The Three Holes of a Crafty Rabbit

A good Zen student is like a crafty rabbit with three holes. If the fox chases the rabbit into one hole, it still has another from which to escape.  

 

The first hole is being plain and ordinary, blending in with the circumstances to be invisible in plain sight.

 

The second hole is to be majestically straightforward and marvelously profound, appearing sometimes like a ten foot golden Buddha immobilizing the awe struck or like a demon frightening away the attacker.

 

The third hole is the minutely subtle manifestation of function taking its rest, removing all semblance of opposition and leaving no trace.

This function of the crafty rabbit can be seen in the koan of “Yangshan Sticking in a Shovel” that is Case 15 of the Record of the Temple of Equanimity (A.K.A. Book of Equanimity, Book of Serenity).

15th Standard:   Yangshan Sticking in a Shovel

第十五則仰山插鍬

            Raised:  Guishan asked Yangshan, “Where are you coming from?”

            Yang[shan] said, “From in the fields.”

            [Gui]Shan said, “How many people are in the fields?”

            Yang[shan] stuck down his shovel, folded his hands, and stood there.

            [Gui]shan said, “On South Mountain there are a great many people mowing thatch.”

            Yang picked up the shovel then walked away.

 

 

"Into Darkness" Goes Into the Dark Hole

I saw "Star Trek: Into Darkness" yesterday and I have to say "THUMBS DOWN" overall. This is because I saw the original Star Trek on television when it was first broadcast and this "reboot" series just seems like a perversion of the whole premise that Gene Rodenberry used to create Star Trek: that the formula for good Science Fiction must have more food for thought than thrills of action.  Kids who have never seen the previous Star Treks may like it for the exciting action and find the story "new" when it isn't for those of us who have seen the series. 

 

To me, JJ Abrams is a criminal who has robbed Star Trek of its uniqueness and turned it into a Star Wars clone. That's a Sci Fi plot right there. The script for "Into Darkness" was witty, but the plot was a tired retread (pun intended). I really don't like it that the "reboot" series has taken Star Trek into an "alternative time line" where they seem to think that they can just retell the same stories with an alternative timeline twist. Very uncreative. I cannot think of anything really good to say about the reboot as far as Star Trek goes. It is a roller coaster ride film from beginning to end, in a very Disney sort of way, and nothing about the original Star Trek (or STNG or DS9) remains as far as the ambiance of storytelling over flash-and-bang action or Gene Rodenberry's original vision of Science Fiction for the thinking person.

Another Example of Denatured Naturalized Buddhism

I suppose a person could fill up all their time trying to chase around all the philosophers and spiritual speculators who are working on the project of "naturalizing" the Buddha Dharma into Western frames of reference.  This project of Buddhist Naturalization is basically a project engaged by people who know Buddha Dharma only from Buddhist books read from within the framework of Western philosophy. I put Jay Garfield and Owen Flanagan in this category, along with Stephen Batchelor who appears to be a failed practitioner who is overcompensating his personal failure by joining the Naturalization movement in an attempt to denature the Buddha Dharma and turn it into a Western form of philosophy. 

Western philosopher and darling of the liberal Marxist community, Slavoj Žižek is among the Buddhist "Naturalizers" and not so long ago gave a talk at the University of Vermont on “Buddhism Naturalized.”   Adrian J. Ivakhiv has blogged his response at Zizek v. Buddhism: who’s the subject?   Ivakhiv's critique of Žižek is well intentioned but lacks determination and seems more supportive than clarifying about the fundamental problems with Žižek specifically and the naturalization movement generally.  Though Ivakhiv's blog "Immanance" is focused on a non-dualist understanding, he seems to have lost focus on the non-dual in his response to Žižek, and Ivakhiv seems to me more than a little bit enchanted with the "Naturalization" project.

First, Ivakhiv is mistaken to say “Buddhism and Žižek’s Lacanianism are, in crucial respects, philosophical kindred spirits.”  It is just not so.  From the outset, Žižek’s critique of Buddhism can be dismissed because it is based on Lacan’s Freudianism.  Ivakhiv erroneously states that both Buddhism and Žižek “posit an emptiness or gap at the center of us humans” but Buddhism posits no such thing.  The “emptiness” that is a gap at the center of something else, like the hole in a donut or the empty bowl of the tea cup, is not in any way, shape, or form the emptiness that Buddhism speaks of. Or to put it another way, the Lankavatara Sutra defines seven kinds of emptiness and the emptiness that is a “gap at the center” of something is the most mundane definition of emptiness that is equated with ignorance, not with the Buddha Dharma.  

Ivakhiv says, “But if reality — not just human but all reality — is the ongoing production of subjectless subjectivity, or what, in process-relational terms I have called subjectivation-objectivation, then subjectless subjectivity is always already active, not merely passive.” But it is not necessary to use such cumbersome terms as “subjectless subjectivity” or “subjectivation-objectivation,” when we say as Buddhists that reality is the activity of Dharma or the activity of Mind or the activity of Buddha-Nature or the activity of emptiness (sunyata) and mean the same thing. Whether that “Other” or that “It” is called Dharma, Mind, Emptiness, Buddha-Nature, Tahtagata, True Suchness, or any of the hundreds of other more colorful terms including such creative attempts as “subjectivation-objectivation,” it is the activity of that which is already active before we have a thought about it.

Therefore, Ivakhiv is right on target to “acknowledge that the world is always already in (affective-semiotic) motion, and that we, moving beings, are affected on a preconscious level by the in-motionness that is always at work around us.”  There is a Zen koan on this very point.   It is Case 75 from the collection called “The Record of the Temple of Equanimity” (A.K.A. “The Book of Seerenity”).
***
75. Ruiyan’s Constant Principle 瑞巖常理
Ruiyan asked Yantou, “So what is the root’s constant principle?”
Tou said, “Activity!”
Yan said, “At the time of activity what’s it like?”
Tou said, “One does not see the root’s constant principle.”
Yan stood still thinking.
Tou said, “If you agree, then you have not yet escaped the sense organs and dusts. If you don’t agree, you immediately sink into endless birth and death.”
***

This problem of a perceived necessity to either agree or disagree is the trap of logical thinking from which philosophers and Freudians like Lacan and Žižek are unable to extricate themselves.

This inability to extricate oneself from the polarized force-field of logically determined philosophical thinking leads Žižek to posit an “irreducible gap between ethics (understood as the care of the self, as striving towards authentic being) and morality (understood as the care for others, responding to their call).”  From the view of the Buddha Dharma, the polarization of opposites into irreducible gaps is the hall mark of delusion.  If there is an “irreducible gap between subjective authenticity and moral goodness (in the sense of social responsibility)” then it is one that the logical philosopher has created, not one imposed by the authenticity that transcends the subjective-objective polarity.  

Žižek also asserts that “the authenticity of the Self is taken to the extreme in Buddhist meditation, whose goal is precisely to enable the subject to overcome (or, rather, suspend) its Self and enter the vacuum of nirvana.”  Incredulously, Ivakhiv agrees, “yes, this is part of Buddhism.”  Actually this is not a part of Buddha Dharma. The goal of Buddhist meditation is not “to enable the subject to overcome (or, rather, suspend) its Self and enter the vacuum of nirvana.”  There are so many things wrong with that one line characterization of the goal of meditation, not least of which is that it posits a “subject” overcoming a “Self.” Then there is the pitifully inane description of nirvana as a vacuum. Sadly, Ivakhiv lets this slide with a tepid agreement.

