Forest, Meet Tree →

The Buddha's teaching of anatman, or “not-self” is often troubling and/or misunderstood by practitioners, both seasoned and novice. A number of techniques have been used to allay the fear of losing “my self,” by the Buddha and subsequent sages. As with all teachings, the use of Upaya, or “skillful means” is crucial. The Buddha was addressing bhikkhus, not standard householders, and as such, their capacity for understanding anatman is likely to have been more advanced than that of lay people.

So, what is a skillful way not to cause more suffering with the teaching of not-self? Certainly, having just described the human condition as characterized by dissatisfaction and that there was a means to relieve this dis-ease, immediately introducing as horror-inducing a concept as annihilating “me” doesn't seem to be a reassuring approach, especially if you throw the word "emptiness" in on top of that. What a hollow feeling! If one looks at the Five Skandhas--Form, Feelings, Perceptions, Impulses, and Consciousness--seeing that they in and of themselves do not comprise a permanent entity shouldn't be too threatening. All of them are constantly changing, de facto pointing to their not lasting permanently, i.e., obviously being impermanent. These five heaps haven't any Self-Nature or permanence of their own, therefore are characterized by emptiness, so added together it can't be expected they would somehow comprise something permanent. If one looks at the Buddha's teaching directly, he doesn't so much say that there isn't a “self,” as that the Skandhas aren't it.

The Relative/Absolute approach may be less threatening to the much clung-to need for “identity.” In the relative, you're you, I'm me, and we'd see that truth if I went to the bank and tried to make a withdrawal from your account. In the Absolute however, where do you end and I begin? From 30,000 feet, vegetation may seen, but as to whether that's grass or trees may not be so obvious. Coming in closer, tress may appear, but not necessarily whether they're pines or oaks. Closer in still, that they're oaks becomes evident, closer in still, individual trees, and so on down into bark, xylem, phloem, and finally to individual cells. At what point can we see the forest for the trees? And while a plant cell doesn't make a mighty oak, neither can the oak exist without the individual cell. The cells are the Relative, the patch of vegetation is the Absolute. The tree only manifests through the cells, the cells only manifest through the tree.

In the Ananda Sutta as translated by Thanissaro Bhikkhu, the Buddha and his cousin and attendant Ananda have a dialog:

"Ananda, if I — being asked by Vacchagotta the wanderer if there is a self — were to answer that there is a self, that would be conforming with those brahmans & contemplatives who are exponents of eternalism [the view that there is an eternal, unchanging soul]. If I — being asked by Vacchagotta the wanderer if there is no self — were to answer that there is no self, that would be conforming with those brahmans & contemplatives who are exponents of annihilationism [the view that death is the annihilation of consciousness]. If I — being asked by Vacchagotta the wanderer if there is a self — were to answer that there is a self, would that be in keeping with the arising of knowledge that all phenomena are not-self?"

If one were to look at the totality of the Buddha's teaching of the Dharma, it doesn't stop at personal liberation. It isn't an annihilationist (you don't exist) No Self, and likewise is not an eternalist the Self is an unchanging, permanent entity, it is the Middle Path between either of those extremes. And what is the preeminent aspect of the teaching, and from a natural selection standpoint, the most important is being selfless rather than self-centered.

The Diamond Sutra refers to “all beings are no-beings, thus are they called beings.” The Bodhisattva vow is to save all beings. The Buddha says in that Sutra that anyone who thinks of him/herself as a Bodhisattva is not a Bodhisattva, because that reflects a belief in a self, an entity, a soul. It could also be inferred that thinking of oneself is a Bodhisattva is also an egotistical exercise, thinking of oneself as superior to the other beings who need saving. And yet, in a self-less mindset, the Bodhisattva saves all beings.

A Huayan approach to all this might be that “all beings” includes oneself, and that all beings are totally dependent on ALL beings, with no line dividing the Bodhisattva from other beings. Thus, do to the interdependence, the "individual" contains all beings, just as the more obvious ALL contains the "individual. There is no tree without a cell, a cell is no-cell unless it is a tree. Dogen Zenji's teaching of "Actualizing the Fundamental Point" contains:

"To study the Buddha way is to study the self. To study the self is to forget the self. To forget the self is to be actualized by myriad things. When actualized by myriad things, your body and mind as well as the bodies and minds of others drop away. No trace of realization remains, and this no-trace continues endlessly." (Translated by Robert Aitken and Kazuaki Tanahashi, Revised at San Francisco Zen Center)

As much as anything, this typifies the journey the practitioner takes--clinging to the notion of self, seeing through that via meditation and analysis, seeing the interdependence of all beings, then seeing there be no need to cling to a "self." In not clinging, there is no worry of self/no-self, just join the world and do no harm. The tree doesn't care if it's in a forest, the forest doesn't care about trees, the trees just do what trees do, the forest does what forests do, and that is all perfect the way that is.

