Underinformed Speculation and Elaboration on Buddhist Teachings

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Is there a point to the core Mahayana teachings that people in the West can appreciate today?

First let me tell you that the under-informed speculation and elaboration on Buddhist teachings refers to what I write here when I happen to be pondering such a topic. A perusal of the past eight years worth of material confirms this.

This means I am not here to present myself as speaking with any kind of authority on behalf of the Buddhist tradition as a scholar in the field or a long time fruitful and insightful practitioner who speaks from years of ever-deepening wisdom. It's important to state that up front. If you think I sound ignorant, I probably am.

So what background am I coming from? In my spare time I've read some key sutras, many commentaries on major sutras, summaries of commentaries on important sutras, and summaries and commentaries compiled about the summaries and commentaries of those sutras, and once in a while I actually attempt some form of practice. Plus I've got a little familiarity with materials comparing different traditions such a Christian and Buddhist mysticism and monasticism. If that sounds impressive, you're funny. If you think it is, trust me, it isn't.

So with that introduction out of the way, off we go.

The World of Illusion

So much ink and so many pixels have been used to write about terms such as emptiness for Western audiences and who, including me, have little real appreciation for the unspoken cultural transmission and atmosphere that provides context for such concepts.

And I suspect that many people are intellectually over-dosing on these terms.

I think they are useful and even ingenious, but I can't help feeling that they are what are called skillful means, or tricks to get people to follow the right path and help them overcome obstacles on the path. Allow to me to explain what I mean by using the broad, generic translations of the terms as they are widely known in the English-speaking world.

Emptiness refers to lack of intrinsic existence of phenomena, i.e. things we encounter in our experiences of reality. We discriminate our experiences into different individual "things" (phenomena), divide those phenomena into named categories (taxa), assign properties and qualities to those taxa (traits), and establish causal scenarios in which taxa interact with each other via their traits. We use these causal relationships to understand and explain what we observe. For example, the Earth's gravity pulls the ball back to the ground. Earth and ground are the primary phenomena, and gravity is another phenomenon that acts as a property of the Earth acting on an unnamed property of the ball (its mass) to produce an effect -- the falling of the ball.

Social scientists and psychologists study how we come to have a sense of reality and how it works. By making our taxa and weaving them together into causal scenarios, we have a sense of how things are and how things ought to be. We produce a subjective sense of reality. We use our mental algorithms for shaping and interpreting our perception to augment that sense of reality and similar algorithms to explain and predict what is happening around us based on that sense of reality.

If those latter algorithms seem to correctly predict things more often than not, we assume they are accurate, even though it is possible that we are right sometimes for the wrong reasons or that we are simply selectively seeing things that match our expectations or interpreting our experiences to fit our expectations. Because we have a sense of how thing ought to be as well as a sense of how things are, we feel any disconnect between the two in emotional and moral terms: fairness, justice, rightness, satisfaction, and so on, as well as their opposites such as unfairness, injustice, wrongness, dissatisfaction, regret, longing, and so forth.

"Fine", you may be thinking, "but where are you going with this?"

Fair enough. Here is why it matters to the topic at hand.

Believing in God isn't the same as believing in God--being open to truths of religion & spirituality

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There is a difference between direct, first-hand experience and second or third or fourth hand knowledge. In the West, and perhaps the world, religion is now a matter of second-hand knowledge. Faith mostly means trusting the sources for this second-hand knowledge. Do you believe God is ____________? Unless you are a very rare bird whatever you used to fill in the blank ("not real", "love", "my Father", "the same as shunyata", etc) is based on second-hand knowledge. It is based on theology, philosophy, social psychology, cultural influence, and a host of other factors which we mistake for direct, first-hand experience. Our view fits our needs and our value system, including our epistemology (i.e. how we know what we think we know). We may even talk about our personal experiences (or lack thereof) with God, but these too can readily be inspired or interpreted by our second-hand sources.

