Is There an Afterlife?

This is a response to what was called a debate on the question "Is There an Afterlife?" Here's the blurb from the website

In this recent Whizin Center for Continuine Education program, leading advocates for atheism, Christopher Hitchens and Sam Harris square off against Newsweek top rabbis, David Wolpe and Bradley Artson Shavit to determine what may or may not happen in the hereafter.

The possibility of an afterlife has challenged believers and atheists alike for centuries. Because its very nature defies conclusive definitions or proof, it remains a heated topic for debate and exploration. This debate is moderated by the Editor-in-Chief of the Jewish Journal, Rob Eshman.

There is a bit of false advertising in the claim that this is a “debate” about the afterlife. It’s not. It’s a beating around the bush with all four speakers dodging the main question.

As a Buddhist I would say that none of the four speak of the afterlife in the terms that are relevant to me. They don’t seem to be speaking from experience, and instead all four are speaking about what they “trust” to be true by their intellectual speculation and dualistic modes of thinking.

In this debate, either the Rabbis didn't do their homework or they decided to stay on the defensive, as neither Rabbi directly challenges the bloodlust for the American Empire espoused by Hitchens and Harris in their written works. My guess is that there was some kind of pre-debate agreement that the Rabbis would not attack Hitchens and Harris directly and in exchange no one would mention how Israel is oppressing and killing people in the name of religion.

The dilemma of dealing with Hitchens and Harris is that they have their soft targets which they attack successfully and then they dodge away from the real issues and hard problems.

Hitchens rightly challenges the immature anthropomorphism and personification of a literal fantasy of God as a person with arms and legs and a long bearded “father” figure. That childish fantasy can be punctured but it doesn’t amount to anything.

Hitchens approaches intellectual honesty when he says, “Survival of consciousness independent of the brain is different from religious belief in a mandated path you can either follow or not follow for reward or punishment.” But if that is so, then he is acknowledging that he is avoiding the real subject of the former when he is attacking the misunderstandings of the latter.

Hitchens and Harris are essentially making a straw man argument by attacking institutional religion as if the religious aspiration in people is responsible for the conduct of the devils running the institution. If so, then that is also a great argument for abolishing democracy because of the devils running the USA today. The two rabbis David Wolpe and Bradley Artson Shavit apparently are not in a position to talk about the abuses, torture, and holocaust committed by our government in the name of democracy, since, as stated above, it might also lead to a discussion of the abuses committed by Israel. The problem of bastards and bullies running the government is a human problem that has nothing to do with whether the institution that controls the government is called democracy, communism, or the church.

Rabbi Shavit is right to point out the “worst compared to best” style of argument used by Hitchens is a rhetorical trick. With the comment that people “hold on to hopes that orient us” the conversation could have turned to the real question of how the symbol-systems, whether religious or not, orient people in a manner that gives them mutual identity and the ability to band together and become a society. The fact that there is an anthropomorphic patriarchal symbol of “God” or “His Majesty the King” or “Uncle Sam” or “Marx” at the center of the symbol-system is more determinative of it becoming and exploitive power hungry government than any religious sentiment. There is no qualitative moral difference in the basic sentiments of Moses, Jesus or Marx but each of their respective symbol-systems became controlled by people who couldn’t care less about the moral sentiments of the men who inspired the symbol-system..

The problem for this program is that the question “Is there an afterlife?” is addressed from very different frames of reference. All four, in their own way, answer the question “We can’t say if there is or not.” Hitchins and Harris reframe the question as “Is the supernatural fantasy of God in Heaven believable?” Rabbis David Wolpe and Bradley Artson Shavit turn the question into “Is belief in an afterlife beneficial to some people and if so then it doesn’t matter if it is true?” Both attempts to reframe the question are dodges.

Since Hitchens and Harris are really on a crusade against “religion,” which they define as belief in a supernatural anthropomorphic God, they always turn the issue to the past misdeeds of totalitarian religions. In other words, Hitchens and Harris dodge the question of “Is there and afterlife” by saying “when religion is in control they are bad, so anything said by those religionists must be false.”

Hitchens and Harris rest their position on the view that “religion is man made” and therefore it is false. I agree with them that piercing the self-delusional veil of those who believe their own religion comes from the “real God” while everyone else’s religion is only “man made” is a worthwhile goal, but Hitchens and Harris themselves go about this crusade with as much intellectual dishonesty and self-delusion of their own. Chris Hedges has written about their hypocrisy in his article “The Dangerous Atheism of Christopher Hitchens and Sam Harris” with which I largely agree. (There are significant features of Hedges' article with which I disagree, but they are about his own pessimistic view of human nature, not his criticism of Hitchens and Harris.)