Barnacles →

In Zen, you'll often hear things like Suzuki-Roshi’s statement, “You're perfect as you are...and you need a little work.”

ZM Seung Sahn quotes from “Song of Dharma Nature”: 

“The nature of the Dharmas is perfect. It does not have two different aspects.
“All the various Dharmas are unmoving and fundamentally still.
“They are without name and form, cut off from all things.
“This is understood by enlightened wisdom, and not by any other sphere.”

Some point to war, genocide, the Holocaust, child abuse, and all the other events typically perceived as evil as Not Perfect. It would be tough to think of any of those measuring up to “Perfect.” That's also the kind of thinking some use to “prove,” or at least question the existence of God, who is also thought of as perfect.

So it seems the first problem we encounter is using the common definition of “perfect.” Usually that's used to define a state that isn't imperfect, and that is just dualism and dissatisfaction--Dukkha in a nutshell. This neither perfect nor not-imperfect state is impermanent, so that's not what the Zen Masters refer to. Aiming for perfection is a decidedly non-Buddhist activity, as the Three Doors of Liberation are Emptiness, Signlessness, and Aimlessness. We can think of “aimlessness” as not expecting a payoff--we don't meditate to become buddha any more than we’d polish a brick so it becomes a mirror.

There could be a misunderstanding of the Three Doors that leads to complacency, even annihilationism. You could mistake the Heart Sutra’s message that “form is emptiness” or the Diamond Sutras all dharmas are no-dharmas, leaving out the second half of those two statements, leading to the annihilationist view that since everything is empty, nothing matters, so Par-tay! I'm pretty sure that if you read the Sutras, dialogs with the Great Patriarchs, and/or have a teacher of your own, that none of them will infer that these are the correct interpretation. You could say that “If you ain't doing what a Buddha does, you ain't  being what a Buddha is.”

But when we’re not feeling particularly Buddha-esque, when we don’t think our actions are what the World-honored one would have done in the situation we’re in now, when things are anything but perfect, there is still something Buddha-like that can be done. Our practice may include meditation as the Buddha did, in which we examine who or what it is that is feeling like not-the-Buddha. We may take refuge in our sangha, whatever that may be, and ask for some guidance, and if not guidance, at least a hint. We may take refuge in the Dharma, maybe by reading a Sutra, but maybe by going a step further and examining what the Dharma is, without so many dead words. “What is this that is asking the question?” “Help!” “Hmmm, the Buddha really read Ananda the riot act in the Shurangama Sutra. Ananda is asking the same questions and being confused just like I am. Maybe there’s something in there applicable to me.” And quite possibly, we realize that our mental image of “What would Buddha Do?” is a pointless exercise in just more thought, and more thought that we take as based in reality, when in fact, that’s not really the case. It’s just projecting our “selves” into a story that is no more real than sky-flowers.

Ultimately, we examine the self to forget the self, as Dogen put it. We examine and examine some more, just what is the Dharma in our life right here&now. What is the Dharma? What IS the Dharma, I need to solve this riddle now, as if there were no other time to find the answer. In a more honest and less cliched way, what WOULD a buddha do? But, most important, what is buddha. I can refer to what the Great Ancestors said, but they said them 1,000 years ago, and they said them to a monk in a Chinese temple, and frankly, I’m not a thousand-year-old Chinese monk, and that’s not who is thinking what I’m thinking.

One of the first times I went to sit with a Zen group, a man named Alan Drake took it upon himself to help coach us novices. I don’t know if he was ordained, I got the feeling he had at one time practiced Tibetan Buddhism, but he was there helping us get a handle on this thing we were basically clueless about. I’d read a lot of general Buddhist writings, and out of all of the traditions, Zen just felt right. I didn’t have a clue what any of it meant, I didn’t understand what kong-ans were when I read them, how much moreso did I not know what they did. I seriously didn’t know why he told me to read “Moon in a Dewdrop,” and really seriously didn’t know why he gave me a copy of Nagarjuna’s “The Fundamental Wisdom of the Middle Way.” Oddly enough, I was able to wrap my arms around Nagarjuna more than Dogen, which in retrospect, is a bit odd. But Alan was there to guide us, to help us, to relieve our struggle and dissatisfaction with our situations, different as they may have been from one of us to the next. He said something that had never dawned on me, something I hadn’t even considered to consider, and that I never thought of as anything but a given.

