Why Do We Prefer Pictures of Placid Nature As Images of Spirituality?

For images of spiritual inspiration and realization we tend toward scenes of calm and placid nature: blooming plum trees, ocean or mountain vistas, mushrooms sprouting in the moist mulch, birds soaring in the empty sky, etc. Why? Why not scenes of hurricanes, tsunamis, rivers flooding their banks, tornadoes ripping up the landscape, etc. since these must also represent spirituality? Nature has plenty of death and destruction that goes along with the placid. Isn't this preference for the placid a variation of the "God is good" feeling that just doesn't quite know how to deal with the absolute also being the source of the bad, the delusional, and the unreal?

In Buddhism this dilemma has historically come out in the debate over whether emptiness, the alaya-vijnana (eighth consciousness), or Tathagatagarbha are the source or fountainhead of both the "true" and the "false" or whether is it somehow so undefiled in its undiscriminated state that it can only be called the source for the pure and the good while false thinking and afflictions do not have their root in the emptiness of the alaya. Zen has traditionally gone along with the analysis found in the treatise called the Discourse on the Awakening of Faith in the Mahayana in which the true suchness of the one mind-nature is seen as the non-dual source of all dharmas, both real and unreal, both true and false. In other words, if the good and pure have their origin in the unborn nondual reality then so do the bad and the defiled. In the Christian frame of reference this is the recognition that God is the creator of both the good and the evil in the world. Bearing this ambiguity in mind is very difficult for most people and becomes “mind blowing.”

But as I see it, there is an underlying reason why we naturally lean toward placid pictures of nature as the representative images of our own true nature just as Christians are naturally biased toward assigning the "good" to God. It is difficult to put into words, but while the absolute is, in itself, non-dual and is the common ground of both poles of such polarities as peace and rage, creation and destruction, the true and the false, etc. as this non-dual reality appears to our awareness as a memory or intuition within the context of our dualistic discrimination it is the images of calm and unperturbed shining or brightness that most resonate with our memory or intuition of the vital presence of our own true nature. We know intellectually that our own nature encompasses both sides of any opposition, but our feeling is that one side is more representative of the absolute nature of reality while the other side is more representative of the relative nature of reality.

But even the bifurcation of the nature of reality into absolute and relative is already a post-discrimination polarity. And it is because this bifurcation is the underlying fact of our ability even to have post-discrimination consciousness, that we naturally, naively, and comfortably identify the absolute nature of reality as calm, peaceful, silent, pure, undefiled, good, shining, brightness while we associate relative reality as chaotic, noisy, defiled, bad, delusional, dark, etc. However, in order to see our true nature for ourselves as one tastes the ocean for oneself to know its saltiness, we have to let go of our tendency of polarizing and discriminating everything into categories of good and evil, calm and chaotic, silent and noisy, etc., and directly realize our pre-discrimination awareness.

And here’s where the mystery comes up: when we realize our non-discriminating awareness there is absolutely nothing realized and no one realizing anything, but awareness still functions and in that functioning again discriminates and in that discrimination we look back in remembrance upon that undiscriminated awareness as if it were clear, calm, silent, brightness, when in actuality it had in itself neither those characteristics nor their opposites. But in our post-discrimination awareness it just makes sense to characterize our sense of non-discriminating awareness that way.

This inescapability of our polarizing tendency of consciousness is brought to the foreground in the Zen koan called “The Buffalo Passing Through the Window” that is Case 38 of the Gateless Checkpoint (Ch. Wumen Guan, J. Mumonkan) collection of koans. It goes like this:

Wuzu said, "For instance, a water buffalo passes through the latticed window; the head, horns, and four hoofs all pass through completely. What is the reason the tail is not able to pass through?”

No matter how much we think or imagine that we are all the way and completely on one side of a polarity, there is always a bit on the other side. No matter how much we may think we are good, there is always a bit of bad left in us. No matter how much we may think we are bad, there is always a bit of good left in us. No matter how much we think there is light, there is a bit of dark remaining. No matter how much we think there is darkness, there is a bit of light remaining. But even if we intellectually understand this aspect of the mutual connection of the opposites so that the tail can never pass through in the world of the relative, we may still imagine a world of the absolute where our water buffalo can completely pass through the window.

When we realize the pre-discrimination awareness that is the falling away of body and mind, we may imagine that we have gone completely through the window, including the tail, into realizing the unborn, but lo and behold, the tail has still not gone through as demonstrated by our awareness once again flowing in the direction of discrimination and we “return” to the realm of relative discriminations as if the buffalo’s entire body has flowed back into its tail turning itself inside out. Yet no matter how much we may then think we have completely come into the world of relative discrimination, still our tail remains within the non-discriminating awareness that is the unconscious emptiness of our Buddha Nature that makes conscious discrimination possible.

So as we look at this world of things, if our awareness discriminates things as objects, we have gone through the window in one direction, but still our tail of non-discriminating awareness has not entered into discrimination otherwise there would be no cycles of transformation and every object would be eternally fixed in one form and no life could occur. And as we are able to look at things as completely empty of self-nature with our realization of the bright shinning non-dual awareness, we have gone through the window in the opposite direction, but still our tail, now of discriminating awareness, has not gone through and entered into non-discrimination, otherwise there would be no form at all and so no transformation, and no life could occur.

It is the genius of Zen that the presentation of the Buddha Dharma in volumes of words in the Avatamsaka (Huayen) Sutra, and in the many treatises on that sutra, describing the mutual interpenetration of the absolute (emptiness) and the relative (form) and the mutual interpenetration of all phenomenal forms, is presented in a pithy koan of two sentences through the image of the water buffalo passing through the window and asking what is the reason the tail can not pass through?

In Zen, we recognize that no matter how much we may aspire to present the realization of true suchness within a placid image of nature such as the serene Zen garden, we have not completely captured the true suchness of our mind’s nature within the image any more than the water buffalo has completely gone through the latticed window. And even with the recognition that both the serenity of nature and the howling destructiveness of nature equally represent the realization of true suchness, still the water buffalo’s tail has not completely gone through the window. No matter what image we may have, still the water buffalo does not go completely through the window. What enormous horns that water buffalo has, what a big head, what gigantic shoulders, what great hooves, and what a huge body, but that little tail, it makes all the difference swishing with life!

Three Threes In Front, Three Threes In Back.

This is a response to Dosho Port's "Wild Fox Zen" blog entry Dragons and Snakes Intermingle Dosho is musing on the conundrum of Zen teachers who act like ordinary fools and how we respond to them. Its a topic that calls forth responses from the dragons and snakes of our own nature. Dosho is riffing on the koan Manjusri's Three Threes which is case 35 of the Blue Cliff Record. Here's my translation of the koan:

Raised: Wenshu (Manjusri) asked Wuzhu, "What place have you departed from recently?"
Wuzhu said, "The region of the South."
Shu said, "So how is the Buddha Dharma kept alive in the region of the South?"
Zhu said, "Recently, few of the mendicants of the Dharma respect moral discipline and the rules."
Shu said, "How many assemblies?"
Zhu said, "Perhaps three hundred, perhaps five hundred."
Wuzhu asked Wenshu/Manjusri, "So how is it kept alive in this space?"
Shu said, "The ordinary and sages reside together, dragons and snakes intermingle."
Zhu said, "How many assemblies?"
Shu said, "Three threes in front; three threes in back."

