on a good spiritual friend, nor on Scriptural writings, nor on the nature of things, nor on external forms; they do not try to open up and turn themselves around, nor do they try to be interdependent with others; rather, they are completely transparent, with nothing hidden. Of these various types, do not conclude that one is smart and another dull. Each type fully manifests the merits from their training.

As a consequence, you would do well to explore through your training whether there are any beings, sentient or non-sentient, who cannot come to know the Truth simply by living their daily life. Any who have come to know the Truth through living life will have come to realize that Truth as the result of their living an everyday life. Once they have awakened to the Truth, they will reveal It in their everyday lives as they do their training and practice throughout their lives. Thus, the Buddhas and Ancestors, who are already Trainers and Tamers of Human Beings, have come to be called ‘Those who have fully realized what life really is’ because They have fully grasped what realization means. It will be your realization of what life is that leads you to partake of the great realization, because it will manifest from your study of Their realization.
Shobogenzo, Daigo, Hubert Nearman


If you are really doing your exploring through your training, whether by following the Scriptures or by following your spiritual friend, you will ultimately realize the Truth by yourself, independent of your Master. Realizing the Truth by oneself independent of one’s Master is the functioning of one’s True Nature. And even so, if you are inherently keen, you will still need to call upon a Master and inquire of the Way. And even if you are not inherently keen, you will still need to do your utmost in practicing the Way. But who among you is not inherently keen? Each one of you follows both the Scriptures and the advice of a good friend in order to arrive at the enlightenment which is the fruit of Buddhahood. Keep in mind that inherent keenness means that when you encounter the Scriptures or come face-to-face with a spiritual friend, you are encountering the meditative state of your True Nature, and that when you encounter the meditative state of your True Nature, you attain the meditative state of the True Nature of all things. It is our tapping into the wisdom from our previous lives, attaining the three illuminations, and awakening to fully perfected enlightenment. Coming face-to-face with our inherent keenness, we study it; coming face-to-face with the wisdom that goes beyond having a Master and that is inherent within us, we straightforwardly Transmit it. If we had no inherent keenness, then even though we came face-to-face with the Scriptures and a spiritual friend, we could not hear what the True Nature of all things is, nor could we realize It. The Great Truth is not a principle like that of someone drinking water to know for himself whether it is warm or cool.

Even were we to talk or converse as if we lacked True Nature, or were to work or act as if we lacked True Nature, this too would only be True Nature manifesting Itself. The passing of days and months of immeasurable eons past has been the passing of the True Nature of all things. And it is just the same for the present and the future. We may take the measure of our body and mind to be just the measure of our body and mind, not recognizing them as an aspect of our True Nature, but this way of thinking about them is also a function of our True Nature. Or we may take the measure of our body and mind not to be a true measure of our body and mind, while still not recognizing them as an aspect of our True Nature, but this way of thinking about them is likewise a function of our True Nature. Whatever we may consider or not consider them to be, in either case they are an aspect of our True Nature. To think that the ‘Nature’ in ‘True Nature’ means that water does not flow and that trees do not flourish and then wither away is a non-Buddhist view.

Shakyamuni Buddha once said, “The appearance of each thought and thing is just as it is, and the nature of each thought and thing is likewise just as it is.”
Shobogenzo, Hossho, Hubert Nearman


Meditation Master Setcho Juken once said, “The two Masters—Joshu and Bokushu—are examples of what it means to be an Old Buddha.” Accordingly, the words of Old Buddhas are Their awakened experience of Buddha Dharma and Their own personal ways of putting the Matter which They uttered in the past. Great Master Seppo Shinkaku once exclaimed, “Joshu, the Old Buddha!” A previous Ancestor of the Buddha also praised Joshu by eulogizing him as an Old Buddha, and a later Ancestor of the Buddha eulogized him as an Old Buddha as well. Obviously, they are saying that he is an Old Buddha who has gone beyond any spiritually awakened state attained by others of the past or present.
Shobogenzo, katto, Hubert Nearman

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Peace,
Ted

Thursday, February 03, 2011

Joshu's Stone Bridge & Dogen's Objectless Zazen

Joshu's Stone Bridge, Dogen, and the Only Buddha There is...
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According to Zen tradition, when he was 40 years old the great Master Joshu awakened to enlightenment under Master Nansen. After awakening he stayed and trained with Nansen for another 20 years, then he went out and visited all the great teachers in China, refining his realization for another 20 years, and finally he settled down to teach at the age of 80. Living until the age of 120, Joshu taught for 40 years – the amazing clarity and intimacy of the recorded teachings of Joshu suggest there may be some truth to the legend. In any case, as a teacher he was renowned throughout China and monks travelled from all over to meet and train with him. Once, late in his life, perhaps after 70 years of honing his knowledge and skill, a monk came to meet him:

The monk said, “I have long heard of the great stone bridge of Joshu, but now I am here and I don’t see the stone bridge, I see only a single-log bridge.”