Fortunately, Ivakhiv rebounds off the ropes when he states, “Žižek’s critique sounds to me not so much as a critique of Buddhism’s philosophical core, which I think he hasn’t adequately grasped.” Though, there is no need for Ivakhiv to be so tentative about it.  Žižek plainly doesn’t grasp or realize the core of the Buddha Dharma, and he can only perceive those aspects of Buddha Dharma that he can see through his polarized eyeglasses of philosophical Marxist Freudianism. Thus, Žižek sees only a perverted and twisted view of the Buddha Dharma that is his own attempt at naturalization which he has created.

However, Ivakhiv falls back onto the mat with a knock out punch to himself when he then asserts that there is virtue to Žižek’s critique of Buddhism.  Ivakhiv says, “Subjectivity is only possible because of our condition of separation, the very gap that underlies our suffering,” but is that so?  I don’t think so.  Subjectivity is not “because of” the delusion of separation: subjectivity is the condition of the delusion of separation.  Subjectivity is exactly the delusion of a “gap.”   Apparently because Ivakhiv can’t see this identity of separation, subjectivity, and gap, he posits a false dichotomy between “eliminating that gap” and “recognizing that the gap is one we share will all manner of other gapped, broken, suffering (because groundless yet ground-seeking) others.” Thus Ivakhiv and Žižek seem to share the notion that subjectivity is irreducible and that we are forever bound to stay within our delusion of subjectivity and the only distinction is whether we acknowledge that we share it with everyone else or not.

This error toward subjectivity leads Ivakhiv to say, “A Buddhist who works only to eradicate suffering in him or herself is, I agree, a Buddhist that does little for a world full of suffering. (But is such a person really practicing Buddhism?)”  The answer to the latter question is, yes, such a person is a Buddhist of the Two Vehicles, yet still is very much a Buddhist. But the premise is mistaken.  A Buddhist who works only to eradicate suffering in him or herself IS INDEED a Buddhist who does a great deal for a world full of suffering.  Only a person who believes in the literalization or reification of “the gap” would imagine that such a person were not contributing toward eradicating a world full of suffering.  If Ivakhiv can’t see this, then he has not seen the full vision of Buddha-Knowing (buddhajnana), the realization of which is the purpose of Buddhas coming to manifestation in the Buddha worlds.  

The Materialist Hegemony in the Psychology of Religion

A recent Salon article by Frans de Waal titled  Militant atheism has become a religion 

 is interesting and provocative. The subtitle used to inform us of the basic premise states, "Prominent non-believers have become as dogmatic as those they deride -- and become rich on the lecture circuit."

 

 

The science that looks at the material world as physical stuff really can say nothing about religion. Religion arises from and in the mind, not the material world.The science that looks at mind or psyche is called psychology. Psychology can speak about religion but unfortunately, today the materialist scientists have exerted a hegemony over psychology and usurped psychology in the name of neurophysiology. 

 

For example, de Waal writes,

 

Neo-atheists keep pitting the two against each other, however. Their audiences pee in their pants with delight when the flat-earth canard gets trotted out. This is not to say, however, that religious narratives are much better. They, too, play fast and loose with the facts. In Puebla, D’Souza featured near-death experiences as scientific proof of the afterlife. After a brush with death, some patients report having floated outside of their bodies or having entered a tunnel of light. This surely seems bizarre, but D’Souza failed to bring up new neuroscience of a small brain area known as the temporo-parietal junction (TPJ). This area gathers information from many senses (visual, tactile, and vestibular) to construct a single image of our body and its place in the environment. Normally, this image is nicely coherent across all senses, so that we know who and where we are. The body image is disturbed, however, as soon as the TPJ is damaged or stimulated with electrodes. Scientists can deliberately make people feel that they are hovering above their own body or looking down on it, or have them perceive a copy of themselves sitting next to them, like a shadow (“I looked younger and fresher than I do now. My double smiled at me in a friendly way”). Together with the hallucinogenic qualities of anesthetic drugs and the effects of oxygen depletion on the brain, science is getting close to a materialist explanation of near-death experiences.

Explaining the psyche as merely brain functioning is the hall mark of materialist science and here de Waal is actually proud of his materialism.  This face off between materialist science and materialist religious views is what makes for the unbridgable gulf between the two points of view on the opposite ends of the materialist spectrum.

 

The genuine psychology that takes mind as both the basis of observation and the field to be observed --and not the physical world as the basis-- are the streams of psychology that flow from Carl G. Jung analytical psychology of the archetypes.  "God" as an archetypal image of the psyche is the analytical starting point of a genuine scientific look at religion.  So far, I have not heard Hitchens (RIP), Harris, or Dawkins (and neither does de Waal) acknowledge this necessary starting point for any scientific analysis of religion. Instead, the professional atheists simply deny the existence of God as a physical fact and ignore the existence of God the archetype as a psychical fact.  For example, materialist scientists don't understand Jung's psychology and think the archetypes are merely metaphors and not actual autonomous psychic organs that are every bit as necessary and every bit as autonomous in their functioning as the physical organs of the body like the heart, stomach, and liver.

 
As a Buddhist practitioner, I see Buddhism as a religious psychology and as a psychological religion.  Buddha was a man who did not deny the Gods and did not worship them either. He was known as "the teacher of Gods and Humans" so show that his awakening was something that can be taught to both the religious and the nonreligious. When the Lankavatara Sutra states that all manifestations are nothing but mind, it is stating the psychological basis of Buddhism. The analysis of the 8 conscousnesses and the 5 skandhas are analytical and psychological views of the structure and function of consciousness.

So far professional atheists like Dawkins say they don't know enough about Buddha Dharma to have an opinion about it, but until they learn about their own Western heritige of analytical psychology of the archetypes, they won't be able to understand the Buddha Dharma much less the Christian, Moslem, and Hebrew religous eachings.

Buddha doesn't teach materialism.

Someone wrote: Science is not intrinsically materialistic. It's intrinsically skeptical. ... Opinion polls show that a substantial number of American scientists, perhaps a majority, have religious beliefs.  I have objected to the term "scientific materialism," which suggests some theory of materialism.

I think that science is intrinsically and inherently materialistic by definition.

Science is based on the assumption and theory of matter and materialism.

Materialism, the philosophical theory that regards matter and its motions as constituting the universe, and all phenomena, including those of mind, as due to material agencies.

Matter, as distinct from mind and spirit, is a broad word that applies to anything perceived, or known to be occupying space.

In Buddha Dharma, as articulated in the Lankavatara Sutra, the Sanskrit for "materialist" and "materialism" is lokayata which literally means "limited to the world."

Red Pine wrote: The Sanskrit for ‘materialist’ is lokayata. This term included all those whose approach to knowledge was based on knowledge gained from the five senses. (Note 128, p. 202.)

Because science deliberately limits itself to the five senses perceiving an external world, it is by definition materialism, and by definition is not what Buddha articulated.

