I bid you adieu.

Bon vent

Tomorrow my blog will be suspended indefinitely. I will be returning to my spiritual roots for a number of months and can’t say when I will return. During my absence I will be incommunicado and my blog will go dormant until I return. This, however, doesn’t mean you can’t come back and cull through the archives during my absence. I have been adding to Dharma Space for many years and there are now 190 posts available here. You can view them all by clicking the link “Older Posts” at the bottom right of each page. This will take you backyards in time. Many of these are freestanding. Others are parts of a series. You’ll figure it out.

Many of you have been loyal followers for a long time and others are new. I wish to thank you all and hope what you’ve read here has given you a new understanding about the value of Zen. Contrary to misguided opinion, Zen is extraordinarily practical and when properly understood can make a major contribution to improving your life and the world in which we live. I encourage you to keep reading, learning and putting into practice the principles conveyed in Dharma Space.

Bon vent!

The essence of essence

An essential oil is a concentrated hydrophobic liquid (e.g. not compatible with water) containing volatile aroma compounds from plants. An oil is “essential” in the sense that it carries a distinctive scent, or essence, of the plant. Essential oils are generally extracted by distillation. In other words the essential scent has been derived from a source plant but the plant is no longer needed for the aroma to exist.

There is a curios correspondence between an essential oil and us. We too contain an essence that has been extracted from our source and this essence contains the aroma of the source. Neither an essential oil nor our essence can be further distilled and neither is subject to changing conditions. Once we arrive at essence the aroma can be infused in various media and the aroma persists.

What is the essence of essence? Of all essences? Bodhidharma called the essential essence “our mind”—The Buddha. Nothing, he said is more essential than that. It is the void void: The essential essence. Out of this apparent nothingness comes everything. This is the realm of the unconditional absolute, beyond the conditions of this or that.

That may or may not sound esoteric lacking usefulness but I’ll offer you two frames of reference: One from Lao Tzu and the other from physicist Lawrence Krauss. Lao Tzu said this about usefulness: 

“We join spokes together in a wheel,

but it is the center hole

that makes the wagon move.

We shape clay into a pot,

but it is the emptiness inside

that holds whatever we want.

We hammer wood for a house,

but it is the inner space

that makes it livable.

We work with being,

but non-being is what we use.”

And this from Lawrence Krauss. We are mesmerized by what moves but never consider what makes it move.

The illusion of you and me

Self? No Self?

The tenet of “no self” has been a fundamental, defining the loadstone of Buddhism since the very beginning. The term originally used for self/ego was “atman” and the contention surrounding this matter was divided between those who argued for self vs. those who argued the opposite anatman (self vs. no-self). It boiled down to the issue of any phenomenal thing possessing an independent nature. Closely aligned with this argument was the understanding that all things were empty (of independent essence). In other words everything could only exist dependently, thus the principle of dependent origination.

This argument stood for a long time until Nagarjuna came along with his Two Truth Doctrine in which he laid out his understanding of what the Buddha had taught, culminating with the Middle Way which expressed the Buddha’s conclusion of, “Not this (atman). Not that (anatman). Neither not (atman). Neither not (anatman)”. The importance of this conclusion is significant and profound but unfortunately seems to be broadly an unresolved matter. What Nagarjuna said in his Two Truth Doctrine was that there is a difference between the conventional discriminate view and the sublime indiscriminate view and that no one could be set free unless they experienced the sublime.

In the 8th-century an Indian Buddhist philosopher by the name of Śāntideva said that in order to be able to deny something, we first have to know what it is we’re denying. The logic of that is peerless. He went on to say, “Without contacting the entity that is imputed. You will not apprehend the absence of that entity.” In a similar manner the Lankavatara Sutra (a Mahayana favorite of Bodhidharma) addressed the issue of one vs. another with this: “In this world whose nature is like a dream, there is place for praise and blame, but in the ultimate Reality of Dharmakāya (our true primordial mind of wisdom) which is far beyond the senses and the discriminating mind, what is there to praise?”

The wisdom of emptiness and dependent origination ultimately reduces down to there being no difference between form and emptiness. They are one and the same thing: Two sides of the same coin. One side perceptible (phenomena); the other side beyond perception (noumena). There have been numerous terms used as alternates for noumena ranging from Buddha-Nature, Dharmakāya, the Void, Ground of being and the preference by Zen and Yogācāra was Mind—primordial mind (not the illusion of mind nor the illusion of self vs. no self). In this state of mind there is no discrimination—all is unified, whole and complete, so there can be no difference between one thing and another thing.