I appreciate the “dragons and snakes intermingling.” It is also a great expression for the feelings stirred up. People thought these fellows were dragons and “lo and behold” they acted like snakes. To paraphrase the Bodhisattva of the Levant, “Let those who have never acted like snakes throw the first stones.” Any adult who believes they have never acted like a snake is truly delusional. It is no excuse to say “I’ve just been a ribbon snake, not a king cobra.”

If nothing else, the venting of venom against these Zen teachers has shown that people are meeting on the common ground of being snakes. Three threes in front! Yet, to see only the dragon and not the snake; three threes in back!

I’ve been reluctant to say much about these controversies because I’m all too aware of past lives where I was a mass murderer or a wife-beater.

We can only make these events into Dharma food by the alchemical transformation of turning the three poisons into the three treasures. .People who criticize Genpo, Eido, and others for not living up to their dragon persona do no service to the Dharma by maintaining the mental apartheid of dragons and snakes. The lineage of awakening now called Zen, as Bodhidharma told us, is entering by the gate of principle in which we bear profound faith that the one true nature of beings is the same, without self and without other, with the ordinary and the sagely one and the same.

It is not someone else’s greed, hatred and ignorance that must be transformed. It is our own. It is not that the three poisons are jettisoned, discarded, or left behind and replaced by the three treasures. It is three by three: three threes in front. The greed itself is and becomes the compassion of the sangha, the hatred itself is and becomes the equanimity of the Dharma, the ignorance itself is and becomes the wisdom of the Buddha.

What is most difficult for the inexperienced to understand and accept is how the transformation works in the opposite direction: with three threes in back; where the wisdom of Buddha manifests as ignorance, the equanimity of the Dharma revealing aversion, and the compassion of the sangha showing our greed. What kind of topsy-turvey world is this?

Our Idealism wants a world where poisons become treasures, and not a world where treasures become poisons. But hey, it’s three threes in front, three threes in back, nothing amiss.
For the Dharma it is essential to be able to distinguish poisons from treasures, but it is just as essential to see their sameness, and to see in what way dragons and snakes intermingle within each of us.

Ode to the One Vehicle

This is a poetic collage of bits taken from various sources, now juxaposed and combined with my words to string together this ode in praise of the One Vehicle. The primary source material is from Zen Master Guifeng Zongmi's Introduction to the Collection of the Various Expositions of the Fountainhead of Zen, with other cullings from the Sutra of the One Vehicle of Queen Srimila's Lion's Roar, the Huayen Sutra, the Lankavatara Sutra, the Lotus Sutra, and the writings of First Zen Ancestor Bodhidharma, Third Zen Ancestor Sengcan, Fifth Zen Ancestor Hongren, and Sixth Zen Ancestor Huineng. Having eaten their words, what you see here as strung together is only my fault.




Ode to the One Vehicle

By Gregory Wonderwheel


Wanderers in the Way,
Hear the One Vehicle (Ekayana) of the Tathagata’s lion’s roar.
Everyone of the multitude of beings in every case has Buddha Nature,
And without exception are led to enter the Way of the One Vehicle.

That One Vehicle
Always abides in the Dharma-realm,
Always silent and always illuminating.

The immeasurable and innumerable expedient methods of the Buddha Dharma,
Indeed in every case, are for the reason of the One Buddha Vehicle.
Directly pointing to one’s own mind immediately reveals true nature,
And opens the knowing and seeing of the Buddha.

Great master Bodhidharma transmitted the lineage of the One Vehicle of Southern India
Without self and without other,
With the worldly and the sacred one and the same,
Only the Bodhidharma lineage transmits the inheritance by means of Mind.
The Mind is the fountainhead of the Dharma.

Great Master Huineng instructed to use establishing no-thought as the lineage.
Those who see the essence of no-thought see the lineage,
Then thought after thought in every case is the One Buddha Vehicle.
If that mind is entirely extinguished,
There is no vehicle, as well as someone in the vehicle.

If you want to choose the One Vehicle,
Do not hate the six dusts.
All things are completely the evidentiary things of the One Mind.
The One Mind is completely the One Mind of all things.
All things completely then are True Mind.
By flowing unobstructed, consequently all things are wonderful medicine.

The true mind of root enlightenment is like the brightness of the mirror.
There are no appearances that can be obtained.
Therefore all things are like appearances in the mirror.
The essence of the one true heart-mind
Is indeed one’s own essence of true suchness.

That which is Dharma knows one’s own nature.
That which is Dharma knows the real truth.
That which is Dharma knows the One Vehicle.
In every case consider the Dharma of the One Vehicle as the real truth

The deep necessarily includes the shallow;
the shallow does not reach the deep.
Likewise, the One Vehicle necessarily includes the various vehicles;
While the various vehicles do not reach the One Vehicle
Because the various vehicles immediately are the One Vehicle,
Those who gain the One Vehicle
Gain the unexcelled unified equality-enlightenment (anuttara-samyak-saṃbodhi),
Always abiding in the Dharma-realm,
Able to touch and yet immediately to pass through.

[and in my poor excuse for Chinese]

一乘頌
Gregory Wonderwheel 述

道流。
聞如來師子吼一乘。
一切眾生皆有佛性。
無不引入一乘道。

一乘者。
常住法界常寂常照也。

佛法無量無數方便。
是皆為一佛乘故。
直指自心即顯真性。
開佛知見。

菩提達磨大師傳南天竺一乘宗。
無自無他。
凡聖等一。
以心傳嗣。
唯達摩宗。
心是法源。

慧能大師示以立無念為宗。
見 無念 體者 見 宗
即念念皆一佛乘
若彼心滅盡，　　
無乘及乘者，

若欲取一乘
勿惡六塵
諸法是全一心之 證法。
一心是全諸法之一心。
諸法全即真心。
通則諸法妙藥。

本覺真心如鏡之明
無相可得。
故一切法如鏡中相。
一真心體。
者真如自體。

法者知自性。
法者知真諦。
法者知一乘。
皆以一乘法為真諦。

深必該淺。
淺不至深。
亦一乘必該諸乘
卻 諸乘不至一乘
諸乘即是一乘故。
得一乘者。
得阿耨多羅三藐三菩提。
常住法界。
能感而即通。

Huangbo on the One Vehicle

The text titled A Synopsis of the Dharma of Transmitting Mind of Zen Master Duanji of Huangbo Mountain (黃檗山斷際禪師傳心法要) was written by Pei Xiu (797-870), a government official and member of the Chinese literati, who was also a lay disciple of Huangbo Xiyun (J. Obaku Kiun) (d. c. 850) who is also known here by the name Duanji of Huangbo Mountain. On at least two separate occasions, Pei Xiu invited Huangbo to the City where Pei Xiu lived and they engaged in extensive discussions. After their meetings, Pei Ziu wrote down what he remembered to the best of his ability. After Huangbo died, Pei Ziu gave his manuscript to Huangbo’s disciples Taizhou and Fajian to share with the elder disciples at Huangbo’s temple, to edit and publish if they felt it accurately represented Huangbo’s teaching, which they evidently did, since it has come down to us today.