Now this may sound like an argument for atheism, but I've included it in the list of views of God based on second-hand knowledge as well as agnosticism or whatever else one want to identify as or with. Because like all phenomena we want to put God, and heaven, and nirvana and the rest in labeled box with a proper name and a list of qualities or properties. Even those who may have had a glimpse of a deeper truth or reality beyond their second-hand world are at severe risk of then folding it back into a box, pigeon holing their experience and turning it into an idol. Even calling God ineffable is reducing God to something we can wrap our heads around, a concept to accept or reject. The same is true for our sacred texts and symbols as well, which are even more vulnerable.

One part of us wants certainty, clearly defined phenomena contained in rational and readily described categories, things which are uniform and predictable and easily subjected to the grossest forms of empirical verification, phrased in math and historical statements; the other allows for ambiguity, creativity, and paradox, engenders humility and wonder, allows for things beyond our ability to fully grasp, pin down, or control, phrased in metaphor and poetic language. The former tendency has become dominant in (Western) religion. We want to know, in specific terms, who God is/what God is/what God is like. We want to similar know what the Buddha meant when he held up a flower. We want to know with the same specificity and certainty what we are supposed to get out of the image of a crucifix, or contemplating a koan, or receiving the Eucharist. We want to know, we want to know, we want to know.

Greatly deluded within realization

Those who have great realization about delusion are buddhas. Those who are greatly deluded within realization are sentient beings.

-Dogen, "Flowers Fall"

This reminds me of something I once read (again). Basically, a student asked (paraphrasing): People seek rebirth in the Pure Land so they can be sure to attain enlightenment, but if the Pure Land isn't a literal place and is instead symbolic, then why not just go straight for enlightenment? Why seek to literally be reborn in an imaginary/metaphorical place? Here is part of the reply...

In truth, all the pure and impure lands in the ten directions are like dreams and illusions; however, only when we have attained the “Illusion-like Samadhi” can we see them as illusory and false. If we have not yet reached that stage, we will still see them as real, we are still subject to their sway, we will still know sorrow and happiness, we still feel uncomfortable during the summer heat and are even bothered by such small things as mosquito and ant bites. Thus, how can we speak about things being illusory? We should realize that the Pure Land method is a wonderful expedient of the Buddha, borrowing an illusory realm of happiness to help being escape from an illusory realm of great suffering, full of obstructing conditions and dangers. Them, from that happy, peaceful, illusory realm, cultivation progresses easily and the ever-silent realm of the True Mind is swiftly attained...


One more point to bear in mind: if we speak about the Truth of Emptiness without having attained that stage (or at least reached a certain level of achievement in our practice) we certainly cannot convert others but will only end up in useless arguments and disputes. (pp. 152)


Of the two types of attachments, to existence and to emptiness, the latter is very dangerous. Both the Lankavatara and the Esoteric Adornment Sutra state:


"It is better to be attached to existence, though attachment may be as great as Mount Sumeru, than to be attached to emptiness, though attachment may be as small as a mustard seed.”




Attachment to “existence” leads to mindfulness of cause and effect, wariness of transgressions and fear of breaking the precepts, as well as to Buddha and sutra recitation and performance of good deeds. Although these actions are bound to forms and not free and liberated, they are all conducive to merits, virtues, and good roots. On the other hand, if we are attached to emptiness without having attained True Emptiness, but refuse to follow forms and cultivate merits and virtues, we will certainly sink into the cycle of birth and death. (pp.153-154)


-excerpted from the comments of Master Thich Thien Tam in Pure Land Buddhism: Dialogues with Ancient Masters (from the section "Doubts & Questions about Pure Land")

In other words, it is one thing to start a practice believing literally in the metaphors and symbols (represented here as attachment to "existence"), and after long practice, come to move beyond the dichotomy of literal/symbolic based on having realized the Truth being pointed to in the tradition (represented here as attaining True Emptiness). But to just start saying "Oh, these are all just clever systems pointing to X", without ever having developed any genuine sense or appreciation of X beyond a dry and abstract conceptual level, you will then be "too clever" to really do the practices with sincerity, especially those where you need to "buy into" the imagery or the story (this cleverness represented here as attachment to "emptiness"). Hence you are actually #$^@* out of luck and would have been better off just believing in the literal view.

I am also reminded of other things I have read, such as this from a Zen-based group known as the Buddhist Society for Compassionate Wisdom....