Joshu said, “You don’t see the stone bridge; you see only a single-log bridge.”

The monk said, “What is the great stone bridge of Joshu?”

Joshu said, “Horses cross, donkeys cross.”


To clarify, “Joshu” was the name of the area where Master Joshu settled down to teach, which was where he took his name from, as was customary for Zen masters. The “stone bridge of Joshu” was an actual bridge in the area that was renowned throughout China as an engineering marvel. The monk in this case used the bridge as a (somewhat) polite way to speak about the Master himself, and Joshu adeptly responded in kind. “I have long heard of the great Joshu,” the monk indicates, “but I don’t see any marvel here, I see only a frail old spindly bridge.” Joshu’s response is characteristically mellow, even grandmotherly, “You don’t see the stone bridge; you see only a single-log bridge.” The monk can’t help but show his colors under Joshu’s illumination; the monk asks, “What is the stone bridge?” You are just an ordinary old man, aren’t you; am I missing something? “Horses cross, donkeys cross.” Yes, the ordinary one-log bridge you see easily accommodates horses, donkeys, oxen, elephants, and finally all beings in the ten directions.

As existence is individual experience, the reality of the experienced bridge is greater, truer, and more existent for Joshu than the reality of the experienced bridge of the monk. Seeing is fashioning; actualizing (making actual); the clearer one sees, the greater the actualization.

When someone with the perspective of the secular world encounters a mountain, and when someone with the perspective of one amongst mountains meets this mountain, how their minds think of this mountain or how their eyes see this mountain will be vastly different.
Shobogenzo, Sansuikyo, Hubert Nearman


The clear seeing (prajna) of Zen practice is wholehearted intentional seeing; it is actively utilizing the entire experiential capacity of the whole body-mind (konshin). It is simply not possible to actualize this clear seeing when one is restraining or attempting to eradicate particular aspects of experience; simply letting go, letting things be as they are, having no-goals, detaching from thoughts, etc. are exactly the opposite of authentic Zen practice. To understand Dogen’s teaching of “objectless” meditation as meaning cutting off, or turning away from “objects” (e.g. koans, the breath, scriptures, etc.) in the practice of sole-sitting (shikantaza) is to misunderstand Dogen’s teaching. “Objectless meditation” does not mean detaching, or turning away from objects, it means utilizing the Dharma-Eye; “clear seeing” (prajna) is seeing that there are no “objects” in the whole universe; the breath, koans, scriptures, and even bridges do not exist objectively. Those that make a concept of “objectless meditation” and set out to realize it are, to use a Zen phrase, trying to go south while facing north.

The whole universe is utterly without objective molecules: here and now there is no second person at all.
Shobogenzo, Bussho, Gudo Nishijima & Mike Cross


The bridge lets horses and donkeys cross because Joshu, clearly seeing with his whole body-mind, actualizes the whole body-mind of the bridge. While such are the innate capacities of all human beings, this kind of fullness of life experience does not just happen automatically, and it certainly cannot be actualized by detaching or letting go. Joshu wholeheartedly and continuously cultivated, developed, and refined his human capacities for decades.

The single-log bridge is not a reality separate from the great stone bridge; it is simply that reality as experienced by the masses of unawakened beings living single-log lives. Little children can see the great stone bridge, they can and do travel to the far reaches of the universe in cardboard boxes, but they are unable to see the single-log bridge until they mature into a world of community. In this transition the stone-bridge becomes all but lost to sight; for most the process of maturity is arrested here. In Zen the next step in the process is called the “great death” – like all the great mythologies, Zen recognizes the truth that achieving the fullness of humanity requires us to experience a second birth. The great death is the experience of seeing through the ego that Dogen calls “casting off the body-mind of ‘self and other than self.’” Undergoing the experience of the great death can be a daunting, even terrifying experience; thus Zen records are full of references to “the few” that are “aware of this,” “have this skill,” etc. For “the many” prefer the easier path of obedience, submission and acceptance; forfeiting the liberation of full actualization for a false sense of security.