Huang Po (Japanese—Obaku; 9th century China) was particularly lucid in his teaching about these terms. In the Chün Chou Record he said this:

“To say that the real Dharmakāya (the Absolute) of the Buddha resembles the Void is another way of saying that the Dharmakāya is the Void and that the Void is the Dharmakāya...they are one and the same thing...When all forms are abandoned, there is the Buddha...the void is not really void, but the realm of the real Dharma. This spiritually enlightening nature is without beginning...this great Nirvanic nature is Mind; Mind is the Buddha, and the Buddha is the Dharma.”

The Yogācārians took this to the logical conclusion and stated that everything was mind. You are mind. I am mind. The entire universe is nothing but mind. This, however, did not resolve the matter and 2,500 years later the issue of atman vs. anatman vs. The Middle Way remains a matter of contention. Consequently there exist today three kinds of Buddhist practice: The kind that dogmatically clings to self, a second that dogmatically clings to no self and a third that says, “Not atman. Not anatman. Neither not atman. Neither not anatman.” In the end you will only know when you experience the sublime. Then the argument will come to an end and you’ll never be able to convey your answer. That is the ultimate test, “…far beyond the senses and the discriminating mind, what is there to praise (or blame)?”

Who are we?

Our sense of who and what we are is determinative for how we relate to the world. Yesterday I stuck a little toe into the great sea of language to illustrate a point of significance regarding the matter of identity. Today I want to further the discussion by beginning with Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure (26 November 1857—22 February 1913). He is known as the founding father of semiotics—the study of signs and symbols as elements of communicative behavior. His concept of the related chain of sign/signifier/signified/ referent, forms the core of this field of study. In brief Saussure noted that something signified (a thing) is represented as a sign (a coded language form) by a signifier (a person) in terms of references to the thing. For example: The color black (a thing) must have a reference or contrast to something different from black (perhaps the color white) to be signified or detected. Once signified in a differentiated way from the referent, the signifier can then create a sign (the word “black”) to represent what has been signified.

If there is no thing signified, the entire language chain collapses since a sign can’t be established. We can’t create a language form other than to sign what is missing. For example if there is no thing to be signified the best we can do is to create a sign called “no thing” or nothing, to signify the lack of a thing. Since nothing is signified, the validity of a signifier is brought into question. Then we would have a no-signifier. In essence the principle of signifier and signified must come and go together in matching cases. Nothing signified, no signifier. Something signified, signifier. That awareness is the beginning of language and communications and broadly acknowledged throughout the realm of linguistics.

This chain is quite similar to the Zen chain of causation in the following way: Thing, thought, thinker; No thing, no thought, no thinker. To remove any one of these causes the chain to collapse. For example a thinker only has meaning in reference to what a thinker does: Thinks. If there is no thinking then the meaning of thinker is meaningless. Remove a thing and there is nothing (no thing) and thus no thought. The central Zen question concerns the identity of “thinker”. Is a thinker who we imagine our self to be? The ordinary presumption is yes: We are a thinker who thinks thoughts. Rene Descarte established this seeming fact with his now famous, “I think therefore I am”. But this is an impossibility since when we stop thinking we don’t disappear even though the thinker does, thus the real us and a coming and going thinker must be two different matters.

What Saussure brought to the realm of language formation, Zen brings to the realm of identity formation. And the conclusion of Zen is that “we”—the true you and me is independent of a vacillating signifier/sign we call an ego. Our true identity is solid and doesn’t move because while things change the referent is no change since we are not an objective thing. Instead we are a subjective non-thing. And how is this awareness established? Through the Zen practice of not thinking which reveals the true, never-leaving you and me. The image of us (sign) is meaningless without something signified (thought), thus there is no signifier, which is a central premise of Zen: No self (at least in sign form). Our true non-sign self arises when there is no thought. We are the one signifying the lack of thought as well as the presence of thought. We see either the presence or the absence of thought and it takes both signified thought in reference to no thought for either to have meaning and this is true of all things, which must have a referent of difference to be signified.

In the end the self/no self-referent reveals the interconnected fabric of us. The sign (self image/ego) can be seen to move and gyrate and the real us (no self) never moves, and this in turn reveals a fabricated and discriminate mind (thoughts and emotions) and a real not-to-be-found indiscriminate true mind. The first is based on changing conditions/things (and is thus not substantial) and the second is based on the lack of things, which is unconditional and therefore substantial. Consequently we are both real unconditionally and not real (based on conditions) at the same time. One part is born, grows big (unfortunately too big some times), decays and dies. The other part (the real us) is never born, doesn’t decay and lives forever. Unfortunately the common-coin self-understanding is just the sign/symbol, which we label “ego” and unless we go to extraordinary means we rarely discover the real person that we are.