IS THERE AN AFTERLIFE?

If I had been on stage, I would have answered the question by saying plainly, “Yes. There is an afterlife and this is it.”

At one point Harris nearly approached this issue when he spoke about sleep to point out that every night we fall asleep into the oblivion of consciousness. However, Harris failed to get to the logical observation that we don’t go around fretting about “Is there an after-day?” Harris and the others missed this essential point.

We are certain of tomorrow because of our memories of yesterday. Yet we have no real certainty of tomorrow since anyone of us may not in fact live to see tomorrow if we die in our sleep, as any of us could were an airplane to fall from the sky. And though we have no absolute certainty of tomorrow, we have the certainty that today is the after-day of yesterday, and upon this certainty we rest our great confidence in the after-day of tomorrow.

Likewise, this life is the afterlife of the previous life, and our next life will be the after life of this life. The only difference between afterlives and after-days is our memory. We don’t remember all of our yesterdays, but we remember enough of them so that we can put together a symbol-system for our expectation of the days to come. For anyone who has accessed the memory of a past life and discovered that this life is the afterlife of previous lives, the certainty of an afterlife after this life becomes as certain as tomorrow is to today.

Yes, the certainty is “man made” but so what? Every bit of human understanding, including science, is “man made” because we are humans who understand by making symbol systems. The question that Hitchens and Harris want to get to by the threshold admission of one’s symbol system being “man made” is then to what degree does the symbol system comport with reality? And here’s the rub. Hitchens and Harris are advocates and proselytizers for the symbol system of science and as such refuse to acknowledge how their “reality” is also “man made.”

They believe that there is an objective “reality” that science is merely describing to the best of its current ability. They think that within this framework, they can hold up their scientific truths against the zany religious truths that have been promulgated and they win. However, as one of the Rabbis in the debate pointed out, there have been many zany propositions in the name of science and that doesn’t make the scientific endeavor worthless.

The fundamental delusion upon which Hitchens and Harris operate their road show is their claim that there is only one reality, the one that they say there is. They do not acknowledge that the reality that religion is attempting to negotiate, describe, and understand is not the physical reality of matter but the psychic reality of what is variously called spirit, soul, mind, consciousness, etc. While I agree that there is only one reality, like the claim of only one God, that reality (and that God) appears very different to the different people who are taking different perspectives.

Our understanding of “matter” is constantly changing and so there is no one view of matter held by science any more than there is one view of God held by religion. The point that we should be able to agree on is that we should not demand that other people take our point of view. To the extent that Hitchens and Harris are asking people with firmly held points of view about their God to let others be, then they have a message I can agree with. But to the extent that Hitchens and Harris ridicule people’s religion today because of the folly of the past, then they are committing the same sin they claim to oppose.

Underlying the quest for the answer to the question “Is there an afterlife?” is the angst caused by the very notion of time existing as past, present, and future. Any religion that wants to help people with this question of an afterlife must address the issue of time. When we look at time as past, present, and future we are taking ourselves out of time as if we exist in relation to time as a thing carried along the river of time. But in fact time is our very being. We are not external to time. We are the embodiment of time and time is another name for spirit, soul, God, consciousness, etc. We are no more outside of time than we are outside of God or mind. When we truly realize this there is a qualitative change in our sense of time and the generalized angst about the future is dissolved. At the same time, the issue of an afterlife is resolved by knowing that we are time itself and so we are the afterlife in this present moment.

The Confused Voice of the American Empire

I'm in favor of the flotilla of ships sailing under the umbrella of the Free Gaza Campaign. I especially like the punning irony that one of the lead ships is named "The Audacity of Hope" in direct reference to President Obama's autobiographical book that now has been shown by his actions to be nothing more than political rhetoric and propaganda.

Let's be honest, Israel's illegal blockade of Gaza, as collective punishment of a people, has turned Gaza into the largest prison in the world, and I have pointed this out in several previous posts on this blog.

The Consul General of Israel in New York, Ido Aharoni, interviewed yesterday on Democracy Now! brought out all the old lame rationalizations and canards to defend the blockade. Basically, the official Israeli position is that, since Hamas are the bad guys and we are the good guys, we can do whatever we want against them.

Among the interesting tidbits of the interview was that Mr. Aharoni refused to plainly deny that Israeli spies sabotaged several ships of the flotilla. He dodged and weaved to avoid answering the question, and instead tried to turn the question away from the sabotage to claim the flotilla was "not legitimate." In "diplomatic-speak" not answering the question and instead providing as an answer the rationalization why the act in question would have been valid if it had been done simply amounts to an admission.