That is not to say that Buddha Dharma is incompatible with science, only that the materialist basis of science should never be confused Buddha Dharma as it all too frequently is confused. Buddha Dharma is based on the personal realization that all manifested phenomena are only mind, and this is called the personal realization of noble knowing/knowledge (aryajnana) or Buddha knowing/knowledge (buddhajnana)

For example, in Zen especially, we see the confusion of materialism and Buddha Dharma in the raw examples of every day life such as “a cup of tea” or “hitting the floor” or “raising the stick” or “the plum blossom” used as examples of suchness. But without the personal realization of suchness, the person who has not the realization has only the sensory experience of “a cup of tea” or “hitting the floor” or “raising the stick” or “the plum blossom” and thinks of these as “things” (i.e., dharmas) and mistakes the experience of the thing-as-a-sensory-object for the realization of the thing as the manifestation of suchness.

To view things as external to our mind is called the “externalist ways” (外道).

Externalism. of or pertaining to the world of things, considered as independent of the perceiving mind: external world.

To mistake a thing in the sense being a thing-as-a-sensory-object, i.e., an external thing, is the practical meaning of materialism. Materialism comes in very many varieties and some of them are very subtle and sound like “immaterialsm,” but they are still materialism. In section LXXIII of the Lankavatara Sutra, the Buddha tells Mahamati unequivocally, “I do not articulate materialism.” The Buddha goes on to tell Mahamati about a previous encounter with a materialist Brahman (世論婆羅門). It is an amusing story. The internally quoted matter is quoted directly from the Lankavatara.

The materialist Brahman approaches the Buddha and rudely without seeking permission to question and without waiting he rudely calls the Buddha by his family name “Gautama” and asks, “Is everything actually created?”

The Buddha replied declaring, “Brahman, that everything is actually created is the initial materialism.”

The other then asked, “Is everything not actually created?”

The Buddha said, “That everything is not actually created is the second materialism.”

The Brahman starts a rapid fire succession of questions about permanency, impermanency, birth, and no birth and the Buddha replies, “That’s six materialisms.” A few more such questions and the Buddha says, “That’s eleven materialisms.” the Brahman keeps asking philosophical questions, and the Buddha keeps saying “that’s also materialism,” and then the Buddha says, “As long as there are mental outflows erroneously reckoning on the external dusts (i.e., sensory data), in all cases it is materialism.”

The Brahman in exasperation then asked, “Rather, there is that which is not materialism isn’t there? For the propositions of every one of the externalist ways, I correctly articulate every kind of flavor of phrasing, causes and conditions, parables, and rhetorical embellishments.”

The Buddha declared, “Brahman, there is that which is neither your possession, nor doing, nor propositions, nor articulations. nor is it not articulating every kind of flavor of phrasing, nor is it not causes, metaphors, and rhetorical embellishments.”

The Brahman declared, “What is the position that is not materialism and neither not a proposition, nor not articulating?”

And the Buddha declared, “Brahman, there is the non-materialism that your various externalist ways are not able to know, because they use the means of external natures, untruths, antithetical conceptions, deceptive reckonings, and attachments. I designate not giving birth to antithetical conceptions and the complete realization that existence and nonexistence are nothing but the manifestations of one’s own mind. By not giving birth to antithetical conceptualizations and not receiving external dusts, the antithetical conceptualizations are forever stopped. This is called non-materialism. This is my Dharma, and not what you have!
“Brahman, to articulate in outline: their consciousness supposes coming, supposes going, supposes death, supposes birth, supposes ease, supposes suffering, supposes the submerged, supposes the visible, supposes contacts, supposes attachments to every kind of characteristics, supposes harmonious continuity, supposes reception, or supposes attachments to causes and reckonings. So, Brahman, that which compares to this position is your position of materialism and is not what I have.”

To clarify how materialism is used, Red Pine includes a note from old Chinese commentary:

Red Pine wrote: In his commentary, T’ung-jun notes, “The stance of those who understand the way of truth of self-existence is firm. They teach materialism all day, yet it is not materialism. Meanwhile, the stance of those who don’t understand is unstable. They teach what is not materialism all day, yet it turns out to be materialism. (Note 135, p. 204.)

The truth of “self-existence” means the truth of one’s own nature, the ultimate truth of svabhava, the third of the three own-natures (trisvabhava). This important note shows us that when the Buddha and Zen teachers point to a flower, hit the floor, comment on the sound of the rain, etc., it may seem like they are teaching materialism, but in fact this is not a teaching of materialism and is actually the teaching there is nothing but the manifestations of one’s own mind. But, when the non-Buddhists speak of non-materialism such as energy, space, gods, heavens, spiritual matters, etc., they still believe in an external reality and external things so they are in fact teaching materialism.

Obama's bankrupt words make the inaugral address meaningless.

Here's my response to this article in Salon from a Democratic Party apologist, John Paul Rollert.

What Obama should say in his second inaugural

Wonderwheel

Monday, Jan 21, 2013 11:37 AM PST

My laughing started with this subtitle:

"Now is the time to articulate a vision of capitalism that explicitly rejects the notion of 'job creators'."

The very idea of such a species of "capitalism" is a fairytale for children. Capital-ism means making money from capital. What is capital? It is money and tangible assets. Making money from capital means having other people do work with “your” capital and then giving you the lion’s share of the profits and they get the leftovers. There is no variety of so-called compassionate capitalism in which the owners of capital don’t assert their possession of the capital as god-given or hard-earned, even though it is only by sleight of hand and the force of arms that they are able acquire and maintain that capital.

For example, the raw materials of the land should belong to everyone and not to someone who has a paper title drawn on a map. Individual title to a home is one thing, and its not capitalism because the home is not used by laborers to get a profit for the home owner. But title to oil deep in the earth being held by an individual is ridiculous and only reasonable under the chicanery of capitalism’s style of three card monte. As for Wall Street’s stock “exchanges,” they are nothing more or less than the exchanges occurring every day in gambling casinos.

When private property is properly restricted to the amount that a person can physically pick up and hold and manage on their own, without additional servants or hired hands to care for it, then we will have an economic system that has to look at the remaining capital as the capital of the commons to be used in a system of economic democracy for the good of the nation, and not for the good of the corporate lords of the American Brand of Fascism.

*****

I would just add that Mr. Rollert's notion of a ideal "common capitalism" is just as much an oxymoron as Schumpeter’s "Creative Destruction." 

Rollert ends with the hopeful fairy story of "a vision of economic development that doesn’t see us waiting on the deliverance of an enlightened few, but one in which there is dignity and place for everyone to lend a hand."  But what does that really mean? He hasn't described a single instance of practical difference to the current system of economic injustice.  Stripped of the finery, Rollert's vision of "everyone lending a hand" means exactly what we have now under capitalism, everyone lending a hand and the capitalists determining how much trickles down to the hands.

It really is silly to imagine "what Obama should say" in his inaugral, because whatever he says will have absolutely no currency in the market place of real politics, anymore than the many campaign promises of his first term that have been broken.

The Wheel of Ease of the One Vehicle

"Those who cultivate practice by their own realization of the noble path abide in the ease of manifested things and do not abandon skillful means."

This quote comes from the Lankavatara Sutra, or as I like to translate the title, the Sutra of Going Down to Lanka.  The line is from Gunabhadra’s Chinese translation 修行者自覺聖趣現法樂住不捨方便 (T16n0670_p0510b29), and it is found in section LXXXII as the sections have been labeled by convention in the English translations by D.T. Suzuki and Red Pine.