The Matrix—Illusory Mind

Image via Wikipedia

In his commentary on the Sutra of Complete Enlightenment, Ch’an Master Sheng-yen said what might seem like a startling thing. He said, “The self (imagined self/ego) creates vexation, and the vexation, in turn, reinforces the sense of self...When there is no vexation, and therefore no self, the mind of discrimination is replaced by the mind of wisdom.”

What’s going on here is a psychic feedback loop. It’s the chicken/egg thing. Vexations and self arise together. Not one and then the next. Both arise together, instantly. Thinkers think thoughts. In this case the “thinker” is the imagined self who is thinking the thought of a self, which then thinks more thoughts. Feedback loop: One illusion creating another illusion, which creates the next, like one mirror reflecting another. It’s a house of mirrors all up there in our buzzing brains. There is no substantial and real “self” inside this holographic illusion. It is a mirage or as stated in the Diamond Sutra: “This is how to contemplate our conditioned existence in this fleeting world: Like a tiny drop of dew, or a bubble floating in a stream; Like a flash of lightning in a summer cloud, Or a flickering lamp, an illusion, a phantom, or a dream.”

All of those notions about our identity obscure any sense of our substantial true self; the union and integrated aspect of our existence. The Ladder-Wall is the Union. It is not a Ladder or a Wall. It’s a Ladder-Wall: One inseparable thing. Form and Emptiness. Essence and non-essence. For thousands of years people having been attempting and failing to rid themselves of the flesh believing that the flesh was opposed to spirit. Even today certain religious sects engage in practices of flagellation. And within certain schools of Zen there are advocates, who press to rid themselves of all thoughts, which is a psychic version of flagellation. I’ll be saying more about this thrust in a later blog but for now I’ll just make a quick comment: Nonsense! Essence is indivisible from both flesh and our minds.

As long as we are imprisoned within this holographic feedback loop we are unaware of what is real. We are like Keanu Reeves in the classic 1999 science fiction movie “The Matrix”. The film describes a future in which the world we know is actually the Matrix, a simulated reality created by sentient machines. Only our Matrix is self-created and it has been here forever. We are the sentient machines creating our own simulated reality. When we say to “Think outside the box”, the “box” is illusory mind: The Matrix; the realm of the self creating the self.

Like Keanu Reeves, we need to be de-programmed in order to break the grip of simulation. In Zen that is done by pursuing The Way. What’s “The Way”? It is a process that begins with waking up from the dream — realizing that we’re out of touch with reality, lost in the feedback nightmare and willing to engage something like a twelve-step program. The components of that program are (1) a form of confession where we take responsibility for the harm we’ve done to our self and others, either intentionally or not. Much of the harm is unintentional, but real nevertheless. How could we know inside the loop? (2) We accept the natural results of past actions and stop trying to wiggle out of resulting consequences. This piece is karma, receiving the results of our words and actions. (3) We adopt a set of moral principles, known as precepts which tilts karma in a positive direction, and (4) We begin and continue — for the rest of our natural lives — a routine practice of meditation, known as Zazen within which we watch the Matrix hologram happening and learn everything there is no know about it, especially how to detach from it.

Unlike Keanu Reeves we do this both with a support group (known as a sangha) and by our self. We don’t have to go to a confessional with a priest. We know (deep down in our moments of quiet honesty, when we can get beyond denial and blame) what we’ve done and whom we’ve infected. We know what judgments we’ve made, both of others and ourselves. It isn’t necessary for us to stand before others and announce, “I’m an alcoholic and I’m always going to be one”. This is a prison we can escape from with commitment, patience, diligence and perseverance. If we wish to escape we can. It just depends on whether or not we enjoy being “In the Matrix”. Some people don’t seem to care one way or another. Go figure! The entire process is sort of like taking an inventory of the mess in our houses, collecting the trash, dumping it out and doing the best we can to not continue creating a mess. Rather than garbage in/garbage out it becomes virtue in/virtue out: VIVO, which in Latin curiously means living that takes place inside an organism.

That is an extremely foreshortened overview of the process. In point of fact it is a process that never ends. Because we live in a conditioned world, dust accumulates. We wash our clothes and clean our houses because cleanliness is more desirable than filth. The same thing applies to our inner house. Dust accumulates (emotional and psychic dust) and we need to keep it clean. If we bring in trash, due to bad karma, we suffer. If we become attached to fleeting stuff we suffer. If we live in the illusions of life we suffer. And all of that suffering makes us cranky and then we just make more bad karma. It is an inverted way of living, which must be turned upside down and shaken about.