Huangbo was the main teacher of the famous Linji Yixuan (J. Rinzai Gigen) (d. 867). There are great stories about Huangbo. He was well over six feet tall and very imposing in stature, yet he was known for having a callous on his forehead from his practice of bowing so often. At one point he was the Dharma teacher of an Imperial prince hiding from execution at Huangbo’s monestary before the prince was able later to take the throne back from the usurping cousins.

In this section of A Synopsis of the Dharma of Transmitting Mind, Huangbo refers directly to the One Vehicle and connects is directly to his core teaching of the One Mind and the legend of the origin of the Zen lineage. This is a solid line through the teachings of Bodhidharma, Huineng, Mazu, and Baizhang connecting the Zen lineage with the One Vehicle.

The Tathagata appeared in the world and wanted to explain the True Dharma of the One Vehicle, however the multitude of beings did not believe and raised slanders, sinking in the sea of sufferings. If he did not explain at all, however, he’d fall into stingy greed, and not serve as the subtle Way of universal renunciation for the multitude of beings. He proceeded to establish the expediency of explaining there are three vehicles. For the vehicles there is great and small; for attainment there is shallow and deep. All are not the original Dharma. For this reason it was said, “There is only the Way of the One Vehicle, two or more however, are not true.” So, in the end, because he had not yet displayed the Dharma of the One Mind, he called Kasyapa to share the Dharma seat and separately handed over the One Mind, going away from words to explain the Dharma. The Dharma of this one branch decrees a separate practice. If you are able to agree with those who awaken, then you arrive at the Buddha stage!

Here’s the Chiinese original:

如來現世。欲說一乘真法則眾生不信興謗。沒於苦海。若都不說。則墮慳貪。不為眾生溥捨妙道。遂設方便說有三乘。乘有大小。得有淺深。皆非本法。故云。唯有一乘道餘二則非真。然終未能顯一心法。故召迦葉同法座別付一心。離言說法。此一枝法令別行。若能契悟者。便至佛地矣。
[T48n2012Ap0382b03(05) to T48n2012Ap0382b09(00)]

For those who enjoy conparing translations, here are two other versions of the same section.

Here is John Blofeld’s translation from The Zen Teachings of Huang Po, On the Transmission of Mind (Grove Press, Inc., NY, 1958). Blofeld’s translation is quite nice and reads very easily. However, he has some oddities which I don’t understand how he arrived at them. For example, he translated the phrase 此一枝法 as “This branchless Dharma” misreading the word “one” in “one branch” or “single branch” for a negative “branchless”. Also, he sometimes translates “Dharma” (法) as “the Dharma” but then at other times translates it as “the Law.” In my style of translating I strongly oppose this practice. I try as much as possible to use the same word (or a form of the same word) for the same Chinese character wherever it appears, and a different word for different Chinese characters, so that the English reader will know that the English word is translating the same Chinese word.

When the Tathagata manifested himself in this world, he wished to preach a single Vehicle of Truth. But people would not have believed him and , by scoffing at him, would have become immersed in the sea of sorrow (samsara). On the other hand, if he had said nothing at all, that would have been selfishness, and he would not have been able to diffuse knowledge of the mysterious Way for the benefit of sentient beings. So he adopted the expedient of preaching that there are Three Vehicles. As, however, these Vehicles are relatively greater and lesser, unavoidably there are shallow teachings and profound teachings—none of them being the original Dharma. so it is said that there is only a One-Vehicle Way; if there were more, they could not be real. Besides there is absolutely no way of describing the Dharma of the One Mind. Therefore the Tathagata called Kasyapa to come sit with him on the Seat of Proclaiming the Law, separately entrusting to him the Wordless Dharma of the One Mind. This branchless Dharma was to be separately practised [SIC]; and those who should be tacitly Enlightened would arrive at the state of Buddhahood. (p. 52.)

Here is John R. McRae’s translation from Zen Texts, Text One: “Essentials of the Transmission of Mind”, (Numata Center for Buddhist Translation and Research, 2005). I think this translation clearly exhibits some of the problems with inserting brackets into the text to assist the reader. Once a translator feels free to adopt this practice I find that they usually over do it McRae does here. In my style of translation, I try as much as possible to avoid inserting explanatory words, with or without brackets, to leave the text as close to the original as can be while still being readable. While there are a few words or phrases here and there that are an improvement over Blofeld’s translation, as a whole I find the problems with McRea’s translation make a worse translation than Blofeld’s. For example, there is no good reason for McRae to translate “the Way” (道) as “Enlgihtenment.” The text was written in Chinese by native Chinese speakers with several hundreds of years acculturation of Buddhism, so there is no rational basis to change the translation of the Way as if it is a translation of the Sanskrit bodhi.

When the Tathagata was in the world he wanted to preach the True Dharma of the One Vehicle. However, sentient beings did not have faith and reviled [the Dharma], thus drowning themselves in the sea of suffering. If [the Buddha] had not preached anything at all he would have fallen into [the transgression of] parsimony and would not have [been able to] dispense entirely his wondrous enlightenment on behalf of sentient beings. Thus he adopted skillful means and preached the existence of three vehicles. These vehicles include [both the] Great [Vehicle] (Mahayana) and Small [Vehicle] (Hinayana) and their attainments are shallow or profound, but they are all other than the fundamental Dharma.
Therefore it is said, “There is only the enlightenment (Way) of the One Vehicle; the other two are not true.” However, [the Buddha] was ultimately unable to manifest the Dharma of the One Mind, so he called Kasyapa to share his Dharma seat and individually conveyed to him the preaching of the Dharma that is of the One Mind and which transcends words. He had this single branch of the Dharma carried out separately [from the rest of Buddhism]. If you are able to achieve conformance with and enlightenment to [the One Mind], then you have attained the stage of Buddhahood. (p. 29)

Cross posted at Zen Forum International

_/|\_
Gregory

Reply to "There is No Zen, Only Zen Teachers"

Zen teacher Barry Magid has recently written an essay titled,
"There is No Zen, Only Zen Teachers"

It is an interesting and thought provoking piece, obviously heart felt. But I am not enamoured with it and find it to be lacking in depth. I'm sure I'm not the intended audience so these critical comments should be taken with large doses of salt. We're all Buddhists here so my criticism is not intended to disenfranchise Magid's views but to put them in another perspective.