D. T. Suzuki's translation:

[Therefore], the Yogins, while walking in the noble path of self-realisation and abiding in the enjoyment of things as they are, do not abandon working hard and are never frustrated [in their undertakings].

 

Red Pine's translation:

Therefore the practitioners who cultivate their own realization of Buddha knowledge dwell in the bliss of things as they are and do not abandon their practice.

In the Lankavatara Sutra, this line is a declaration, from the perspective of the One Vehicle, of what spiritual practice is about for the bodhisattva follower of Buddha Dharma. Here, the word "ease" is the Sanskrit term "sukha," the opposite of "duhkha."  Sukha is the ease of riding in a wheeled vehicle such as a wagon, cart, or chariot with a balanced and centered axle-hole, while duhkha is the disturbance, difficulty, sorrow, and suffering of riding in the vehicle with an off-centered and unbalanced axle-hole.

“Living is Duhkha” is the First Noble Truth.  When we initially hear of the Four Noble Truths, with the Third Truth of the Extinction of Duhkha, many of us think that Buddhism is about leaving the world of manifested things altogether behind in order to fall into the bliss of extinction where there is no phenomena appearing at all. Because the First truth is the formula that Life is Duhkha, people believe that the Truth of the Extinction of Duhkha means that life is extinguished.  However, this is a mistaken notion.  This misunderstanding is how Buddhism gets the bad rap of being nihilistic. The extinction spoken of in the Third Truth is the extinction of duhkha, not the extinction of life itself in the ultimate sense of the extinction of all manifestation.  

 
The truth is that both before and after awakening, we, the living, always abide in manifested things. But before awakening we conceive of life as abiding in the suffering (duhkha) of manifested phenomena, while after awakening we perceive life as abiding in the ease-and-comfort (sukha) of appearing phenomena. What is the difference? When we perceive manifested things with the dualistic filters of cognitive consciousness, such as "good and bad", "right and wrong", etc., then our axle-hole is off kilter and we are in for a bumpy ride. When the axle-hole is centered without the distortions of bifurcated and polarized conceptualizations, then we abide in ease and comfort as we ride through the very same landscape.

To carry the metaphor further, when our axle-hole is unbalanced and off center, then the ride is always bumpy and we can’t tell the difference between the bumpiness of the wheel and the bumpiness of the ground, regardless of whether we are travelling on the road or off-road.  This is the meaning of the truth that Life is Duhkha because our ride is always bumpy and this constant bumpiness becomes a constant stressor because the bumpy duhkha is always present whether the road is smooth or not and we never get to really experience the smooth ride between the bumpy parts of the road.  Because we never experience the smooth road, we believe in the delusion that life is always bumpy since for us it is always bumpy because our axle-hole is off center. This is the meaning of “Life is Suffering” because we are confused about the unnatural distress of our off-centered wheel with the natural bumps in the road of life.

When duhkha is extinguished it means that the axle-hole is centered and balanced and the wheel is turing with the ease of sukha.  When we are “abiding in ease” (sukha-vihara, 樂住) rather than in duhkha, we are able to distinguish when the bumpy is from the ground and not the wheel, then even the bumpy ride experienced differently.  When we have extinguished duhkha and are “abiding in the ease of manifested things” (drsta-dharma-sukha-vihara, 現法樂住) we are able to realize the meaning of Zen Master Yunmen’s saying, “Every day is a good day.”   Every day is good because now we can truly experience the meaning of both smooth and bumpy without the overlay of the constant bumpiness of our off-centered wheel. 

The meaning of “not abandoning skillful means” (不捨方便) refers to the bodhisattva’s vow to not abandon life after the extinction of duhkha but to practice skillful means to assist others to extinguish duhkha.  The first is called nirvana with remainder, while the second is nirvana without remainder.  From the perspective of the bodhisattva’s vow, it is the last remaining part of selfishness to believe that one can extinguish duhkha for oneself alone and not for everyone.  In the Buddha’s awakening, he does not declare that he has realized awakening for himself while others remain unawakened, but that he and all beings are awakened together.  If  “one who cultivates practice” (acarya, 修行者) abandoned skillful means, it would mean that they were abandoning the awakening of others as well, under the deluded view that one person could be awakened without all beings being simultaneously awakened.   The nonabandonment of skillful means is a hallmark of the One Vehicle as also taught in the Lotus Sutra.

The phrase their “own realization of the noble path” (自覺聖趣) occurs eight times in the Lankavatara. The noble path (aryagati, 聖趣) is the path of those who have their own realization of noble knowledge (aryajnana, 自覺聖智). To understand the term noble path we must know the meaning of the worldly six paths (six gati, 六趣) that are the six courses of transmigration on the Wheel of Karma (karmacakra, 業輪). The six paths are how we go through the six worlds in which rebirth takes place: hell, hungry ghosts, animals, humans, titans, and heavenly beings.  The six are sometimes called five paths (五趣) when the titans (asuras) are counted among the ranks of the heavenly beings (devas) as one path.   These paths (gati, alternatively: way, course, going, deportment, arriving at, destination, etc.) are the primary fruit of karma (acts, 業).

It is a great and unfortunate misunderstanding about karma to say that everything that happens to us is caused by our own acts, i.e, our karma. Nothing could be further from the truth. As Buddha taught, karma is only one of the handful of factors related to what happens to us. However, the primary result of our karma is the path (gati, destination) that we arrive at on the following turns of the karma wheel of birth and death. If we act like a devil then we will eventually be reborn in hell, if we act like an animal we will be reborn as an animal, and if we act like an angel we will be reborn as a being in heaven (deva). Once we are born in one of the six paths, then the several other factors, of which our karma is only one, act as particular causative forces for what happens to us.  This teaching of how to avoid a rebirth in the realms of hell, hungary ghosts, and animals and how to attain rebirth in the realms of the humans, asuras and heavenly biengs is called the teaching of humans and heavenly beings (sometimes "the teaching of Gods and humans").  What Buddhism adds to this teaching of "reaping what we sow" shared by all religions, is the teaching called the turning of the Wheel of Dharma.

Our turning on the Wheel of Karma is the meaning of duhkha as turning around an off-centered axle-hole, and so another name for the Wheel of Karma is the wheel of suffering (duhkhacakra, 苦輪).  The teaching of the Buddha Dharma is to save us from the predicament we find ourselves in when we realize that we are endlessly turning in the wheel of suffering and this is what we equate with living.  The realization of the Buddha Dharma is called the turning of the Wheel of Dharma and means that we are liberated from the Wheel of Karma, which is liberation from both hell and heaven as well as the other four paths of rebirth.  Whereas the Wheel of Karma is the Wheel of Suffering (duhkha), the Wheel of Dharma is the Wheel of Ease (sukhacakra, 樂輪).  In Zen, this turning of the Wheel of Ease is called "having no no affairs" (無事, Ch. wushi, J. buji).