One particularly egregious and hurtful rationalization proffered by Mr. Aharoni was that Israel has "practically handed over the keys to Gaza. Hamas, instead of turning it into an oasis, turned it into a safe haven for terrorists." To say this is so stupid that it only shows the depth of Israeli self-delusion. First, there is not one shred of evidence that Gaza is "a safe haven for terrorists" from anywhere else in the world. So what Israel is calling "a safe haven for terrorists" merely translates into "a safe haven for Palestinians who continue to fight against the Israeli oppression of the Palestinian people" which by Israeli definition is the meaning of "terrorist." In other words, Israel can bomb Gaza and kill thousands of unarmed men, women, and children and Israelis have not become terrorists, but if only one Palestinian from Gaza dares to attack Israel then every Gazan is a terrorist.

But second, is the most insulting claim that suggests the people of Gaza could have turned it into "an oasis" while they were given "the keys" to their prison. This is the point that the Gazans are complaining about! The keys that they were given were only the keys to the cells, not to the prison gates. Israel still has the keys to the prison gates and is blockading the traffic in and out of the prison just like the Soviet Union blockaded the traffic in and out of Berlin in June 1948. The Soviet Union knew that if they controlled the food and fuel going in and out of Berlin that they would have practical control over the city.

Today the Israelis are using the same tactic to control Gaza by controlling what goes in and out of the city. How do Israeli officials dare to cay that Gaza could have been turned into an oasis when Israel controls what goes in and out of the Gaza and Israel does not allow any of the building materials to enter Gaza that would be necessary to build the oasis? Israel is just the prison warden saying why haven't the prisoners sewn new clothes when the warden won't let sewing machines or even needles into the prison because they could be used to make weapons.

Mr. Aharoni also stated that since the flotilla could have been sent to the Egyptian port of El Arish that there was no reason to attempt to dock at a port in Gaza and that to go to Gaza directly is "to create a provocation that is unneeded and will endanger the lives of all the people involved." But what danger is there? Only the danger created by the Israeli Navy itself when it plans to attack the flotilla! This is the age old lunacy of the perpetrator of a crime telling the victim that it is the victim's own behavior that is making them commit the crime. This Israeli logic is the very same logic used by al Queda to claim that the USA provoked the attacks on the Twin Towers.

There is not the slightest provocation in sailing a ship to Gaza except that created by the Israelis themselves. Israel is holding the people of Gaza hostage. What provocation is there in attempting to go speak directly with the hostages? Clearly, only the provocation created by the hostage taker who says you can't go meet directly to the hostages.

While we can understand how a hostage taker would think that speaking directly with his hostages would be "provocative" by calling into question the very legitimacy of the hostage taking, I see no justification for the USA to agree that there is provocation except to the same degree that the USA is in fact a co-conspirator with the hostage takers. No less of an official of the USA than our Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has now plainly spoken to announce that the USA has taken sides with the hostage taking Israelis.

Here's an excerpt from a recent Q&A with Madam Secretary Clinton that highlights how the USA Empire is protecting its crony Israel:

QUESTION: And also, Madam Secretary, there’s reports that another flotilla may be headed to Gaza within the next couple days. What is your message to the organizers and participants in that? Thank you.

SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, we do not believe that the flotilla is a necessary or useful effort to try to assist the people of Gaza. Just this week, the Israeli Government approved a significant commitment to housing in Gaza. There will be construction materials entering Gaza and we think that it’s not helpful for there to be flotillas that try to provoke actions by entering into Israeli waters and creating a situation in which the Israelis have the right to defend themselves.

First, the USA is acknowledging that Israel, not Gaza, is in control of what can go in and out of Gaza. From Secretary Clinton's view, echoing the view of the Soviet Union in 1948, what problem could there be with a blockade when the blockading power that controls what is going in and out allows a pittance of materials in? In 1948 the USA knew the answer to that question and joining with the UK and other Western Allies organized the Berlin Airlift to break the blockade. Today the USA, like the Soviet Union then, is on the side of blockade, and instead of joining with other nations to break the blockade of Gaza the USA has become the greatest supporter of the blockade outside of Israel. Without the USA's support the blockade of Gaza simply could not be maintained.

Second, Secretary Clinton is claiming that the flotilla is the one being "provoking" by creating the situation! Again, it is Israel holding the hostages and defending the blockade! Attempts to break the blockade by going directly to the hostages may be provoking to the hostage takers, but until the USA admits that this is a hostage situation, what basis is there for the USA to even raise the spectre of provocation by those attempting to break the blockade? If the USA were to say, and mean it, "We are negotiating with the hostage takers to release the hostages and if they do not release the hostages within 60 days, then we will be begin the airlift to break the blockade, and in the mean time separate attempts such as this flotilla are counter productive." Then and only then, would Secretary Clinton's remarks make any sense whatsoever.