Essentially, Magid's essay is about evaluating Zen in America, but the task of actually doing the evaluating becomes sort of lost. Magid seems to be saying that evaluating the depth of Buddha Dharma is too difficult a task, so he is satisfied with a simple Buddha Dharma. All the great Zen masters from Baizhang to Torei Enji have said that we need to be able to discern the deep from the shallow, the live from the dead, whether one is facing forward or backward, etc. This is not the evaluation or judgment of "good and bad" but the discrimination of vertical and horizontal.

I suppose my main objection to Magid's essay is that his vision of the Dharma is too prosaic and simplistic. Since Layman Pang described the Dharma in verse saying, "Miraculous and wondrous, Hauling water and carrying firewood.", people all over have grasped onto the water and firewood while ignoring the miraculous and wondrous. If I have any point at all, it is to see the Dharma not only in the water and firewood but also in the miraculous and wondrous, and in the activity that merges them: the hauling and carrying.

Magid's article is in the blockquotes with my comments interspersed in brackets.

In response to the scandals enveloping certain Zen teachers, most notably these days, Eido Shimano and Genpo Merzel, I sometimes hear it said that, flawed as these individuals are, they nonetheless have played an important part in the transmission of Zen in America, and we must not “throw the baby out with the bath water.” This attitude is also being retrospectively applied to the case of Maezumi Roshi, who, while it is admitted he was an alcoholic and womanizer, is nonetheless honored as the founder of the now flourishing White Plum Asangha. Along with the baby and the bathwater there are many metaphors that are deployed to try to separate out the pure untainted teaching from the flawed personality.

[GW: What is the “pure untainted teaching”? In zen, there is no such thing. Do I need to recite the examples? Isn’t the pure and untainted teaching that in his 45 years of teaching Buddha did not say a word? In zen, “purity” is both a medicine and a disease and only in the appropriate application is the difference made.]

One student of Eido Shimano suggested to me that he was like a brilliant conductor who is able to create unique orchestral music; why should we be preoccupied with his personal life?

[GW: No question that such misguided students can benefit form guidance.]

Maezumi Roshi’s daughter has recently published in Sweeping Zen a defense of her father’s and of Genpo’s Dharma, a teaching we are admonished not to discard despite their personal transgressions – a defense that is, to my mind, tragically ironic, given that she herself was the baby almost literally thrown out by her father, while his Dharmic bathwater has been so devoutly conserved.

[GW comment: Which the baby, which the bathwater?]

In Dharma centers, as in families where incest has occurred, there is on the part of the abused person the terrible conflict between the experience of the parent as loving caretaker and the parent as an abuser. Our minds can rarely tolerate holding onto both images at once. An almost inevitable response is to either deny the abuse and so preserve the good parent or to totally demonize the abuser and erase the good that they did.

Our challenge is to acknowledge both sides without splitting the person in two and at the same time, not try to split off the good from the bad and imagine we can have one without having to come to terms with the other. A person’s character is not so divisible that one aspect is not implicated in the others. Very often, it is our virtues, or our most basic human needs, that taken to an extreme become our vices. Charisma, real talents and insights that make us attractive and valuable to others, a need for love and to give love, an ability to lead and a capacity to manipulate, a role that encourages idealization and the tantalizing promise of having what everyone is seeking — it is in just such human packages that the Dharma is manifested and transmitted.

[GW: Yes. indeed, we need to acknowledge both sides whenever there is sidedness. But is character really the issue? That seems to be the crux of the problem. There are some who maintain that Buddha Dharma is all about character. Others who say that the Dharma can not be ascertained by characteristics. Certainly our Zen family goes along with the Diamond Cutter Sutra when it says that the Tathagata is not perceived by the possession of attributes or characteristics. Is the Dharma then to be perceived by such characteristics as "good character"? This is one of the deep questions of Buddha Dharma that those in the shallow waters have not yet plunged into.]

Just what is this precious Dharma, so separable from the character and conduct of the teacher, supposed to consist of?

[GW comment: Isn’t this the question, “What is the essence of Buddhism?”, that is asked in so many koans? Zhao Zhou’s “Cypress tree in the courtyard”, Dongshan’s “Three pounds of flax.” Linji’s “Ka!” are all answers to this question about what this precious Dharma consists of.]

Is the Dharma some pure gem-like flame that is transmitted from generation to generation irrespective of the nature or quality of the human candle that carries it?

[GW: Yes.... and not exactly.]

Does it have some unchanging essential nature that exists apart from and is unsullied by its transitory human manifestation?

[GW: Yes.... and not exactly..]

Is it not the very meaning of the Buddha Dharma that no thing has such an essential nature?

[GW: It is the very nature of the Buddha Dharma that no thing has an essential meaning, and even the Dharma does not have an essential meaning as the term is usually objectified.]

That emptiness and interconnectedness are inescapable aspects of our nature is the message that has come down to us from Shakyamuni.

[GW: When seen as “aspects,” concepts like emptiness and interconnectedness can be both leading and misleading.]

The self (or the soul), in most cultures before and after the Buddha, has been imagined to be a non-material essence contingently connected to and potentially separable from its material vehicle, the body. Shakyamuni’s realization was that the self and all existence was empty of an unchanging essential nature. We are irreducibly the product and manifestation of the flux of cause and effect which extend infinitely and incalculably in all directions.

[GW: Okay, that’s a fun way to say it. Any verbal formulation has its limitations, and we can enjoy such formulations for what they are worth.]

What then is this Dharma we, as teachers hold, maintain and transmit?

[GW: Good question. This Dharma is not a formulation. ]

In all cultures there is art, music and religion. All cultures have a conception of the good, the true and the beautiful. Yet there is no essential element common to art, music and religion across all cultures. There is no single definition of the good, the true or the beautiful that has applied throughout history. Poetry, for instance, comes down to us in the West from the time of Homer and Sappho. We can recognize what they have written as poetry even though the poetry of many modern poets would not be recognizable as poetry to them. The same is true of Western art and music. Abstract art would have been considered an contradiction in terms in cultures where art was synonymous with the mimetic.
Art, music, poetry – and I suggest religion, including the Buddha Dharma – are “transmitted” generation to generation, the way all culturally defined activities are, embodied in the practices of the makers and the participants.

[GW: To equate Buddha Dharma with art, music, poetry and religion is the narrow-minded (i.e., small-vehicle) view of Buddha Dharma.]

Art, ultimately, is simply what the artists of a certain time and place create.

[GW: This is exactly why Buddha Dharma is not like art. Buddha Dharma is not what Buddhists of a certain time and place create.]

Artists, musicians, priests, teachers all occupy their respective cultural niches and the products of their activity are inseparable from the lives they lead in the making of it.

[GW: Buddha Dharma is not something that occupies a cultural niche. Buddha Dharma is not the possession of Buddhist artists, musicians, teachers, or priests.]