1. All sentient beings are buddhas.


2. Samsara is Nirvana.


3. One's passions are enlightenment.


4. We are an interrelated whole.


5. Everyday life is the Way.

Number #3 is particularly relevant and reminiscent of the teachings of the SGI, particularly long-time President Ikeda's views. Which in turn reminds me of sayings like these...

"Form is no other than emptiness, emptiness no other than form; form is exactly emptiness, emptiness exactly form" -Heart Sutra "Each form, each particle, is a Buddha. One form is all Buddhas. All forms, all particles, are all Buddhas. All forms, sounds, scents, feelings, and phenomena are also like this, each filling all fields." -Pai-chang"Ultimately, all phenomena are contained within one's life, down to the last particle of dust. The nine mountains and the eight seas are encompassed by one's body; the sun, moon and myriad stars are contained within one's mind." -Nichiren "Each Buddha-Tathagata, as the body of the Dharmadhatu, pervades the mind of all sentient beings. This is why when your mind perceives the Buddha, it is your mind that possesses the thirty-two prominent features and the eighty secondary attributes. This mind that creates the Buddha is the mind that is the Buddha, and the wisdom of the Buddhas true, universal and ocean-like arises from this mind. This is why you should single-mindedly fix your thoughts and contemplatively examine that Buddha, that tathagata, that Arhat, that Supremely Awakened One." -The Sutra of Contemplation on the Buddha of Immeasurable Life "You have always been one with the Buddha, so do not pretend you can ATTAIN to this oneness by various practices." -Huang Po "Affliction is Bodhi and the cycle of birth and death is Nirvana" -Platform Sutra of Hui Neng "Happy is one who knows samsara and nirvana are not two." - Milarepa "Just understand that birth-and-death is itself nirvana. There is nothing such as birth and death to be avoided; there is nothing such as nirvana to be sought. Only when you realize this are you free from birth and death." - Dogen "At this moment, is there anything lacking? Nirvana is right here now before our eyes. This place is the lotus land. This body now is the Buddha." -Hakuin "The Way does not require cultivation, just don't pollute it." -Chan ancestor Mazu

Real Presence as opposed to Ominpresence - a reflection for Advent

If you have any experience with or knowledge of liturgical (heavily sacramental) Christianity then you probably have heard of the debate over the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist because the Eucharist is such an important element of such traditional forms of worship. It boils down to the question of whether Jesus becomes truly and actually present in the wafer that is blessed by the priest - whether it actually hosts Christ. Obviously if you have no interest in discussions about Jesus this is a moot point. But assuming you are curious even for the sake of argument, what exactly might this mean? After all, it has been argued, isn't God supposed to be omnipresent? And if you accept a Trinitarian formulation, this would mean that Jesus is also omnipresent. So what gives? I am not a Roman Catholic and I am not speaking in any way on behalf of that faith. What follows is simply what went through my head when I pondered this question, randomly drawn from a bank of topics floating on the periphery of my consciousness, on the drive to work several weeks ago.

Let's first borrow some Buddhist/interfaith mystic imagery. Not because it is absolutely necessary, but because it helps me express some of my thoughts more clearly. At the Ascension, Jesus re-entered the heart of Creation. In a certain panentheistic view, the Divine is both the source and substance of existence as the Ground of Being, i.e. God is the water (ultimate dimension) and phenomena are the waves (historical or relative dimension). This idea is compatible to some degree with Eastern views such as the relationship between the ineffable Tao and the tangible world in which we live. So having manifested in Form, Christ returns to Emptiness (to use a loose Buddhist analogy - yes yes I know that both form and emptiness are different aspects of the same reality, and that's kind of the point).

It is similar to the idea of Buddha entering Nirvana. Yet we are taught that Nirvana (the realm of perfection) and Samasara (the realm of suffering and dissatisfaction) are not two different places. They reflect the duality produced by the delusions from which we suffer by thinking that phenomena have their own independent and intrinsic existence apart from other phenomena and their source (i.e. that a wave can exist independently of other waves and water). This false sense of separation manifests in the ills of the world, such as hatred and greed and existential despair as we crave things (producing unhealthy desires and attachments) that we subconsciously believe will fulfill us and make us whole. This has been compared by others and then by myself to the idea of sin as separation from God and looking for fulfillment in the wrong places.