Third, and most revealing of the current situation, is the erroneous claim by Secretary Clinton that the flotilla would be "entering into Israeli waters." This is either just plain confusion on the part of Secretary Clinton or is an unintentional acknowledgement by a highest official of the US government that the USA recognizes Israel's national claim to the whole of Palestine, i.e., including Gaza and the West Bank, as being Israeli territory. Anyone who looks at a map of Gaza will see that it is on the shore line of the Mediterranean Sea. As such, according to international laws the territorial waters of Israel do not lie off the coast of Gaza, only off the coast of Israel. The first 12 nautical miles off the coast of Gaza, are the territorial waters of Gaza, and outside this 12 mile zone are the international water with the 200 nautical miles off the coast being the exclusive economic zone of Gaza.

Therefore, the territorial waters off Gaza are in no way "Israeli waters" as Secretary Clinton now openly claims, unless Gaza is a territory of Israel. In other words, in the eyes of Secretary Clinton, Israel is not blockading the territorial waters of Gaza but is merely policing its own territorial waters. By this sleight of hand regarding international law the USA rationalizes it's public delusion that there is no "blockade" and therefore no reason to break the non-existent blockade. So Secretary Clinton's remarks have opened the curtain on the wizard lurking behind to reveal that the USA does indeed support Israel's national claim to Gaza.

The importance of this revelation is that it reveals that what is behind the refusal of the USA to acknowledge Israel's foot dragging on peace accords is that the USA accepts that Israel has no long term intention to ever allow Gaza and the West Bank to become a sovereign nation. The now stated official USA position is that the territorial waters off Gaza are "Israeli waters," so the USA is recognizing Israel's assertion of its national sovereignty over Gaza.

I have previously blogged about my view that because of Israel's refusal to negotiate in good faith for the recognition of the sovereignty of Gaza and the West Bank, that the Palestinians should not delay any longer and should declare their independent sovereignty today, even if it meant a three-state solution to get it done. At the time, I could not foresee that the Hamas and Fatah factions would be able to work together. Today, under the pressure of the Palestinian people in light of the "Arabian Spring," Hamas and Fatah have a fragile accord which may or may not last. While it lasts they have a tentative plan to seek acknowledgment of Palestinian sovereignty by appeal to the UN. I understand this tactic and think that it is a valid tactic, even though I do not agree with it. In my view, there is no reason for the UN to acknowledge the sovereignty of a people who have not yet declared it for themselves. A clear and definite voice of independence by the people of Gaza and the West Bank is needed to counteract the voice of the American Empire that speaks only to cause confusion in the minds of other member nations of the UN.

If the Palestinians want to be taken seriously as a sovereign people, then they should not wait for the UN to act but should immediately declare their national independence and sovereignty, today, now, by the adoption of a founding document to be followed up with a constitutional document. Then they should immediately send out official diplomats to each member nation of the UN asking for diplomatic recognition of their independent sovereignty as the prelude to the request to the UN seeking recognition from the whole body. In this way, the world would be forced to take their claims of independence seriously and they would be going to the UN as independents not as dependents.

Sweep The Ground

Here's a tidbit from an entry in the "Dictionary of Chinese Buddhist Terms" by William Edward Soothill and Lewis Hodous:

掃地 To sweep the floor, or ground, an act to which the Buddha is said to have attributed five kinds of merit; v. 毘奈耶雜事.

There's a great story I heard from one of Genjo Marinello Osho's teisho's available on line at http://feeds.feedburner.com/ChoBoJiMedia (Unfortunately right now I don't remember which teisho the story came from.)

It is about two brothers, with one being very smart and the other being very slow. The slow brother loved to hear the Buddha speak but he could never remember anything the Buddha said even only a few minutes later. He went to the Buddha and said he didn't know what to do because he could never remember all the beautiful but difficult teachings of the Buddha. Buddha said "Here's an area of ground. Just sweep this ground and while you do it, say over and over to your self 'sweep the ground, sweep the ground' ." The slow brother did this, and for a while the Buddha came by once a day to see if he could remenber this simple practice and he could. The slow brother was able to carry on this practice quite well always repeating to himself "sweep the ground, sweep the ground" as he swept continuously every day. Eventually, the slow brother was greatly awakened much sooner than his much smarter brother.

The Marvelous Moon

Standing here, it’s raining everywhere.
From this perspective it looks like the moon is hiding.
When I stand on the dark side of the moon,
it looks like the whole world is hiding.

Even though the moon is obscured by clouds,
By the power of moment by moment remembrance,
Every drop of rain brilliantly reflects the moon.
Homage to the marvelous moon of awakening

The Full Moon Poetry Society also invites you to write and share your poetry.

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