| | Zongmi’s 10 Levels of Awakening | 10 Ox Herding Pictures | 10 Bodhisattva Stages (bhūmi) | My View of the 10 Stages In Terms of the Eight Consciousnesses and Five Ranks |
| 1 | Awakening of Faith in One’s Own Suchness and the Three Jewels | Searching for the Ox | the Very Joyous. (Skt. Paramudita), in which one rejoices at realizing a partial aspect of the truth; | After years of wandering in the weeds and woods Awareness feels the intimations of the 8th Consciousness and begins to seek its own source. |
| 2 | Resolving to Attain Awakening by Generating Compassion, Wisdom and Vows | Seeing the Footprints | the Stainless. (Skt. Vimala), in which one is free from all defilement; | Awareness begins to turn around from enchantment with the 10,000 things of the 1st to 6th Consciousnesses and to investigate their images as reflected in the 7th Consciousness |
| 3 | Cultivating the Five Gates to Make the Root of Faith Grow (i.e., the Five Paramitas with the fifth being samatha-vipassayna combined) | Seeing the Ox | the Luminous. (Skt. Prabhakari), in which one radiates the light of wisdom; | Peeking through the veil of the 7th Consciousness, Awareness becomes certain of the 8th Consciousness and begins releasing its fixed grip on the 1st to 5th Consciousnesses |
| 4 | Arising of Great Bodhicitta | Getting the Ox | the Radiant. (Skt. Archishmati), in which the radiant flame of wisdom burns away earthly desires; | Awareness fully lets go of grasping at the 1st to 5th Consciousnesses and begins to release its grip on the 6th Cons. to flow through the 7th Consciousness into the 8th Consciousness |
| 5 | Overcoming the Six Afflictions and Seeing Self is empty. | Herding the Ox | the Difficult to Cultivate. (Skt. Sudurjaya), in which one surmounts the illusions of darkness, or ignorance as the Middle Way; | Awareness Having Let Go of all attachment to the 6th Consciousness passes through the Veil of the 7th Consciousness to enter the 8th Consciousness |
| 6 | Flowing in the Practice of the Six Perfections (the Six Paramitas with 5 and 6 being Dhyana and Prajna) Self and Dharmas both empty, eternally void eternally like an illusion. | Riding the Ox Home | the Manifest. (Skt. Abhimukhi) in which supreme wisdom begins to manifest; | Awareness Having let go of all attachment to the 7th Consciousness and fully returned to the 8th Cons., the 8th Cons. Transforms into the Great Mirror Wisdom |
| 7 | Mastery Over Forms, Everything in Fusion, All Arises From Discrimination of One’s Own Mind | Forgetting the Ox, the Person Resting | Awareness arising through the Great Mirror Wisdom Transforms the 7th Consciousness into the Equality Wisdom | |
| 8 | Mastery Over Mind, Nothing That is Not Illuminated | Person and Ox Both Forgotten | the Immovable. (Skt. Achala), in which one dwells firmly in the truth of the Middle Way and cannot be perturbed by anything; | Awareness arising through the Equality Wisdom Transforms the 6th Consciousness into the All Observing Wisdom |
| 9 | Free From Thoughts Cultivating No-thought, Awakened to the Origin of Delusion & So Full of Teaching Devices | Returning to the Source | the Good Intelligence. (Skt. Sadhumati), in which one preaches the Law freely and without restriction; | Awareness arising through the All Observing Wisdom Transforms the 1st to 5th Consciousnesses into the All Performing Wisdom |
| 10 | There is One Awakening With Limitless Responsive Functioning in the Constantly Abiding Dharma Realm, Seeing All Beings Attaining Perfect Awakening | Returning to the Marketplace With Helping Hands | the Cloud of Dharma. (Skt. Dharmamegha), in which one benefits all sentient beings with the Law (Dharma), just as a cloud sends down rain impartially on all things. | Awareness Blossoms in Full Awakening and Mutual Integration of the Four Wisdoms |
| | | | | |
Showing posts with label bodhisattvas. Show all posts
Showing posts with label bodhisattvas. Show all posts
Thursday, August 04, 2011
The Ten Stages of Awakening
Here's a table of comparison between three early models of the Ten Stages of Awakening. We don't know how much cross reference there is between them. The 10 Bodhisattva Stages from the Avatamsaka Sutra are the earliest. Zongmi obviously read the Avatamsaka Sutra and was extremely well versed in it but did not adopt it's model of 10 stages verbatim and instead used the famous "Discourse on the Awakening of Faith in the Mahayana" as his template for the 10 levels of awakening. The 10 Oxherding pictures have had several versions and I'm using here one of the later versions. I've never herd a solid story about how the 10 Oxherding Pictures developed, but I have seen an earlier version that came from India using an elephant rather than an ox.