There is no Platonic essence of capital A “Art” that one generation of artists transmits to the next. Artists learn from, imitate, challenge and subvert the art of their contemporaries and predecessors. Dharma teachers likewise learn from, imitate, challenge and subvert the teaching of their teachers. The nature, the meaning of, the Dharma in any generation is nothing but the teaching, the behavior, the lives of those who are teaching and living it at any given time.

[GW: I suppose there are Dharma teachers who view teaching the Dharma like teaching art, but I see that view as “nothing but” a narrow-minded (i.e., shallow) view of the Dharma as “teaching, behavior, and lives.” Shallow Buddhism is still Buddhism, but it is still shallow Buddhism. The nature of the Dharma should not be confused with meaning. The nature of Dharma is not limited to being “nothing but the teaching, the behavior, the lives of those who are teaching and living it at any given time.” That’s like saying the nature of the entire Cosmos is nothing but the teaching, the behavior, the lives of those who are teaching and living it at any given time. A teacher expresses the nature of the Dharma in the way that a blade of grass expresses the nature of the Dharma. But I wouldn’t say that there is no Dharma without a teacher any more than saying there is no Dharma without a blade of grass.]

The Buddhism of America both is and is not the Buddhism of Shakyamuni, and our Chinese and Japanese ancestors. There is no Zen, only Zen teachers.

[GW: Of course the attempt here is to be cutely ironic by turning Huangbo’s statement on its head. Huangbo said, “In all of the Great Tang, there are no zen teachers.” When someone asked what about all the teaching in the monasteries and temples, Huangbo said, “I did not say there was no zen, only no zen teachers.”]

The Dharma transmits a teaching about what are presented as foundational, inescapable facts about existence, namely that no “thing” (including the thing we imagine is our “self”) has a separate existence, and that no “thing” is unchanging or stands outside the web of cause and effect.

[GW comment: A “teaching about inescapable facts about existence” is not the whole of the Dharma, not the Dharma itself, only a teaching about the Dharma.]

But the Dharma is not presented as a treatise in physics, it is passed down to us as having a religious, ethical and moral implication.

[GW comment: The moral and ethical teachings of the Dharma are not mere implications, yet neither are they to be mistaken for the complete Dharma. The oil (sila, morality) in the lamp is needed for the wick (samadhi) to hold the flame (prajna), but if there is no wick and no flame, the lamp is not a functioning lamp no matter how full of oil it is.]

It posits that our personal suffering, and all the greedy, grasping, violent behavior in which we indulge in order to escape our suffering, can be fundamentally altered by a deep realization of the emptiness and impermanence of the self along with all other “things.” So the Dharma really puts forth two propositions: one about the nature of reality at a very fundamental and abstract level; and second a claim about the potential for relieving suffering and ending misconduct when the first is fully realized.

[GW comment: The notion of the Dharma as propositions is the view of the Dharma at the beginning stage when one has no practical understanding of the Dharma. The abstractness put forth as the Dharma is only abstract for those who find it difficult to understand. Once one sees one’s nature the Dharma no longer appears to be abstract at all. The question of relieving suffering and ending misconduct have to do with karma and there is a profound mystery to be looked into about the relationship of seeing one’s nature and karma. The koan of Baizhang’s (Hyakujo) Fox is one of the karma koans which is a door to this.]

The Buddha Dharma is transmitted by and within the form of life of those who realize and practice it.

[GW comment: Yet the Dharma should never be confused for such forms of life.
From the Diamond Cutter Sutra:

If using form to see me,
Or using sound to seek me,
Indeed the person travels the wrong way,
And is not suitable to see me

The body of the Dharma (Dharmakaya) is not to be found within cognition.]

Traditionally, this was a monastic lifestyle, a model that essentially claimed this is how life would and should look if we all realized the truth of the Dharma.

[GW comment: Originally there was no monasticism, only drop-outs from society taking up the homeless life who were wandering mendicants like the Buddha and known as sramanas. Over time, after the death of Buddha and due to various social and political conditions, monasticism developed as the Buddhist sramanas became institutionalized bhiksus and their seasonal rainy season retreats became year-round living establishments. But all the while, evenn though monastics were the specialists, there was never a time without Buddhist lay practitioners of various degrees of involvement, practice, and realization.]

That form of life, which one might imagine manifesting fully and spontaneously as the expression of realization, became, through the precepts and the rules of monastic order, a vehicle for manifesting and bringing about that realization. As such, it could fulfill those dual functions well or badly. That is, the monastic community could, or could not, succeed in modeling a non-self-centered life ( short hand for a life based on the realization of the emptiness of self-nature) and secondly, the monastic life could, or could not, succeed in promoting the actual experience of realization among its members.

[GW comment: The idealization of monastic life must be brought back to earth with the emphasis that the “could or could not” means the “form of life” really is not the important factor at all.]

When we look at how the Dharma has been transmitted in America, we see that the forms of life involved have changed in many important ways, including the attempt to integrate Zen practice with lay life. So how’s that going?

[GW comment: Its going as good as it ever has.]

What does the misconduct of teachers say about how that’s going?

[GW comment: We had better remember when embarking down this line of reasoning that a correlation is not proof of causation. Also that there was no such golden age of monasticism where all teachers were entirely free of misconduct.]

What we have to evaluate is a whole package, a whole historical moment, which only abstractly and artificially can be separated into parts.

[GW comment: The whole package can not be evaluated by standing on one side or the other, but only by standing on the zero point of the scales of evaluation.]

When we look back, for instance, at the history of the American Civil War, we see on one hand horrific carnage and loss of life, and on the other, a series of events that, in the name of preserving the Union, also resulted in the ending of slavery. What does it mean to ask “Was it worth it?” Was the Civil War a “good or just war?” In some sense, the question asks us to perform a thought experiment in which we are to imagine whether or not the good outcome, the ending of slavery, could have been accomplished without the terrible loss of life the actual war entailed. If we think we can easily imagine there was a non-violent, political means to end slavery that was ignored or not considered, we may say the war was a terrible mistake. But if we think, no, slavery wouldn’t have ended in the United States for another generation or two or three, how can we weigh the cost in life against that goal? If we are pacifists, no cause can justify such bloody means. But perhaps we long for is a utilitarian calculus that will give us an answer, what price is fair?, reasonable?, sane? to pay for the end of slavery?

[GW comment: Unfortunately “the end of slavery” is a bit of an illusion as white supremacy has not been ended and the civil war is now a civil cold war that remains alive and smoldering. ]

In the Dostoyevsky’s “The Brothers Karamazov,” we are asked to consider whether the whole order and existence of the universe is “worth” the painful death of a single innocent child.

[GW comment: Yes, this is a great koan. Yunmen said that from the perspective of after awakening, “Every day is a good day.” But how can it be a good day with innocent children are killed? The answer to this can not be found by evaluation! Not even if the evaluation is an evaluation of the whole package!]

In fact, we cannot choose, we cannot have one without the another and we must accept life, including the death of innocent children, as a whole.

[GW comment: So if we must accept life as a whole, where then is the room for the evaluation as a whole? Isn’t evaluation the art of accepting and rejecting?]