However, the two Wheels of Karma and Dharma are actually the same wheel.  When the wheel’s axle hole is off center then the turning is called the suffering of karma. When the wheel’s axle hole is centered and balanced then the turning is called the ease of Dharma. This ease of the turning of the Wheel of Dharma is an ease that transcends the dichotomy of ease and unease, because it is the dichotomy view (vikalpa, 妄想) of things that is the false conception at the heart of our suffering and which knocks our turning wheel off center.  This dichotomous view of life stems from the factor of consciousness that the Lankavatara Sutra calls the seventh consciousness or manas.

The manas or 7^th consciousness is the aspect of consciousness that bifurcates or polarizes our undifferentiated awareness so that self-consciousness can evolve (pravritti, ).  This process of evolution by dichotomous polarization is how consciousness constructs the reflected image called self in its worldview built from all the bricks and mortar of dualisms like inside-outside, high-low, existence-nonexistence, life-death, good-bad, right-wrong, etc. The process of turning around (paravrtti) our awareness to penetrate this veil of polarization to directly realize the undifferentiated awareness of the storehouse of consciousness (alayavjnana) is the centerpiece of the Lankavatara Sutra and is called one’s own realization of noble knowledge.

By the incalculably long habit of our evolution of consciousness, the Wheel of Karma turns upon the bifurcation of its off center axis.  It is by the turning around of this evolving process (the paravrtti of this pravrtti) that our awareness is able to see through its grasping at its own dichotomously false conceptions to realize that all such dichotomous conceptions are nothing but the discriminations of mind. 

The Lankavatara Sutra teaches that when this turning around is personally realized then consciousness is transformed at its root and is called noble knowledge (aryajnana) or Buddha knowledge (buddhajnana),  because it is no longer confused or deluded by the bifurcation process of consciousness.  When our habitually dichotomous consciousness prevails, then we are turned on and by the Wheel of Karma leading us to rebirth in the six paths, but when we are liberated from the polarization process of our own consciousness and perceive that all discriminations are only mind, then the six paths (gati) are transformed into the noble path (aryagati) and we are not separate from the turning the Wheel of Dharma. 

The Buddha’s One Vehicle can be recognized by the elements in this single sentence.  The One Vehicle teaches that Buddha Dharma is all about our personal realization, not about what we can conceive by reading or hearing teachings, because no matter how refined our conceptions are, they are still based on the bifurcation of false thinking if there is no personal realization. What is realized in our own realization is the noble path of the noble knowledge that everything perceived is only mind and thus we are able to abide in the ease of manifested things as we no longer abide in the wheel of suffering. And because we are abiding in the ease of manifested things instead of retreating from the world of manifested things, we can exercise the Bodhisattva vow of not abandoning the skillful means of relating to others.  

 _/|\_

 

.

Lankavatara Sutra and the One Vehicle Lineage

 

The “Sutra of Going Down to Lanka” (Lankavatara Sutra) is the most important sutra in relation to Bodhidharma and the Zen lineages of his Dharma descendants. I follow the lead of D.T. Suzuki in viewing the Lanka as one of the Ekayana (One Vehicle) sutras including the Avatamsaka,White Lotus of the True Dharma, Queen Srimala’s Lions Roar, Great Dharma Drum, etc. Each of these sutras provides a different perspective, but the common basis is the One Vehicle. In this way, the Avatamsaka Sutra provides the One Vehicle view of the metaphysics of Buddha Dharma. The Lotus Sutra provides the One Vehicle view of skillful means and the arousal of faith in the Buddha Dharma. The Queen Srimala’s Lion’s Roar Sutra provides the One Vehicle perspective on the Dharmabody and the realization of the bodhisattva path with the prediction of Buddhahood for a lay person who is a woman, as well as placing the Tathagata-garbha teaching within the context of the One Vehicle.

 

The Lankavatara Sutra is special because it is a compendium of the primary teachings of the Buddha Dharma, and provides the One Vehicle view on each of the teachings. What this means is that the Lanka is essentially and primarily the teaching of the synthesis of the Buddha Dharma and takes great pains to show them all together in a coherent tapestry of the Buddha Dharma.

 

Thus the various sections take up the teachings of the Two Vehicles of listener disciples (sravakas) and the causally awakened (pratyekabuddhas) or the Three Vehicles which are the Two Vehicles plus the bodhisattva vehicle. Section by section the Lanka articulates these teachings in the context of the One Vehicle. For example, the Lanka takes up the Four Noble Truths, the Five Dharmas, the Three Self-natures (trisvabhavas), the Six Paramitas, the Eight Consciousnesses, the Ten Bodhisattva Stages, etc. and for each of them provides the One Vehicle view of how each is a teaching and a discrimination of mind about manifesting Buddha Nature.

 

In outliine, the One Vehicle includes the following points of perspective.

 

(1) Buddhism (i.e., following the Buddha Dharma) is the religious practice of the One Mind of Buddha as the practice of manifesting our Buddha nature;

 

(2) the One Mind is known by many names such as Dharmakaya (the body or essence of Dharma), Buddha-nature, Tathagata-garbha (the Inner-One-Who-Comes-Thus), sunyata (Emptiness), alaya-vjnana (the Storehouse of Consciousness), the bhutakoti (Reality- Limit), the signless, the Dharmadathu (Dharma Realm), paramartha (the ultimate truth), etc., and everything that is differentiated in consciousness is a discrimination of Mind and nothing but Mind which is known as the "mind-only" (cittamatra) teaching;

 

(3) since all the teachings of Buddhism, including both Mahayana and the Early Schools (sometimes called Hinayana), are essentially teachings about the One Mind of our own Buddha Nature, they must be taken as an organic whole, and the reconciliation of apparent oppositions or contradictions within the Buddhist teachings is the essence of the synthesis of One Vehicle (Ekayana);

 

(4) the essential core of all the differences in Buddha Dharma is found in the understanding that Buddha’s distinctive teachings are due to the different audiences to whom the teachings are taught, and that this responsiveness to the particular circumstances is called upaya, or skillful means; 

 

(5) as all beings manifest equally the One Mind there is an absolute basis (i.e., simultaneously transcendental and immanent) for human equality;

 

(6) the sole purpose for Buddhas to enter the world is to relieve suffering by bringing people to awakening, and awakening to the absolute basis of the One Buddha Mind is not accomplished as an intellectual pursuit or construction of words or ideas, but must be accomplished by experiential practice leading to the “revolution at the basis,” “turning the light around,” or “turning inward” (paravrtti) that culminates in directly seeing the True Suchness (tathata) of one’s Own-Nature (svabhava); 

 

(7) since all people have This One Buddha Mind, the nature of the Tathagata, as their common and actual manifestation of their root of awakening there is no fundamental distinction between monk and lay practitioner in the potential for -- or actual realization of -- awakening in Buddhism.

 

People often mistake the Lankavatara as a Sutra of the Yogacara Buddhist school because the Lanka prominently discusses the Eight Consciousness analysis developed by the Yogacara school, but this is an error.  What the Lankavatara is doing is providing the One Vehicle view of the Eight Consciousness teaching. Similarly, the Lanka provides the One Vehicle view of the chief teachings of the Yogacara and Madhyamaka schools and of Tathagatagarbha movement to show that they are all within the ambit of the One Vehicle. In this way the One Vehicle refuses to place one school above another and shows their mutual significance and validity within the Buddha Dharma. Thus, the Lankavatara is providing the One Vehicle context that brings together the teachings of these three main streams of Mahayana, as well as bringing the streams of the Hinayana or Early Schools within the One Buddha Vehicle.