The fourth column is my own version of the 10 stages in terms of the functioning of the Eight Consciousnesses and the well know association of the transformation of the Eight Consciousnesses into the Four Wisdoms that have been described in Zen since Huineng in the beginning of the 8th century.
Saturday, October 01, 2005
The Three Poisons of OZ.
The Wizard of Oz and the Verse of Purification.
(Written 4/29/05)
Roshi John Tarrant’s Dharma Talk on Monday [ http://www.pacificzen.org/ ] on the Verse of Purification reverberated in my mind with the play of the Wizard of Oz I attended at my grandaughter's school last Saturday, becoming entangling vines in the Dharmaland.
Purification
All the ancient twisted karma
From beginningless greed, hatred and ignorance
Born of my body, mouth and thought
I now confess openly and fully.
Greed - Heartless - Tin Man - compassion - Avalokiteshvara
Hatred - Cowardly - Lion - action/practice - Samantabhadra
Ignorance - Brainless - Scarecrow - wisdom - Manjushri
We are usually taught that purification is a cleaning process where some object is purified such as wiping it down with bleach or having impurities removed. However, in one vehicle Buddhism the three poisons of greed, hatred, and ignorance are not treated as impurities which are simply removed or wiped off of the self in order to have a pure self. The verse says they are beginningless which also means they are endless. We can’t do away with them; we must seek any freedom from karma within their midst. No matter how much I think I won’t, I still get greedy for that cheesecake, I still get angry when someone slights me, I still say stupid things (just keep reading).
So what is happening in purification; what is the role of confession?
The confession that one’s karma is from beginningless greed, hatred, and ignorance is an awareness and acceptance of our human condition and is the prerequisite to purification. Confession is what cuts through our usual denial which surrounds and protects the imagination of an idealized self capable of achieving purity as a one-sided achievement. Once we confess, we begin the purification process, which is actually a transformation process in which greed, hatred, and ignorance are not disposed of but are made aware of their true nature. But to get there we have to start by acknowledging the greed, hatred, and ignorance that we actually experience and feel, not by pretending that we have overcome such feelings, suppressed them, or purified ourselves of them.
Greed is the orientation to life in the service of the rigid self. I think if I don’t get what I want that I will lose myself or be less than myself somehow. When we confess our greed we awake in the position of the Tin Man in the Wizard of Oz. We see that we were frozen and we feel heartless. But that same awareness is what puts us on the yellow brick road to find our heart of compassion.
Hatred is the cowardly anger born of fear. Like the Cowardly Lion, hatred first comes off as growling and threatening. I bluster and try to win by intimidation. When we confess our hatred we open the awareness of the real feelings of fear that underlie it. We can then open up to the search for courage to face our fears and act in the world with real strength and seeing through the delusions of anger and hatred.
Ignorance is the feeling of limp stupidity and uselessness. I feel stuck on a pole imagining that the world is passing me by. I’m so lame that even the crows laugh at me and no one takes me seriously. Confessing our ignorance we awake like the Scarecrow conscious not only of feeling we don’t have a brain but also feeling the concomitant desire to unravel every riddle for every individual who is in trouble or in pain. This is the Bodhisattva’s vow which is the motive force that sets us on the yellow brick road, that charges our confession with the power toward purification.
In the transformative process of purification beginning with confession, our greed, hatred, and ignorance are not driven away but are accepted as they are, becoming our new friends with their own inner drive to discover themselves along with our discovery on our journey to find our home. As we see through our illusions of self and our grasping attachment, our greed learns that it has always had a heart but didn’t know it. Our hatred discovers its courage to live in the world without the habit of cowardly anger. Our ignorance learns that there was no need to go searching for wisdom elsewhere, since wisdom was inherent all along.
In the purification process, the cold metallic rigidity of the Tin Man without a heart becomes the flowing compassion of the Bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara; the blustering growling anger of the Cowardly Lion becomes the courageous fearless action and practice of the Bodhisattva Samantabhadra facing every challenge in life; and the flopping flame fearing Scarecrow with straw for brains becomes the wielder of the flaming sword of wisdom Bodhisattva Manjushri.