When I think of the state of the Dharma in America, I find I must say yes to it whole, which is to say I admit that its history, like all history, is a tragic whole.

[GW comment: The first Noble Truth: Life is suffering.]

There is no Zen apart from Zen teachers.

[GW comment: This seems like a non sequitur having no connection to what preceded it. In fact, though there are no Zen teachers without zen, it does not follow that there is no Zen apart from Zen teachers, in the sense that Zen is not dependent on the presence or absence of Zen teachers.]

There is no pure part to split off and honor while distancing ourselves from its failures. There is no way to say that the transmission of Zen to the West is “worth” the abuse of a single student. Isaiah Berlin adopted as a title for one of his books a quotation from Kant which he translates, “Out of the crooked timber of humanity no straight thing has ever been made.” The Dharma, here and elsewhere, can be no exception. The lives of our teachers are crooked, sometimes in an endearing way, the way Suzuki Roshi could call himself a crooked cucumber, but also sometimes crooked in a way that is actually criminal. The realization of emptiness and interconnectedness by human beings does not, it seems, reliably transform them into something more than human.

[GW: Hw could it? There is an old Zen saying, “Pure gold refined a hundred times doesn’t change its color.”]

(It doesn’t, I’m sorry to say, even reliably turn them into good human beings). The fantasy that it always does, or even could, is one of the most effective curtains behind which our modern day Wizards of OZ can hide.

[GW: If you meet the Wizard on the yellow brick road, kill him.]

Anyone who tells you that Zen or any other practice will once and for all totally transform character is lying to you, and maybe to themselves as well. And it’s no good to claim transgressors aren’t “really” enlightened. Enlightenment just isn’t all that it’s cracked up to be. (I’ve met too many Zen teachers to think otherwise.)

[GW: Well what is enlightenment cracked up to be? Zen teachers with shallow enlightenment abound. Deep enlightenment can crack up a person too, when there is no good teacher around.] .

If somewhere out there, in some temple in Japan or on a mountaintop in Tibet, there is a teacher who is “really” thoroughly and totally enlightened, it almost doesn’t matter. That would make practicing Buddhism like buying a lottery ticket. One in ten million get the big jackpot.

[GW: Well, that is the story of Buddhism, and to deny it makes it questionable whether one understands the Buddha Dharma.]

No thanks.

[GW: “No thanks” to the Buddha Dharma? Wow! Okay, then, but perhaps one with this attitude should be careful about claiming to teach the Buddha Dharma. Addendum on 3-5-11: I just came across this line from Zen Master Huangbo: "Of the 1000 people or 10,000 people within this gate, only three or five get it." ]

I want to know and work with the students I have, with their occasional garden variety “kenshos,” (like my own…) and find out what this practice does and doesn’t do for people like me.

[GW: Yes that is great. There is no denying that everyone finds out for themselves what their practice does and doesn’t do for them.]

The practice of Zen is a beautiful, transformative, profound, imperfect, unreliable, corruptible, abuse-able, culturally conditioned tradition and way of life of which I am part and which I am responsible for maintaining and passing on.

[GW: The forms of practice can be “passed on” but the practice of Zen is not in any particular form more than another and so in that sense can not be passed on.]

The medium is the message:

[GW: Who says? An assertion like this calls for the counter assertion that the medium is not the message which is why they are distinguished. In Zen, the medium is horizontal like the eyes and the message is vertical like the nose and they intersect at the zero point of solitary brightness going in and out of the face.]

there is no Zen apart from Zen teachers and Zen students, doing what they do.

[GW: Even if all the Zen teachers and Zen students were to perish, there would still be Zen.

Dharma Transmission and Enlightenment

A questioner asked,

i wanted to clarify something.
first there is kensho.
then there is enlightenment or completing a koan course [which i think is the ten faiths, resolute faith that does not backslide, sudden enlightenment and seeing one's true nature]. what is the equivalent in soto?
and some proportion of people [usually three or four for each teacher] who are enlightened under a master and receive dharma transmission from them.

is that right? at what point might one arouse bodhicitta?
thanks for an answers...

With respect _/|\_, this is somewhat scrambled up.

first there is kensho.

No “first” about it. In one way we can say first there is "sho" (nature, 性) as we all come from the root of our nature, then there is "kensho" (seeing the nature, 見性), when after the trip through delusion (called growing up and being socialized) we are able to see our nature, but even that conceptualization is too time bound to be grasped literally, because time itself is our nature and seeing time in its true suchness is kensho, too.

In terrms of self-consciousness, first is ignorance. For without ignorance there is no arising of the function of self-awareness or self-consciousness. There is no "one" or "first" until discrimination arises, and the acceptance of discrimination at its literal face value is what is ignorance. And ignorance is a parent to kensho, for without the ignorance of self-consciousness there is no birth of kensho.

In terms of practice, before seeing the nature (kensho) there comes all the various intimations, suggestions, and intuitions of the nature which arouse the faith to look for the nature, and these are usually called the beginnings of bodhicitta (heart-mind of enlightenment). The encouragement of bodhicitta is called the arousal of bodhicitta.

then there is enlightenment or completing a koan course [which i think is the ten faiths, resolute faith that does not backslide, sudden enlightenment and seeing one's true nature].

“Completing a koan course” is not synonymous with enlightenment, and vice versa. I’m not clear what the list (from the ten faiths to seeing one’s true nature) is supposed to represent. Is it being suggested that each of the items of this list is an equivalent of enlightenment or that the list represents the stages to enlightenment or what?

Like the word “love” that can be applied to our feeling for a piece of chocolate cake or to our most cherished intimate relationship, the word “enlightenment” has a range of application. Here is one system of four degrees of enlightenment: (1) bodhi (enlightenment), (2) sambodhi (evened or leveled enlightenment, (3) samyak sambodhi (unified and leveled enlightenment, and (4) annutara samyak sambodhi (unexcelled unified and leveled enlightenment).

Most people’s initial kensho is usually just to the first degree, but in some cases can penetrate even to the third degree, but it takes sustained repetitions of kensho to actualize the fourth degree of being unexcelled, i.e., nothing more supreme. In Buddha’s life story, this sustained repetition of kensho is told through the story of Buddha’s deepening of his awakening over several weeks immediately following his initial awakening at seeing the morning star, and in those weeks assaying how awareness functions at all levels of consciousness as his meditations ran through the various [i]jnanas[/i]. Only after this ultimate degree of bodhi realization can it be said that one has realized annutara samyak sambodhi.

It looks like you are equating inka--the certification given upon completing training to be a fully independent teacher--with enlightenment, and that is thin ice at best.

what is the equivalent in soto?