It is also similar to the idea of the Pure Land, or pure lands, or Buddha-fields. Each is the creation of one who has awakened to their delusions and to their true nature. They are (also) how the world appears to someone who sees reality-as-it-is and as-it-can-be as opposed to the myopic view of the deluded being. In much the same way, Christ is reported to have said that the Kingdom of God is within us - that is isn't some far off place. This suggests that reality is much grander and more beautiful than our perceptions, based on our biases from limited senses, our prejudiced and limited expectations, our typical ways of thinking and feeling, etc, might suggest. But we are blind to this fact. Hence we read things such as the suggestion that if we had faith the size of a mustard seed, we could move mountains. In the thousands of years of recorded history, including the two thousand years since the time of Christ, no one has moved a mountain. I know it was figurative/rhetorical, and in that sense some major things have been "moved", but it also points to how little faith we really have.

In this case I am using faith to refer to believing in that larger, more amazing reality that figures such as Moses, Siddhartha Gautama, and Joshua ben Joseph have been describing to us. Faith as belief in the capacity to awaken to this grander world. People believe in all sorts of things, including things associated with their religion, with Jesus, with the Buddha, etc. But the dirty secret, I think, is that most of us haven't really seen these wonders with our own eyes. So while we profess X, Y, Z, we tend to live in and live as if we are in the more mundane, disappointing, limited world to which we have become accustomed. This is what I tend to think of as "the World" in Biblical terms. It is the dull, limited construction of reality that we slog through on a regular basis, a dimmer view with less potential for greatness and more temptation for selfishness. It is the same realm that I associate with the Buddhist idea of Samsara. It is the fertilizer of cynicism - the proof of the atheist (position) and the doubt of the agnostic.

If, for the sake of argument, you accept the premise as laid out thus far, then the perplexing questions which I raised (or more accurately echoed) are not difficult to resolve. Yes, the Divine is all around us but we are blind to that fact. Even most of the believers - as they go on "faith" rather than proof. In 1 John 4:12 we read that "No one has ever seen God..." Turning to Buddhism, how many Buddhists have managed to truly see the Pure Land? And how and why do Bodhisattvas "return to" Samsara to guide and inspire us? Well, if "the World"/"Samsara" is the realm of our collective delusion, wherein we cannot see the Divine or reality-as-it-is, then entering this realm would mean coming to us where we are - in our world of unreality and suffering. That is, bringing some of this Light of wisdom and compassion into the darkness of our ignorance and selfishness. Getting back to the Eucharist - it can then be construed as an aspect of the Divine that we can see even though the rest is still opaque and murky - sharing and revealing Itself to us even though we still cannot otherwise see beyond our usual limitations.

It isn't that the Divine isn't always present anyway, it is that we cannot usually detect it or perceive it in a direct and clear way. In that sense, the Real Presence refers to that aspect of the Divine which we can perceive to be "real" even in our illusory world, even in our confusion. Like a window or lens helping us to see beyond our normal perception. Hence the emphasis on "real" but also on "presence". Every celebration of the Eucharist then is a chance to re-live the coming of this Light into the world as told in the narratives of the life of Jesus.

OK, well, there you go, a little something to kick off the Advent season this Sunday, the season revolving around the anticipation of the coming of the Light in the Christian tradition, as well as for those Buddhists looking to celebrate and remember the Enlightenment of the Buddha in a couple of weeks. Be well.

Inspirational Admonition

I just visited Zen Under the Skin, one of the Buddhist blogs I keep linked in the Blogs page. Chalip recently posted something from the Maitreya Buddhist Seminary page of the Buddhist Society for Compassionate Wisdom. I don't know if it is considered poor blogging etiquette to quote the same thing you find on someone else's blog. However, I really found that several things resonated with me. The underlined portions are emphasis added by yours truly:

Everyday Admonition for Dharma Students.