 

One reason for the confusion of mistaking the Lanka as a Yogacara sutra is that people are confused about the distinction between the Yogacara teaching of consciousness-only (vijnanamatra or vijnaptimatra) and the One Vehicle's teaching of mind-only (cittamatra).  D.T. Suzuki explained several times in his Studies on the Lankavatara Sutra how, since the time it was first translated by Gunabhadra in the 5th century, there were two primary streams of interpretation of the Lankavatara in China . One stream was the Yogacara because the Lankavatara does affirm the validity of the teaching of the Eight Consciousnesses.  Suzuki articulates how taking this affirmation as a basis for interpreting the Lanka as a Yogacara teaching is misguided.  Here are excerpts of three sections (pages 54-55; 180-183; and 276-282) from Suzuki’s Studies in the Lankavatara Sutra where he discusses the difference between the Lankvatara’s Mind-only and Yogacara’s Consciousness-only views.

 

As Suzuki shows, going all the way back to the first accounts in China in the Continued Biographies of Eminent Monks, that Bodhidharma taught the One Vehicle School (or lineage) of Southern India. D.T. Suzuki wrote:

 

There is one thing in the foregoing account given by Tao-hsiian of the history of the Lankavatara that requires notice: that there was another school in the study of the sutra than the one transmitted by Dharma and Hui-k'e. This was the school of Yogacara idealism. The line of Hui-k'e belonged to the Ekayana school (一乘) of Southern India which was also the one resorted to by Dharma himself when he wanted to discourse on the philosophy of Zen Buddhism. To this Ekayana school belong the Avatamsaka and the Sraddhotpanna as well as the Lankavatara properly interpreted. But as the latter makes mention of the system of the eight Vijnanas whose central principle is designated as Alayavijnana, it has been used by the Yogacara followers as one of their important authorities. (p. 54-55)

 

On page 181, Suzuki writes,

 

The doctrine expounded in the Lankavatara and also in the Avatamsaka-sutra is known as the Cittamatra and never as the Vijnanamatra or Vijnaptimatra as in the Yogacara school of Asanga and Vasubandhu. Throughout the Lankavatara no mention is made of "vijnanamatra," but either "vijnaptimatra," or "prajnaptimdtra," and they are used synonymously. […] Where the triple world (tribhavam) is said to be nothing but vijnapti or prajnapti, it means that the world is mere subjective construction, having no reality or selfsubstance (svabhdva). The doctrine of Cittamatra, (mind-only, or pure-mind-only), as advocated in the Lankavatara, however, differs from this in that it does not deny the existence of mind itself, from which the objective world appears with all its forms of particularisation.

 

Beginning on page 278 to 280, Suzuki writes,

 

I cannot conclude this study without referring, though casually, to the difference between the doctrine of Cittamatra and that of Vijnaptimatra (or Vijnanamatra), the latter being the thesis of the Yogacara school of Buddhism which was founded principally by Asanga and Vasubandhu. […] How is the Cittamatra of the Lankavatara to be distinguished from the Vijnanamatra?

Or are they the same, only differently designated? The following is given more to elucidate -the Lankavatara position than to give a definite answer to the question. It is a most significant question deserving a fuller treatment than we may discuss here.

The doctrine persistently maintained in the Lankavatara is Cittamatra or Cittadrisyamatra, and not Vijnana- or Vijfiapti-matra, which, according to Asanga and Vasuban- dim, is "Idam sarvam vijnaptimdtrakam,"1 meaning by idam that which is discriminated as "This is the self" and "That is an external reality," that is, this world where the subject is distinguished from the object, or, to use Buddhist terminology, the triple world including both samskrita and asamskrita. It is true that Citta is quite frequently identified with Vijnana or Vijnapti as in the following gatha, in which this identification is explicitly referred to:

"Mind (citta), discrimination, representation (vijnapti), the will (manas), consciousness (viJnana), the storage (dlaya), that which makes the triple world,—all these are synonyms of mind (citta)." But when the word "Cittamatra" is used, this Citta has a specific sense to be distinguished from the empirical mind which functions as Manas and Vijnana. As I have repeatedly remarked, the Citta in the Lankavatara is the principle of mentality, and when it is said that there is the "Mind-only," this mind includes"not only the empirical mind but that which constitutes the very basis of discrimination. The mind is what is left behind when all forms of discrimination are rejected as leading to spiritual bondage and defilement. It is thus something that has been here even prior to all discrimination, that is, even before the duality of subject and object had come to exist.The Lankavatara does not advocate nihilism pure and simple; it tries to take hold of somewhat beyond this world of particularisation. When one has actually taken hold of it by sheer act of intuition which is made possible by the working of non-discriminative wisdom (avikalpa-Jnana) ,3 or supreme wisdom (drya Jnana) ,4 or superior knowledge (prajfid) in the inmost recesses of consciousness (pratydtmagocara), the Lankavatara calls it the Mind (citta). And as there is nothing subjective or objective besides this Mind, the Cittamatra or "Mind-only" theory is now positively established. The philosophy, if there is any such thing in the Lankavatara, is ontology and not epistemology. Whereas the doctrine of Vijnaptimatra is epistemological.

 

From 281-282:

 

In the Lankavatara no reference is made to the Vijnapti except probably once, but rather to the Prajnaptimatra view of the world; and even in the latter case the reference is negligible, considering that the weight of the whole discourse in the Lankavatara falls on the Cittamatra and not on the Prajfiaptimatra or Vijnaptimatra or Namamatra or Vikalpamatra.  The sutra does not linger long on the question of the world being merely a name or a representation, but it exhausts its powers of persuasion to convince the reader that the world is Mind itself, and that it is only by realizing this truth in one's own inner consciousness that enlightenment ensues. The transcendental mind, or Mind itself, or "Mind-only" is thus made the chief subject of the text. In this it varies from the teaching of the Yogacara: the latter emphasises the process of transformation which takes place in the Alayavijnana, and it naturally makes most of the aspect of existence which is to be considered merely ideational. It does not go further on to say that there is the "Mind-only" as the principle of unification in which all representations (vijnapti) „ cogitations (manana), discriminations (vikalpa), and a world of particulars (vishaya), leave no traces. According to Sthiramati's commentary, the Trimsika is regarded as written for those who do not understand truthfully (yathabhutam) what is meant by Cittamatram, but this does not mean that the Cittamatra is the Vijiiaptimatra. The former may be based on the latter, or we can say that when the Cittamatra is declared as a fact of intuitive knowledge, the doctrine of Vijnaptimatra logically follows from this realisation. The Trimsika may thus form a part of the Lankavatara's philosophical foundation, but we must not overlook the fact that there is a conceptual difference between the theme of the Lankavatara and the Yogacara's psychological or rather epistemological interpretation of existence.

 

Bearing in mind this important distinction between the consciousness-only of the Yogacara and the mind-only of the One Vehicle as it is presented in the Lankavatara, we can look, for example, at  Section XVII of the Lanka discussing the "permanent and inconceivable."

 

 

Red Pine's translation:

At that time, Mahamati Bodhisattva asked the Buddha, “Bhagavan, the Tathagata teaches that what is eternal and inconceivable is the realm of ultimate truth, the real of buddha knowledge one realizes oneself.  Bhagavan, do other schools not teach that what is eternal and inconceivable is a cause?