I’ll let the Soto teachers be more specific on the procedural aspects of Soto Dharma transmission, but essentially, the enlightenment in all Zen lineages is only one enlightenment, as it is the enlightenment of the one mind of true suchness, or alternatively the true suchness of the one mind. The distinctions of how the practical “churchy” affairs of “Dharma transmission” for the maintenance of the institution of Zen are concerned and conducted are of secondary importance at best, compared to having a Dharma transmission. So there are differences in how different Zen lineages bestow “Dharma transmission” for the sake of continuing their lineage, but those differences are superficial. Dharma transmission is “bestowed” by some in “pieces” or “stages” and by others all at once. Dharma transmission is a worldly expression that is for the benefit of human beings living in ignorance in order to give us the faith of bodhicitta.

The Dharma itself is not “transmitted,” in the same sense that Yunmen (J. Ummon) said “I didn’t say there is no Zen, but in all of the Great Tang there are no Zen Masters.” Though we speak of the Dharma being historically transmitted from master to master, and from country to country, the True Dharma is not something that comes and goes from India to China or across the Pacific or Atlantic Oceans. The Dharma is ubiquitous like the atmosphere, sky, Earth, or space depending on the metaphorical context.

and some proportion of people [usually three or four for each teacher] who are enlightened under a master and receive dharma transmission from them.

There are no number requirements. It is said that if a teacher finds one-half of a student to whom the Dharma is transmitted, that is enough, but of course it is better to find a single student who is twice the teacher. Some Zen masters found no one they had confidence in to transmit the Dharma so their lineage terminated with their death. Other rare teachers had 70, 100, or more Dharma transmissions. It is told that Mazu Daoyi (J. Baso Doitsu) had up to 139 Dharma heirs.

is that right? at what point might one arouse bodhicitta?

As discussed above, the bodhicitta arises spontaneously in intuitions and intimations and so the point to “arouse” it is to encourage it when it arises. Any remembrance of (i.e., turning the heart-mind toward) bodhicitta is the arousal of bodhicitta. Turning awareness toward “Who is the one remembering bodhicitta” is one style of koan method of arousing bodhicitta. Reciting the Nembutsu is another way of arousing bodhicitta as long as the focus of the recitation is turned around to “Who is the one reciting Buddha’s name.”

In the sense that enlightenment at the root is birthless, so is bodhicitta birthless at our root and thus is never lost or destroyed. But in our ignorance we forget about the root and travel the dark roads of birth and death. Any remembrance or reflection of bodhi while traveling on the dark roads is an arousal of bodhicitta.

_/|\_
Gregory

Moon Light Escapade

A poem by me for you.

In the dark

The dew collects on the hundred grasses.

Then the rising full moon

Lights the garden,

Reflecting on the glistening blades

Cutting through the moon shadows.

The tips of my shoes

Are shining too.

-g

Quotes for Linji's Memorial Day

Zen master Línjì Yìxuán (臨濟義玄; W–G: Lin-chi I-hsüan, J: Rinzai Gigen) died in 866 CE and January 10th is the traditional memorial day for this great teacher.

Here are some excerpts from the Record of Linji. One of the central images that Linji uses is "solitary brightness" (孤明); it is used to describe our Buddha nature in a personal and intimate way to prevent the externalization or objectification of our true suchness, that is to avoid dividing our true suchness into internal and external or subject and object. Another such technique the master used to turn students from objectification is the well known Linji admonition to "kill the Buddha."

The translation is mine.

Said on ascending the hall, "Upon the ball of red flesh there is a singular true person without rank. It perpetually goes in and goes out of the gates of the faces of you people of various classes. To those who have not yet borne witness, observe, observe.”
At the time there was a monk who came forward and asked, "So what is the true person without rank?”
The master descended from the meditation dais, grabbed and stopped him, and said, “Speak! Speak!”
As that monk was deciding what to discuss, the master opened his hold and said, “What a dry shit-stick is the true person without rank.” Then he returned to the Ten-foot Square (i.e., the abbot’s room).

"Greatly Virtuous Ones, your ancestors knew that the fundamental person who receives and plays with light and shadow is the root source of all the Buddhas and every place is a lodging place for Wanderers in the Way to return to. Indeed your physical body (rupakaya) of the Four Great Elements cannot listen to the Dharma and understand and explain the Dharma. The spleen, stomach, liver, or gall bladder cannot listen to the Dharma and understand and explain the Dharma. Empty space cannot listen to the Dharma and understand and explain the Dharma. Indeed, what listens to the Dharma and understands and explains the Dharma? Indeed before your eyes, all the way through to the bottom, is the solitary brightness that never has one particular piece of form. Indeed, this is the one who listens to the Dharma and understands and explains the Dharma."

"Wanderers in the Way, as it is now, the solitary brightness before the eyes goes all the way through the earth to the one who is listening. This person in every place is not hindered and moves unobstructed through the ten directions and three realms by oneself. When one enters every situation the differences are not able to turn around or change one. The one realm that consists of the inner space thoroughly enters the Dharma Realm. Running into Buddhas, one talks to Buddhas; running into ancestors, one talks to ancestors; running into hungry ghosts, one talks to hungry ghosts. Turning towards every place, hiking the lands of the nation teaching and converting the many beings, yet one is not once separate for a single thought moment (ksana). In accord with the place, the clear and clean light penetrates the ten directions, and the 10,000 things (dharmas) are One Suchness."

"Wanderers in the Way, true love is a great difficulty; the Buddha Dharma is a deep mystery. If you are able to understand, you are capable in every situation. This mountain monk, in the past, for today, and in the future speaks to lay it bare. Those who study, after all, are not at the meaning. 1,000 times, 10,000 times, the bottom of the feet step to ford across the blackness that darkens situations. Without one particular piece of form, all the way through is solitary brightness. When the faith of students is inadequate, then they turn to the names and phrases of superior beings to understand. The years mount up to half a hundred, and they only manage to draw near to home carrying a dead corpse from shelter to shelter traveling under heaven. Depend on it; there is a day that demands the money for their straw sandals."

"Wanderers in the Way, as you long to obtain the Dharma of Suchness, only do not give birth to doubts. By the standard of expansion, it pervades the entire Dharma Realm (Dharmadhatu). By the standard of contraction, a strand of hair cannot stand. All the way through the solitary brightness has never in the past lacked a little. The eye does not see it; the ear does not hear it. What object can be aroused? A man of old said, “The standard of saying it resembles a singular object is not on the mark.” You should only look into your own home (family, lineage). What more is there? Speech also is without end. Each touches power by oneself. Cherish it."

Dharma Currents #1: Introduction to the Middle Way

With the new year, I want to start blogging, hopefully more consistently at regular intervals, on a recurring theme that may be broadly characterized as "Buddhism in the Current Age of Scientism" or "Dharma Currents" for short to play on the stream imagery. The idea is to explore how Buddha Dharma is relevant to today's world, including the political landscape, that is, a world that seems too fixated and caught between the horns of the polarity of religious theism and scientist athesim.