He said that in Buddhism, there is no Original Sin. You could say the same for Judaism, but I wasn’t coming from that background, so to my thinking there was this blot on my, and everyone else’s, eternal soul. He also dispelled a number of other misconceptions is that sentence eventually, but his point was that, I, and every other being, was not born blemished. At the very least, I was starting with a blank slate; maybe not having the wisdom of the Sages, but also not any worse off than anyone else born into this world of struggle. He was planting the seed of our pristine nature in our fertile little heads, though we didn't know it at the time, or what it was called, or how much discussion has gone on about it. I didn’t attach name and form to it (whatever “it” was), didn’t have any attachment to expectations, what was right and wrong about it, whether I agreed with it, whether it was green or yellow or long or short. But it was as much as anything a relief.

Let’s say you just bought a new boat. It’s a beautiful boat, not a flaw to it. Great paint job, nice finish on the woodwork, comfortable furniture, no leaks. Nothing more could ever be asked of a boat. Taking it out on the ocean, it holds up well in both calm and choppy seas. Sure, when it’s choppy, it isn’t the same smooth ride as when it’s placid, but it holds up well nevertheless. Then the colder weather comes, and it seems like it would be a lot easier not to go sailing, at least not today...or tomorrow...or the next day. And soon, that pristine boat is starting to get a bit shabby. There was some food left in the fridge, and that was probably a bad idea, unless there’s a high school science fair coming up, or you’re trying to develop biological weapons. Some leaves got blown in from the shoreline, and they’re starting to accumulate in the corners of the deck. Someone apparently thought this boat would be a perfect place to toss some old beer cans, especially the ones that weren’t quite empty, and someone else decided the same about their soda cans. Between the leftover food and the liquids that once were liquid and now are some other consistency, there are flies, mice, a couple wharf rats spending time on deck. That’s all obvious, so cleaning it wouldn’t really take too much effort. What’s going on below the waterline however, is more insidious. Barnacles. Really well-attached, verging on embedded, barnacles. So far as the boat is concerned, it’s questionable how easily the boat can extricate itself from these little, multitudinous, calcified, clingy creatures.

Underneath all of them however, the boat is still pristine, the leaves and beer cans can go away, even the barnacles can be scraped off--they are clingy and they’re not coming off easily, but they can come off, to reveal the perfect nature of the boat. It’s never been imperfect, its perfection has just been obscured by a few things. Does that sound like any humans whose teeth you might brush in the morning? The being who only needs someone with a scraper to take care of those damn clingy, really tightly held karmic barnacles? The one who finds out he or she can be the only one to scrape those barnacles away themselves, but with others’ help humbly and gratefully accepted? And who might find out that being mindful of the next time a barnacle tries to attach itself? Those damn barnacles can always come back, we only need to keep from attaching themselves too tightly. But under the barnacles it is perfect, even with the barnacles, it is already perfect.

The barnacle is also a perfect barnacle, just doing what a barnacle does. Scrape anyway, and help the next boat owner scrape too. 

Click on the title to hear the Dharma Talk, or navigate to:
https://soundcloud.com/onemindzen/barnacles

The Lobster in the Tank

If you go to a seafood restaurant in the Northeastern US (maybe elsewhere), you may encounter what at first looks like an aquarium. But it’s only stocked with lobsters, and there aren't the typical deep sea diver toys, little castles, and fake seaweed as you might find in a common home aquarium. The lobsters are in fact packed really tightly, and sometimes fight leaving one or both without a claw, and maybe whatever other appendage a lobster might have that they can lose. It could be said that it’s just lobsters doing what lobsters naturally do, except lobsters aren’t typically crammed by the dozen into a 20-gallon tank. Maybe that makes them a little more irritable, like when in the evening rush hour on a subway, someone is just a little too close for comfort, and in this case “close” might mean no air gap whatsoever between him and you...and he had garlic for lunch.

The lobster tank always seemed a bit off to me. Seemed like going to a steakhouse and picking the cow you wanted your steak to come from. It seems like in both cases, this would be a really obvious violation of the old precept of not having anything killed specifically for your lunch. But, lest you fear this is going to turn into a pro-vegetarianism screed, it isn't. And likewise I’m also not endorsing omnivorism, so you can’t get any free passes justifying that either. If anything, this will be a rant against the number of “lobster tank-esque” moments we have all too often.

Virya is one of the Six Perfections, and it’s sometimes associated with “Right Effort” in the Noble Eightfold Path as well. It’s usually translated as diligence, effort, perseverance, and so on. The Sanskrit root is the same as the English “virility,” I think “strength” can work just as well.  We should practice as if “our hair was on fire,” as an ancient once said. If we extend our practice to beyond the cushion, we should live as if our hair were on fire, treating each day as the only day to do what needs to be done. If You don’t think strength isn’t part of your makeup, diligence, persistence, and effort will be short lived.