But it is not that greed, hatred, and ignorance become something different in compassion, practice, and wisdom; it is that they were thus intrinsically, and we just didn’t know it. We could not see Avalokiteshvara, Samantabhadra, and Manjushri for what they are, and we saw them only as greed, hatred, and ignorance. When we see the self constructed from our twisted karma for what it is and stop trying to do away with beginingless greed, hatred, and ignorance, while confessing our lives even in the midst of them, then we can awaken to their true nature and our own.
(Written 4/29/05)
Roshi John Tarrant’s Dharma Talk on Monday [ http://www.pacificzen.org/ ] on the Verse of Purification reverberated in my mind with the play of the Wizard of Oz I attended at my grandaughter's school last Saturday, becoming entangling vines in the Dharmaland.
Purification
All the ancient twisted karma
From beginningless greed, hatred and ignorance
Born of my body, mouth and thought
I now confess openly and fully.
Greed - Heartless - Tin Man - compassion - Avalokiteshvara
Hatred - Cowardly - Lion - action/practice - Samantabhadra
Ignorance - Brainless - Scarecrow - wisdom - Manjushri
We are usually taught that purification is a cleaning process where some object is purified such as wiping it down with bleach or having impurities removed. However, in one vehicle Buddhism the three poisons of greed, hatred, and ignorance are not treated as impurities which are simply removed or wiped off of the self in order to have a pure self. The verse says they are beginningless which also means they are endless. We can’t do away with them; we must seek any freedom from karma within their midst. No matter how much I think I won’t, I still get greedy for that cheesecake, I still get angry when someone slights me, I still say stupid things (just keep reading).
So what is happening in purification; what is the role of confession?
The confession that one’s karma is from beginningless greed, hatred, and ignorance is an awareness and acceptance of our human condition and is the prerequisite to purification. Confession is what cuts through our usual denial which surrounds and protects the imagination of an idealized self capable of achieving purity as a one-sided achievement. Once we confess, we begin the purification process, which is actually a transformation process in which greed, hatred, and ignorance are not disposed of but are made aware of their true nature. But to get there we have to start by acknowledging the greed, hatred, and ignorance that we actually experience and feel, not by pretending that we have overcome such feelings, suppressed them, or purified ourselves of them.
Greed is the orientation to life in the service of the rigid self. I think if I don’t get what I want that I will lose myself or be less than myself somehow. When we confess our greed we awake in the position of the Tin Man in the Wizard of Oz. We see that we were frozen and we feel heartless. But that same awareness is what puts us on the yellow brick road to find our heart of compassion.
Hatred is the cowardly anger born of fear. Like the Cowardly Lion, hatred first comes off as growling and threatening. I bluster and try to win by intimidation. When we confess our hatred we open the awareness of the real feelings of fear that underlie it. We can then open up to the search for courage to face our fears and act in the world with real strength and seeing through the delusions of anger and hatred.
Ignorance is the feeling of limp stupidity and uselessness. I feel stuck on a pole imagining that the world is passing me by. I’m so lame that even the crows laugh at me and no one takes me seriously. Confessing our ignorance we awake like the Scarecrow conscious not only of feeling we don’t have a brain but also feeling the concomitant desire to unravel every riddle for every individual who is in trouble or in pain. This is the Bodhisattva’s vow which is the motive force that sets us on the yellow brick road, that charges our confession with the power toward purification.
In the transformative process of purification beginning with confession, our greed, hatred, and ignorance are not driven away but are accepted as they are, becoming our new friends with their own inner drive to discover themselves along with our discovery on our journey to find our home. As we see through our illusions of self and our grasping attachment, our greed learns that it has always had a heart but didn’t know it. Our hatred discovers its courage to live in the world without the habit of cowardly anger. Our ignorance learns that there was no need to go searching for wisdom elsewhere, since wisdom was inherent all along.
In the purification process, the cold metallic rigidity of the Tin Man without a heart becomes the flowing compassion of the Bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara; the blustering growling anger of the Cowardly Lion becomes the courageous fearless action and practice of the Bodhisattva Samantabhadra facing every challenge in life; and the flopping flame fearing Scarecrow with straw for brains becomes the wielder of the flaming sword of wisdom Bodhisattva Manjushri.
But it is not that greed, hatred, and ignorance become something different in compassion, practice, and wisdom; it is that they were thus intrinsically, and we just didn’t know it. We could not see Avalokiteshvara, Samantabhadra, and Manjushri for what they are, and we saw them only as greed, hatred, and ignorance. When we see the self constructed from our twisted karma for what it is and stop trying to do away with beginingless greed, hatred, and ignorance, while confessing our lives even in the midst of them, then we can awaken to their true nature and our own.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)