1. Please perform your formal morning practice faithfully Monday through Friday. Your morning practice is the place of your awakening that you are the living embodiment of the Buddha through your response to the Buddha Shakyamuni and spiritual communion with His tradition of wisdom and compassion. Always begin your day cheerfully with your morning practice and examine yourself before you retire and give thanks to all the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas of the day. (Yebul)

2. Follow your weekly Dharma schedule, be fully accountable for your duties and do your utmost. (Sense of Duty)

3. Enlightenment and truth are always before your eyes and within your reach. Enlightenment is the pure and sincere heart of practice itself, and the truth is the spirit of practice that all sentient beings are Buddha. Accordingly, there is no enlightenment or truth apart from the common ordinary person and the everyday task. You should know that it is delusion to run around looking for truth and enlightenment, and to seek or anticipate them from the outside. Let go of your delusion. The mind of the Dharma student should be one of fortitude with the faith and power of the Bodhisattva Vow and free from fear, angst and worries. So keep your mind in alignment everyday. (Life of No Delusion)

4. Repent, seek forgiveness and restore yourself right away if you caused trouble to others, committed wrongdoings or made blunders through carelessness and inattention. Keep your mind free from guilt and remorse through sincere repentance and avoid retribution such as hatred and enmity. Constant repentance is constant awakening. (Repentance)

5. The body-and-mind of the Dharma student should be poor and pure. Care for goods and articles. They are the properties of the Three Jewels. Use them clean and sparingly so that they last. Recycle them when they are no longer useful. Clean utensils and implements after use and put them where they belong. Try to manage with less or loss, if possible, but be generous and helpful to others as much as possible. (Hidden Virtue)

6. Always keep your dwelling and environment clean and tidy. To take good care of your dwelling place and temple environment is to take good care of the body-and-mind of your Dharma student training. To take good care of the body-and-mind of your Dharma student training (purity of heart) is to transform this world into the land of Buddhas and Bodhisattvas. Cleaning and keeping our environment free from pollution is the Pure Land movement. Be on your guard and diligent. (Environmental Movement)

7. It is conduct unbecoming to a Dharma student to pick on others and blame them in order to build a self-defense or reinforce one's position. It is the downfall of a Dharma student to become jealous of the other people's prosperity and gloat over others' misfortunes. If such a feeling or thought arises you should perform prostrations right away and surrender your weakness, and renew your Bodhisattva vows and pray for the happiness of all beings. (Renewal and Kido)

8. All Dharma students should be happy and energetic Buddhists ready to lend a helping hand. (Three Stars)

The Society also interestingly enough lists what it considers the five major pronouncement of Mahayana teachings:

1. All sentient beings are buddhas.


2. Samsara is Nirvana.


3. One's passions are enlightenment.


4. We are an interrelated whole.


5. Everyday life is the Way.

It isn't really surprising that Son Buddhism (Korean) is going to have many of the same teachings as its forerunner Ch'an (Chinese) and its cousin Zen (Japanese). I really like the straightforward presentation, which also typical of this form of Buddhism. Of course, the hard part isn't these truths. For example, some of what I underlined can be traced back to the Platform Sutra of Hui Neng, the 6th Ancestor (a.k.a the 6th Patriarch) of Ch'an. Intellectually it can take a while to work out the philosophical nature of some of these statements, but even when that has been accomplished, there is a difference between understanding and intellectual/emotional assent to these teachings and truly realizing it yourself. That is--truly knowing it, being directly aware of it--not just saying "Yeah, hey wow, you know, that makes so much sense!"