Most people think of Zen as a noun, or as a translation of the Sanskrit dhyana,, by way of Chinese Ch’an, by way of Korean Sŏn, and then Japanese Zen. Starting with dhyana, they all refer to seated meditation, but are also inclusive of the entire practice of whichever sect. That still leaves “Zen” as an umbrella noun, which in turn refers to various verbs--seated meditating, chanting, bowing, walking, practicing koans, holding a huatou, and so on. All of these on their own turn are actions. Even the “quiescent” or “silent illumination” end of things actively just sits. When fully done, it can take the fullest concentration and mindfulness as chanting or walking. When not so fully done, it might be the equivalent of lolling in a lounge chair, conceptual thinking, wandering thinking--with generally half-hearted effort.

The reason I prefer to refer to Zen as a verb is because the practice when done fully extends well beyond the edge of the cushion, covering the other 23 hours not spent there. It is active! Zen, being among the Mahayana schools of practice sets the Bodhisattva as a role model for the practitioner in addition to the Buddha(s). The Bodhisattva eschews entering the state of Nirvana until all beings have entered, according to some definitions. Once again depending on what text you refer to, there are stages of Bodhisattvahood (Bhumis), but we’ll go with ten:

1. State of the joyous (Pramudita)
2. The stainless (Vimala)
3. The light maker/the luminous (Prabhakari)
4. The radiant (Arcismati)
5. The very hard to conquer/Difficult to cultivate (Sudurjaya)
6. The turning towards/The manifest (Abhimukhi)
7. The far going/Gone afar (Durangama)
8. The unshakeable/The Immovable (Acala)
9. The good mind/The good intelligence (Sadhumati)
10. The cloud of Dharma (Dharmamegha)

In the Lankavatara Sutra, the Buddha spends a fair amount of time on the 8th Bhumi. It’s just past the turning point. Up to now, the Bodhisattva could say, “Yep, I’m good, let's bring on that Nirvana thing.” When the Bodhisattva hits #8, there’s no backsliding. There is a full commitment to fulfilling the Bodhisattva vows, entering into, assimilating, living the Dharma, for the sake of all beings. It’s not repeating the words of there being an infinite number of sentient beings and vowing to save them all, it’s gotten to the point where it has become, “I will help all people I come in contact with (throwing in whatever other sentient beings one might come across like lobsters and cows, for example). At this stage, the Bodhisattva is unshakeable in his/her determination only to help. No fame, no fortune, no vilification, no economic distress, nothing. You could call it “no gaining notion,” but also “no losing notion.” The notion of saving infinite beings doesn’t phase him/her any more than there being a notion of there being no beings, no Bodhisattva, nor any saving to be done. It’s just, “How may I help you?” And to do is to take fearless action.

That can be really liberating, even if a little daunting. Not being hindered by worry sounds great! Not having to second-guess ourselves because of what others might think--positive or negative--sounds like a pretty good deal. Of course, the “helpee” may be appreciative, may not notice, or may be angry for the “help.” Doesn’t matter. Takes some effort? Don’t care. People may think I’m a jerk? Meh. Likewise, people might think I’m really cool or smart? Likewise meh. If you carefully consider real-life situations where you’ve acted as a Bodhisattva, you’ll probably see that all of these potential outcomes have probably been the result of whatever the action amy have been, maybe by the same person, maybe by many. Considering Bell Curves, there's probably more “Meh” than “Magnificent!”

There’s good news in all this if you’d like a little validation before fully embarking on the path of the Bodhisattva. The 8th stage is also where we are without reservation on the path to Buddhahood. And this means that you are seeing your True Buddha Nature, which is as the Great Sages of the past have said, is indeed “Buddha.” You may think you’re at stage -1, and maybe a lot of the time, your are acting, thinking, and speaking that way. But in this fickle, ever-changing state of being/non-being, it's not out of the realm of possibilities that you are not only at stage 8, 9, or 10, but that you are a Buddha. And for that moment, there’s no backsliding. The next moment? Well, that’s the next moment. That kind of thing doesn’t bother the 8th Bhumi Bodhisattva anyway, so why worry?

What all this entails, whether it be Great Faith, Great Courage, or Great Doubt, practicing the Perfections, having the Immeasurables at the forefront of our minds, is a matter of discerning what the skillful action is at that moment. To be what a Buddha is, do what a Buddha does. We already know what that is. It will take effort, diligence, strength, and action. Can't help all beings without the act of helping, whatever form help may take at the moment. We have our choices though. We can strive to act as Buddhas and Bodhisattvas, or we can be lazy and live like the lobster in the tank, waiting for that hungry ghost trying to sate itself on us.