Failing to clearly see (prajna) that the “gaps” between dharmas are joints that unify as well as distinguish, the world is perceived as dissected rather than diverse. Repelled by the hideousness common to all jumbled heaps of indefinite parts, people are naturally drawn to the stability of normalcy that comes with full maturity. Attracted by promises of ease and immediate gratification, many are led to abandon personal verification for the pseudo-security of obedience to an ideology. Convinced of their own inferior authority, some devote themselves to the views asserted by the masses. Averaging out and blurring distinctions the mob arrives at a “common” world of manageable abstract categories and generalizations. Assuring one another that they too perceive only the single-log bridge, they rest convinced of their own normalcy.

Dogen, however, reminds us that being typical, common, or average does not equate with being “normal” or “ordinary.” The single-log bridge in the absence of the great stone bridge is the abstract, impersonal, generalized experience of mundane mediocrity.

You cannot really perceive what a mountain is by means of the standards used by those who wander in ignorance.
Shobogenzo, Sansuikyo, Hubert Nearman


Joshu’s eye does not add anything to the bridge; it perceives more of it. The great stone-bridge and the beings crossing over are not an intellectual, emotional, or instinctual experience, but the experience of one with the mind of an old grandmother wherein all such divisions have long been abandoned. Joshu, unlike the child, can see the single-log bridge too; thus, he can communicate with “others,” guiding them to maturity.

In Zen, the perception and experience of Buddhas is the measure of the “ordinary mind,” the normality of being human. The monk not seeing the great stone bridge is no more normal than blindness or confusion; it is a lack of normality or a condition of abnormality. The Zen axiom that “the ordinary mind is Buddha” does not mean the “Buddha is the ordinary mind,” as is often wrongly interpreted, it means “the ordinary mind is Buddha.” The single-log bridge is the great stone-bridge, but the great stone-bridge is not the single log bridge.

Practical experience tells us that some aspects of our experience are subject to our control while others are not. We feel we can choose to sit, stand, walk, or lie down, but not that we can choose to breathe, digest our food, circulate our blood, or grow new skin cells. In fact, the real “us,” that is, our “true self” does actually manage all of this and more; but that is not the point we want to get at here; Dogen’s criticism is targeted at presuppositions that the natural, unintentional processes of experience are inclusive of our thoughts, speech, and actions. The idolaters of emptiness and the “Senika heresy” of naturalism, suppose that hearing, for instance, occurs unconsciously as random, uncontrollable sounds assail the mind through the ear. But for Dogen hearing is actualized by the mind conducting itself through the ear to the “objects” of sound; in Zen Master Linchi terms, “Here in this lump of red flesh (the body-mind) there is a true person of no rank directing itself in and out of the gates of your face (the sense organs).”

For those that divide appearance from reality or form from emptiness, the mind (true person) is uniform, passive, pure consciousness, or inactive essential nature; hearing (as well as seeing, smelling, tasting, feeling, and thinking) are all automatic, involuntary processes – life “just happens.” Of those promoting views about “having no goals and simply letting things be as they are” or that “just sitting in pure awareness is itself enlightenment” Dogen says:

As to the phrase ‘when the right moment arrives’, folks in both the past and the present have frequently held the view that this means one simply waits for some future time when Buddha Nature will manifest before one’s eyes. They believe that while doing their training and practice in this way, the time will arrive when Buddha Nature will spontaneously manifest before their eyes. They say that until that time comes, It will not manifest even by visiting one’s Master and inquiring into the Dharma or even by doing one’s best to practice the Way. Looking at the Matter in this manner, they uselessly return to worldly ways, vainly waiting for It to fall down upon them from the heavens. Folks like this, I fear, are that type of non-Buddhist who believes that things just happen to happen, independent of any cause.
Shobogenzo, Bussho, Hubert Nearman


The single-log bridge is the experience of the common, inactive mind of “letting things be.” The great stone bridge of Joshu is only seen and experienced with wholehearted, accurately directed, intentional effort. Those that “just sit” and passively experience whatever happens to “spontaneously manifest” will never see the great stone bridge. That bridge is only seen by those willing to inform themselves of the whereabouts, known dangers, and means of travelling the path leading to it – and wholeheartedly following it until it is personally realized (made real). In Mahayana Buddhism, such aspiration is called giving rise to the intention to realize enlightenment; literally “bodhicitta” (or “bodhishin”) the thought or mind (citta, shin) of enlightenment (bodhi). In portraying the significance of this in Shobogenzo, Dogen cites the Buddha’s words from a passage of the Avatamsaka Sutra which he follows up with a comment that we “need to be clear” that to give rise to this intention is to “wholeheartedly seek enlightened wisdom.”