I started studying Buddhism in my spare time and by myself in 2004, and then I began a formal practice at the start of 2005. A very short time really. I was so happy when I finally worked out for my self why Buddhism rejects nihilism and eternalism after thinking about the central teaching of the Heart Sutra viz form and emptiness. I was estatic when I read this line from the Platform Sutra, "Affliction is just Bodhi and the cycle of birth and death is Nirvana", because it fit so well with my own resolution to the issue about these issues. After all, if the present is all we have, then if Bodhi and Nirvana can be attained, where else would they be? In the future? In some other place? Of couse not. So it really made so much sense, having been working on these questions, that the everpresent birth and death of each moment must also contain the experience of Nirvana, and amidst our confusion and suffering must be lurking Bodhi. Hence escaping Samsara isn't about some future far far away but escaping the cycle of delusion that repeats itself constantly every day, the 12 steps of dependent origination of our false self that always begins with ignorance. The idea that Affliction is Bodhi (translated by the Buddhist Society for Compassionate Wisdom as "One's passions are enlightenment") also made sense as my effort to understand the riddle of mind came to a minor fruition. Just as a lotus blooms in the mud, Bodhi blooms in afflication. Bodhi isn't the absence of pain or emotion, as some seem to believe. It might be better to think of it not as *avoiding* the ups and downs of life or hiding away but how we understand and deal with them. It is seeing opportunity in crisis, a chance to learn in failure, a chance to heal and comfort in pain. Then there was my favorite, when one night a thought occurred to me. If being mindful, open and cheerful to each new moment, is really the substance of enlightenment, then what is it to seek enlightenment? I then finally "got" a passage from Zen-Shin Talks by Rev. Ogui where he relayed a story in which someone asked him "What is enlightenment?", and he at first thought "What a great answer!" (paraphrasing). Hence I thought to myself, "What is enlightenment?" is practically a question which is also its own answer. If truth is not static but ever unfolding then so is its realization. This theme of course also resonated with me in the above quotes, where they write "here is no enlightenment or truth apart from the common ordinary person and the everyday task". This echos the words of Layman P'ang (quote found on the Cloudwater Zendo website):

There is nothing special about my daily affairs,
I am simply in spontaneous harmony with them.
Clinging to nothing and also rejecting nothing,
I encounter no resistance and am always free.
What do I care for the pomp of purple robes?
The pure summit was never sullied by so much as a fleck of dust.
The wondrous action of magical forces
I find in cutting wood and carrying water.

So then last week, I was thinking again about something I had pondered before, the relationship between form and formlessness, and how they are interrelated by the processes (or active perspectives) of transcendence and imminence. That is, transcendence going from the individual elements of something (form) to the indiscriminant whole (formlessness) and imminence going from the indiscriminant whole to a manifestation of individual elements. Now, this of course is an interesting area of metaphysics, because it is easy to get lost in ramblings and imaginary tangents. After all, speculation and creativity are hallmarks of the species. So going on the general teachings of Buddism, I recalled reading about perceiving form, then formlessness, then form and formlessness as interrelated, then finally not starting off by discussing them as separable things, but rather as different perspectives on reality. Then I began speculating about that last bit, since it implies that at some point transcendence meets imminence. Now, I have no idea what that means really. I am sure that someone might at this point interject something that fits their preferred belief structure, and talk about Allah or Jesus or something. But it seems simpler. The intersection is the present moment, ever-changing and eternal. Ancient yet ever new. And of course our experience of this is what we call awareness. Which resonates perfectly well with general Buddhist teachings about Being--seeing that each moment of awareness is the realization of Bodhi but that by becoming distracted by delusion we forfeit our own Buddha-mind (note: this is the result of a year of reflection, and does not mean I spend most of my time pondering such things, as it may appear from the extensive summary of examples I have listed)

But note that its one thing to have these little hard won, personal revelations that find some kind of affirmation in received teachings or writings, and it is another to fully realize them as a part of life. One danger of getting caught up overly much in such abstractions and ponderances is that it can easily become a major distraction--one is too busy pondering life to live it! That doesn't mean that introspection and reflection has no place, but it cannot replace directly knowing these notions as living reality not just slogans or beliefs. Plus, relying too much on thought experiments and abstractions can lull one into thinking of their insights with an undue degree of finality. Lastly, note that all of these notions actually keep pointing back to paying attention to and fully appreciating everyday life, not just accruing models and systems about the meaning of life.

So, while I do value any insight, large or small, I gain into the philosophy of Buddhism, I continue to remind myself that Buddhism itself is just a means to an end, and that living a fully actualized life begins each moment. Which gets back to why I think I really liked that list of admonitions. Having come to the conclusion on my own that the teaching behind them are sound and based on solid principles, it was nice to see such a succinct summary emphasizing their daily practical application.

Amitabha!