            The Buddha told Mahamati, “The cause of other schools does not qualify as eternal and inconceivable. And why not? Because what other schools claim is eternal and inconceivable is not the result of its own causal attribute. If what is eternal and inconceivable is not the result of its own causal attribute, on what basis does it appear as eternal and inconceivable? Furthermore, Mahamati, if what is inconceivable were the result of its own causal attribute, it would be eternal. But because it would be due to the causal attribute of a creator, it would not qualify as eternal and inconceivable.

            “Mahamati, the reason my ultimate truth is eternal and inconceivable is because ultimate truth is the result of a causal attribute that transcends existence and nonexistence.  Because the attainment of personal realization is its attribute, it has an attribute. And because the knowledge of ultimate truth is its cause, it has a cause.  And because it is beyond existence and nonexistence, it resembles what is not created: space, nirvana, and complete cessation.  This is why it is eternal. Hence, Mahamati, it is not the same as the doctrines about what is eternal and inconceivable of other schools. Thus, Mahamati, this eternal and inconceivable is attained by personal realization of the knowledge of the tathagatas. Therefore, the eternal and inconceivable attained by the personal realization of buddha knowledge is what you should cultivate.

            “Moreover, Mahamati, the eternal and inconceivable of members of other schools is impermanent because it is caused b y something else and because it lacks the power to create its own causal attribute. Also, Mahamati, members of other schools consider their eternal and inconceivable as eternal despite having witness the impermanence of the existence and nonexistence of what is created.

            “Mahamati, despite having witnessed the impermanence of the existence and nonexistence of what is created, I could use the same method to claim that the realm of buddha knowledge realized by oneself is eternal and free form causes.  Mahamati, if the eternal and inconceivable of other schools were the result of a causal attribute and that causal attribute did not itself exist, it would be the same as horns on a rabbit.  Their eternal and inconceivable would be merely words and imagination. This is the problem among members of other schools. And how so? Because what is merely words and imagination is the same as rabbit horns, for which a causal attribute does not exist.

            “Mahamati, what I speak of as eternal and inconceivable is eternal because it is based on the attribute of personal realization and because it transcends the existence and nonexistence of what is created.  It is not in consideration of the impermanence of external nonexistence that it is eternal. Mahamati, if what is eternal and inconceivable were eternal in consideration of the impermanence of external nonexistence, there would be no way to know the eternal and inconceivable’s own causal attribute.  As this distracts people from the attainment of the personal realization of the realm of buddha knowledge, it is not worth talking about.”

 

D.T. Suzuki's translation:

       At that time Mahamati the Bodhisattva-Mahasattva said this to the Blessed One: According to the Blessed One's teaching, the eternal-unthinkable is the exalted condition of self-realisation and also of highest reality. Now, do not the philosophers also talk about the creative agent being the eternal-unthinkable?

       The Blessed One replied: No, Mahamati, the eternal-unthinkable considered by the philosophers to be characteristic of their creator is untenable. Why? Because, Mahamati, the eternal-unthinkable as held by the philosophers is not in conformity with the idea of a cause itself. When, Mahamati, this eternal-unthinkable is not in conformity with the idea of a cause itself how can this be proved tenable? (60) Again, Mahamati, if what is claimed to be the eternal-unthinkable is in conformity with the idea of a cause [which is eternal] in itself, it can be eternal; but since the idea of a creator is based upon that of a [further] cause, it cannot be the eternal-unthinkable.

       But, Mahamati, my highest reality is the eternal-unthinkable since it conforms to the idea of a cause and is beyond existence and non-existence. Because it is the exalted state of self-realisation it has its own character; because it is the cause of the highest reality it has its causation; because it has nothing to do with existence and non-existence it is no doer; because it is to be classed under the same head as space, Nirvana, and cessation it is eternal. Therefore, Mahamati, it is not the same as the eternal-unthinkable of the philosophers; the eternal-unthinkable of the Tathagatas is thatness realised by noble wisdom within themselves. For this reason, Mahamati, let the Bodhisattva-Mahasattva discipline himself in order to attain by means of noble wisdom the truth of self-realisation which is the eternal-unthinkable.

       Again, further, Mahamati, the eternal-unthinkable of the philosophers is not characterised with eternality because it has a cause which is not eternal; what they regard as eternal is not eternal as it is not characterised with the power that can create itself. If again, Mahamati, the philosophers prove the eternality of their eternal-unthinkable in contradistinction to the becoming and therefore the non-eternality of things created, Mahamati, by the same reasoning (61) I can prove that their eternality has no reason to be known as such just because things created are non-eternal owing to their becoming.

       If again, Mahamati, the eternal-unthinkable of the philosophers is in conformity with the idea of a cause, what they regard as characteristic of a cause is a non-entity like the horns of a hare; and, Mahamati, their eternal-unthinkable is no more than a verbal discrimination, in which, Mahamati, the philosophers' fault consists. Why? Because, Mahamati, mere verbal discriminations are, indeed, the hare's horns, on account of their having no characteristic of a self-cause. Mahamati, moreover, my eternal-unthinkable is really eternal because it finds its cause in the exalted state of self-realisation, and because it has nothing to do with a creator, with being and non-being. Its eternality is not derived from the reasoning which is based upon the external notion of being and non-being, of eternity and non-eternity. If the eternal-unthinkable is eternal in consideration of the non-existence and eternality of external things, we can say of this kind of the eternal-unthinkable that the philosophers do not know what is meant by characteristically self-caused. As they are outside the state of self-realisation attainable by noble wisdom, Mahamati, their discourse is not to the point.

 

This is an important section presenting the One Vehicle view of the teaching of impermanence of dharmas in relation to codependent origination and to creation and causation as taught by other schools. The term for permanent can also be translated as “eternal” or “constant.”  This section is saying that as for dharmas, the teaching of impermanence in the teaching of the three marks of existence is okay, but as for the One Vehicle the teaching goes beyond the impermanence of dharmas to teach the permanence and constancy of the Dharmakaya which is the ultimate truth of the Tathagata. This characterization of the Dharmakaya as being characterized by the paramita of permanency is a teaching of the One Vehicle repeated in the various One Vehicle sutras. For example, the Sutra of Queen Srimala's Lion's Roar says, "The Dharmakaya of the Tathagata is the paramita of permanence, the paramita of joy, the paramita of self, and the paramita of purity."  

 

This section is a description of how causation looks from the perspective of the One Vehicle; it is not an argument about faith. All non-Buddhist schools base their notions of creation on having faith in their story of creation. In Buddha Dharma, the realization of cause is not based on faith but on one's personal realization of the noble-knowledge or noble innate-intelligence (aryajnana). Since personal realization is within the ability of everyone, the cause of our knowing the "constant and inconceivable" basis of reality is within the ability of everyone. Though individual dharmas arise, abide, and are destroyed by codependent origination, the Tahtagata teaches the ultimate truth that is constant and inconceivable and that the cause for the knowing of this constant and inconceivable ultimate truth is the personal realization of this noble innate-intelligence. Dharmas do not transcend existence and nonexistence which is why dharmas have the three marks of existence.  However, that is also why the teaching of dharmas and codependent origination are teachings of conditional self-nature and are not teachings of the ultimate truth of the complete self-nature. So in this section the Buddha is teaching that in the perspective of the One Vehicle the Early Schools are teaching conditional truth, not ultimate truth.