I see Buddhism as the third way in its traditional sense of the Middle Way as the path of synthetic resolution of the polarized mindset that forces our thinking about life into an either-or frame work. The human mind every where is subject to the mind's inherently polarizing influence in the very structure and function of consciousness, but the Western World's frame of reference, of Greco-Roman-European derivation, for religion and philosophy is bound up in the historically relevant context of the structures of opposition that have grown out of the theism-monotheism-atheism streams of thought. Today the West is still under the spell of theism so that people like Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, and Sam Harris are viewed as "the three horsemen of atheism" traveling widely to preach the virtues of atheism and the vices of theism.

There are many people, and I am one, who feel dissatisfied with the dialogue as it is framed and see the debate as caught between a rock and a hard place. Buddhism, however, naturally flows between the rock of theism and the hard place of atheism, and for those in Western culture who see the barrenness and inadequacy of both theism and atheism, Buddhism is the natural solution to rescue spirituality from the theism of modern religions and to rescue rationality from the atheism of scientism. It is this recognition of the position that Buddhism takes in this debate that led Albert Einstein, the preemeninant physical scientist of the 20th century, to declare that Buddhism is the historically closest religion to his conception of the cosmic relition that humankind is yearning for.

There is a frequently cited quote attributed to Einstein that says,

The religion of the future will be a cosmic religion. It should transcend personal God and avoid dogma and theology. Covering both the natural and spiritual, it should be based on a religious sense of arising from the experience of all things natural and spiritual as a meaningful unity. . . Buddhism answers this description. . . If there is any religion that could cope with modern scientific needs it would be Buddhism.

This quote is found in several slight variations and is sometimes challenged as legitimate because its source has not been identified. However, if it is not a direct quote, then I take it as an accurate paraphrase at least, based on the following excerpt taken from Einstein's article printed in the New York Times Magazine on November 9, 1930 pp 1-4 which contains all the important particulars of the condensed quote:

"Common to all these types is the anthropomorphic character of their conception of God. In general, only individuals of exceptional endowments, and exceptionally high-minded communities, rise to any considerable extent above this level. But there is a third stage of religious experience which belongs to all of them, even though it is rarely found in a pure form: I shall call it cosmic religious feeling. It is very difficult to elucidate this feeling to anyone who is entirely without it, especially as there is no anthropomorphic conception of God corresponding to it.
"The individual feels the futility of human desires and aims and the sublimity and marvelous order which reveal themselves both in nature and in the world of thought. Individual existence impresses him as a sort of prison and he wants to experience the universe as a single significant whole. The beginnings of cosmic religious feeling already appear at an early stage of development, e.g., in many of the Psalms of David and in some of the Prophets. Buddhism, as we have learned especially from the wonderful writings of Schopenhauer, contains a much stronger element of this.
“The religious geniuses of all ages have been distinguished by this kind of religious feeling, which knows no dogma and no God conceived in man’s image; so that there can be no church whose central teachings are based on it. Hence it is precisely among the heretics of every age that we find men who were filled with this highest kind of religious feeling and were in many cases regarded by their contemporaries as atheists, sometimes also as saints. Looked at in this light, men like Democritus, Francis of Assisi, and Spinoza are closely akin to one another."

The essential points of Einstein's view of a science that has not left spiritual values or appreciation behind include (1) no dogma, (2) no anthropomorphic God, (3) a cosmic religious feeling, (4) experiencing the universe as a single significant whole or meaningful unity, (5) leading to freedom from the prison of individualism.

It should be clear to the honest observer that neither modern theistic religions nor modern atheistic scientism fit this bill of particulars. However, Zen Buddhism does fit Einstein's bill in every particular.

Similarly, Carl G. Jung, the Einstein of Psychology in the 20th century, also found kindred spirit with Zen in his scientific inquiry of the mind in which he discovered again and again that any attempt to remove the spiritual values from science were bound to fail and create only a dead dogma. When Jung was near death he was reading Charles Luk's Ch'an and Zen Teachings: First Series in which the first section presents discourses of Zen Master Hsu Yun (Empty Cloud). Jung directed his personal assistant and friend Dr. Marie-Louse von Aranz to write to the author. In the letter (dated September 12, 1961) von Aranz wrote

"He was enthusiastic.... When he read what Hsu Yun said, he sometimes felt as if he himself could have said exactly this! It was just it!."

Buddhism, and most essentially Zen Buddhism, is "just it!" when it comes to expressing the comprehension of the reality of life and death in a manner that is not inconsistent with the most insightful scientists of the physical and psychological sciences of the 20th century. However, in the later half of the 20th century, science itslef has become entraped in a form of dogma that has become scientism as expressed through the anti-theist preaching of the above name three horsemen of atheism, Dawkins, Hitchens, and Harris. This view of scientism is scientific materialism in which the literalized objectification of the material world is taken to a limit of phyical appearances but no further. There are, to be sure, still scientists today who, like Einstein and Jung, do not subscribe to this atheistic scientism, however, they are hard pressed to get recognition beyond the walls of their academic towers, while the mainstream media and popular culture claim for their own a scientism of physical things sanitized of all spiritual or psychological dimension.

For people of the West who see the superstious silliness of anthropomorphic gods and their dogmas, yet who also sense the irrationality of an anti-spiritual scientism with its dogma of atheistic materialism, Zen Buddhism provides a context and method for discovering the real and profound dimension of a religion of meaningful unity liberating us from the prison of our individual and separate existence.

BOYCOTT AMAZON!

With the news that Amazon.com has kow-towed to jingoist Joe Liberman and disassociated itself from any connection to Wikileaks, it is time to boycott Amazon.com. An organization as strong and successful as Amazon that is so afraid of a fascist like Liberman doesn't deserve any support from the progressive community. If you ever wondered how the Communist scare and Joe McCarthy got started, this is how. If people don't stand up to the anti-democracy forces in our own government then people like Joe Liberman are able to use their fascist fear mongering to undermine our democratic freedoms. Without the ability of heros like the whistleblowers who give us the truth, we will not have either liberty or democracy. What we have learned from the Wikileaked documents is that it is our own government that is the anti-democratic global force.

I went to Amazon.com to terminate my account and give notice that I will be boycotting Amazon until I hear that they have changed their policy about Wikileaks. However, the first thing I discovered is that Amazon does not make customer feedback easy. I could not find any "contact" links prominently displayed on my account pages. I couldn't find any way to notify Amazon about my dissatisfaction with their policy against Wikileaks, and I couldn't find any way to terminate my account. If you know of how to terminate an Amazon account please post it here to share with others.

Thanks.

P.S.
Okay, I found the contact us link on the "help" page. If you are an Amazon customer you can contact them through this link. Here's the message I sent them.

I want to terminate my Amazon account because of Amazon's policy of bowing to Joe Liberman's anti-democratic scare tactics and because Amazon is not supporting Wikileaks in its time of need.. Wikileaks deserves a medal not to be removed from the cloud. Please tell me how I can terminate my Amazon account because from now on until I have heard that Amazon has changed its policy on supporting freedom of information I will no longer support Amazon.

They say they will respond within 12 hours so I'll post their response when I get it.