The Tathagata said in the Avatamsaka Scripture:

When Bodhisattvas give rise to the intention to realize Buddhahood and make birth-and-death the foremost issue, they wholeheartedly seek enlightened Wisdom and, being steadfast, they will not waver. The meritorious functioning of that single-mindedness is deep and vast, knowing no bounds. If I were to analyze and explain it, I would be unable to exhaust the topic, even if I had eons to do it.


You need to be clear about this: using the issue of birth-and-death to give rise to your intention to realize Buddhahood is to wholeheartedly seek enlightened Wisdom.
Shobogenzo, Hotsu Mujo Shin, Hubert Nearman


The Buddhist practitioner that genuinely arouses such aspiration will be unable to rest satisfied in the blankness of detachment and quietism that Zen calls the “the cave of inky darkness,” much less will they accept the authority of anything less than personal verification. Having opened the Dharma-Eye and seen the great stone bridge is to have realized the liberating truth that “clear seeing” (i.e. prajna itself) is actualizing the universe (genjokoan), and that actualizing the universe is actualizing the true self.

Throughout Shobogenzo, Dogen reminds practitioner to recall and maintain their initial desire to seek the Dharma; this initial desire is the initial spark of bodhi that can be brought to full flame or wane and sputter away. Zen Buddhism is grounded on the principle that the highest authority of the sincere practitioner can only be the Buddha wisdom inherent in their own body-mind; scriptures, teachings, and teachers are necessary guides and helpers, but they cannot give experiential verification.

Teachings, like all dharmas, are only real insofar as they are experienced; even a teaching of the Buddha himself cannot be real if it is not personally experienced. A Buddhist teaching is only true for one that receives it; “receiving” is a process inclusive of, (1) learning it (hearing/reading), (2) understanding it (study/clarification), (3) putting it into practice (practical application/real world testing), (4) verifying it (experiential proof/disproof). In the absence of the 4th aspect of “receiving” no truth exists.

Those that forfeit the authority of their own inherent Buddha to another demonstrate the self-doubt that is a barrier to all truth. Those that adopt views and practices by “authorities” that advocate detaching, cutting out, or eradicating particular aspects of the world or the body-mind not only blind themselves, they diminish the life of their own true self – which is the only Buddha there is.

At the same time, whether people are following a good spiritual teacher or following the Scriptures, all such persons are following their True Self. The Scriptural texts are, naturally, the Scriptural texts of Self, and good spiritual teachers are, naturally, good spiritual teachers of Self. Thus, you should investigate through your training that thorough training means thoroughly training oneself, that studying the hundreds of things which sprout up like grass means studying oneself, that studying the myriad things that take root and branch out like trees means studying oneself, and that this self is, of necessity, synonymous with making such an effort. By exploring like this through your training, you drop off self and you promise enlightenment to yourself.

Accordingly, in the Great Way of the Buddhas and Ancestors there are tools for awakening to one’s True Self and for realizing what that Self truly is. If there were no Buddhas or Ancestors who were genuine Dharma heirs, there would be no genuine Transmission. But there are tools that Dharma heir after Dharma heir has received, for were there not the Bones and Marrow of the Buddhas and Ancestors, there would not be a genuine Transmission.

Because we explore the Matter in this way, when we pass on the Transmission for the sake of others, we confer it by saying such things as “You have gotten what my Marrow is” and “I have the Treasure House of the Eye of the True Teaching which I confer on Makakasho.” Expressing It for someone’s sake does not necessarily depend on self and others. To express It for the sake of others is to express It for one’s own sake. It is one’s Self and another’s Self harmoniously hearing and expressing the same thing. One ear is hearing and one ear is expressing: one tongue is expressing and one tongue is hearing. The same holds true for the sense organs of eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, and mind, as well as for their forms of consciousness and their sense objects. Further, there is one Body and there is one Mind, and there is enlightenment and there is training. It is the hearing and expressing of one’s ears, and it is the hearing and expressing of one’s tongue.
Shobogenzo, Jisho Zammai, Hubert Nearman


Peace,
Ted