 

Then the Buddha takes up the teachings of other schools that do not even rise to the level of teaching the conditional truth, but are only verbal fabrications and teachings of false conceptions like the horns of a rabbit. This is the point being made by saying that all things that are created are impermanent, and so a created God or First Cause that exists as a thing is also created so any claim of its permanence is just like the false imagination of a rabbit with horns. Likewise, Buddha avoids the trap of saying the permanent and inconceivable Dharmakaya is uncaused because that would mean it was nonexistent. The cause of the permanent and inconceivable ultimate truth of the Tathagata is awakening itself, here called our own personal realization of the noble innate-intelligence.

 

It is an extremely subtle point to confirm that awakening itself is a cause, but that cause itself transcends the existence and nonexistence of things that are created (i.e., dharmas), otherwise it would not be able to awaken us to that which transcends existence and nonexistence. Thus the One Vehicle taught in the Lanka both affirms causation and simultaneously points us to the permanent and inconceivable that transcends existence and nonexistence and is not constrained by causation even while it is viewed and experienced as causation.

 

Soylent Green is people!

When it comes to economic politics, my motto is "Soylent Green is people! If we don't eat the rich, figuratively speaking, the rich will feed us to ourselves, literally speaking."

If you don't know the Soylent Green reference, check out the 1973 science fiction film Soylent Green which I consider to be Charlton Heston's best film. It was also the great actor Edward G. Robinson's last film.

Spoiler Alert: Or jump to the synopsis of Soylent Green at Wikipedia..

Basically, for instance, there is no reasonable justification for the rich to have unearned income from financial investments at a far lower rate for "capital gains"  than workers pay on their earned income.  It is just one of the ways in which the rich control Congress to their own benefit and redistribute the nation's wealth into their own pockets.  We see worldwide how the rich are demanding austerity from the working class for the purpose of bailing out the banks and their own lack of austerity.

As a follower of the Buddha Dharma, I begin with the premise that all these distinctions are distinctions made by the false thinking of our own mind, the mind that is one mind, because the 1istinction that we are separate minds is also a discrimination of that very same mind. As the Buddha said,

“I now universally see that everyone of the multitude of beings is endowed with the qualities of the Tathagata’s wisdom and virtue.  However by means of erroneous thinking and grasping attachments, nevertheless they do not bear witness to attaining it.”

This common endowment of the Tathagata's wisdom and virtue is the basis for what we call the Golden Rule. Since we all have the shared foundation of the mind ground, to treat each other as if we do not have the same Buddha nature is the result of our erroneous thinking, false conceptions, and grasping attachments..
 
As a political democracy, it is the obligation of citizens to prevent the rich from stealing resources and wealth from the nation and redistributing it to their own pockets and bank accounts.  The private banking system and institutions of legalized financial gambling on Wall Street, called "the stock market," "hedge funds," "derivative investments", etc. should be severely regulated to keep them fair. There is nothing wrong with markets that fairly trade in actual ownership of stocks, but these money carnivals are nothing other than gambling institutions that hold our economy in their grip.  

Most importantly, the money of the government should never be dependent upon or entangled with private banking, as that is the primary way that the people's treasury is looted into the private pockets of the rich. The people's public money in their government treasury should always be held in a public bank.  A public banking system is the single most important change that would prevent the kind of financial collapses that we have seen created by the gambling institutions of Wall Street.  Here's a wonderful but sad story of the destruction of the Canadian public banking system at the hands of the rich in their never ending greed. 

 

Realism is a metaphysical assertion

A skeptic writes:

Aah – but if it were not for our individual perception, through the eyes of ‘I’, we would not survive in this world. We drive down the road making decisions and physical adjustments to ensure our own safety and the safety of others.

This ‘allusion’ theory is all hogwash, in my opinion.  What is so terribly wrong with realism that we should throw it out with the bathwater?  Nothing lacking, nothing superfluous.

We should not get confused between our physical world and how things are in the moment. 'I' most certainly exists (IMO).  This does not mean that is not part of a much greater 'I".

It is ironical that of all spiritual practises Zen should be most hijacked by  metaphysicists when it probably the least metaphysical of all.  :blush:

Just as I'm seeinit at this moment in time

:Namaste:

 

My response:

All one = alone. That is not a metaphysical statement, it is a statement of immediate and direct knowing.  We can not get into squabbles if we are not simultaneously all one and alone. This is the meaning of the fourfold dharmadhatu taught in the Avatamsaka Sutra and affirmed by Zen.

Well, it looks to me like there is confusion and a failure to distinguish clearly between (1) what is conditioned simply by the necessity of language and (2) what is truly "metaphysical." 

The "I" as a conceptual configuration is exactly what is metaphysical when that "I" is treated as anything but a conceptual configuration.

From the Zen Buddhist perspective, as supported by the Lankavatara, Avatamsaka, Queen Srimala's Lion's Roar Sutras and others, the notion of a "physical world" is a metaphysical conception.  In fact, the notion of a "physical world" is a construction centered in the fourth skandha activity supported by the interactions of the other skandhas.

The idea that perception is "through the eyes" is not a Zen idea, it is a philosophical and metaphysical idea.  The Surangama Sutra articulates this issue, nearly ad nauseum, when Buddha explains to Ananda in countless ways how it is only erroneous conception to think that perception is through the eyes, much less, through the eyes of "I". 

"Self" consciousness is a natural mirage, the most natural illusion of the human consciousness and this is because human consciousness is based on the abiding state of ignorance. As the sutras teach, there is no  greater power "in the world" than the abiding state of ignorance. The only power capable of freeing us from the hold of the false conceptions arising from the abiding state of ignorance is the power that is not contained in or by the worldly conceptions. Even the arahants and bodhisattvas cannot overcome it.

Queen Srimala's Lion's Roar Sutra writes:

 

"World Honored One, the mind does not match up with the beginningless abiding state of ignorance.  World Honored One, the force of these four abiding states is the basic seed of every ascending affliction, yet that, as well, is unable to be compared, by calculation or by metaphor, to the abiding state of ignorance.  World Honored One, such is the force of the abiding state of ignorance, that as for the fourth abiding state of the love of existence this force of the abiding state of ignorance is even greater.   To allegorize, it is like surpassing the forms, force, length of life, retinue, and multitude of possessions of the Evil Mara-Papiyan in the Heaven of Paranirmitavaśavarin.  Such is the force of the abiding state of ignorance, that as for the fourth abiding state of the love of existence this force conquers it.  As the basis of the numerous classes of the ascending afflictions as numerous as the sands of the Ganges, likewise it decrees that the four kinds of afflictions long abide.   That state of the innate intelligence of the Arhats and Independent Buddhas does not eliminate it.  Only that state of the innate intelligence of the enlightenment of the Tathagata eliminates it.  Thus it is World Honored One the abiding state of ignorance is a very great force."

The existence of an "I" is the very most uncertain thing that is the most mistaken to be certain. The certainty of the "I" is only a metaphysical certainty.

Realism is a metaphysical assertion by a school of philosophy.

_/|\_

Gregory