And the truth is, none of this deep honesty is possible so long as we remain trapped in ego la-la land — The Matrix. Mr. or Mrs. or Ms ego is extraordinarily greedy and self-centered. From the perspective of our egos, everyone else is rightly to be blamed for our misery. Ego is very self-righteous. None of it is our fault. It has nothing to do with our own self-generated karma. It is someone else’s fault, but not ours. Inside this hologram of blame and self-delusion we experience life in competition and defensiveness. The world is either/or. It is either right or it’s wrong (and always my right and your wrong). This world runs according to hard and fast rules and inflexible boundaries and to deviate from the rigor entails fear, perceived threat and loss. There is never enough insulation in this realm, and to share with others is to diminish our share and thus increase our risk exposure. We build fences of all kinds to keep the bad guys out without realizing that the fences also keep us in. Threat is everywhere and there is good reason for the concern: Everything is change. The storms will come and we better make sure our life raft is watertight.

Sound familiar? Who can question the exposures to risk and an unknown future? No one. Risk is a part of life but there is a huge difference between living hunkered down and walking tall. The ego, because it is an illusion, is rightly concerned with risk. It should know better than anyone. The ego is fragile and so too is our fleeting world. The alternative is to accept our wholeness — our integrated beingness, and to practice it moment by moment — a sacred act, not as a concept but as a reality. How is that done? When we eat, we eat. When we talk, we talk. Whatever we do, we do wholly, in each and every moment, whether we like it or not. We just do it and let the illusions subside. It is a practice of being present with all of the grief, anguish, pain, sorrow and joy. We cry when we cry and laugh when we laugh and we do it with gusto. No illusions or expectations or wishes or overlays. We accept life as an un-gilded lily, without embellishment nor judgments nor any other forms of distortion or fabrication. Life just is. The Buddha called this “thusness” which means unobstructed acceptance, with faith in the integrated fabric of life.

This might all sound like accepting everything as unavoidable, but it is not. When we accept our ego-less interdependence — beyond the Matrix, truly, we must see that we are united with all of life. There is no way to disconnect from the ubiquitous dimension of essence. We are glued to our collective world, like it or not, so unless we like living in a mess then we must do what we can to clean it up and join the living. We are not isolated and independent beings, severed from life. We ARE life and there is no way to have life without death; risk without vulnerability. They arise as an undivided partnership. When the world suffers we pay the price because we are members of a common family. When the world rejoices, we rejoice with it. We are not just our brother’s keeper. We ARE our brothers and our sisters. There is no way to sever the link of essence.

This is not some airy-fairy thing. This is reality, inseparable, indivisible and integrated and the only way to divide it is in the illusions of our imagination. That is where the danger lies: in the illusion of separation and independence; in the phony comfort of believing that we can be secure while the world around us is collapsing around our ears. No, this is not resignation, cynicism, defeatism or victimization. This is the polar opposite. This is a stance of engagement and responsibility, of doing what can be done but remaining hopeful without attachment to results.

The over-riding message contained in the Diamond Sutra regards the nature of enlightenment, and compassion. The Buddha was teaching Subhuti (one of his disciples) that the distinguishing mark of a true Bodhisattva is deep compassion that can only come about without any sense of ego or gain. There is no calculation or contrivance since a true Bodhisattva realizes that there is no difference between himself and others. Jesus said something very similar: “Do unto others as you would have them do to you.” When we accept our ground-of-being relationship with life, the unavoidable conclusion is that we share common ground. We are in this together.

Deluded Mind

In the commentary on The Diamond Sutra, Hui-neng says, “A bodhisattva doesn’t practice charity for his own happiness but to break through miserliness within and to benefit other beings without. But the Tathagata says that the perceptions of self and other are ultimately subject to destruction and not truly real. Hence, all beings are fictions. If one can get free of the deluded mind, there are no beings to save.” 

I’ve read and puzzled over that statement for a long time and then I decided to just pay attention to that last part, “If one can get free of the deluded mind, there are no beings to save”. The question is what’s the difference between a mind that is deluded and one that isn’t? Apparently a deluded mind imagines something that doesn’t exist, like seeing heat waves on the highway and concluding rippling water. In this case the Buddha is saying that we likewise imagine entities called self and other which we mistake as being non-fictions. In other words what we take to be real is actually fictitious.

The teaching of “no self” is deeply imbedded into Buddhism. It’s a fundamental tenet. In our deluded state of mind we imagine a separate and independent being that is the same thing as a body. It looks real and it looks separate from every other body. How can it not be real and mutually discrete? Yet the Buddha says this perception is not real. It only looks that way and this conclusion is apparently emanating from a deluded mind.

How can this be understood? To answer that puzzler we have to take a step backward and consider how the Buddha understood the difference between what’s real and what isn’t. The “what isn’t” part is that things don’t exist independently. Instead everything is arising dependently, based on something else. The extended thought is that everything is thus “empty”, meaning that a self is not an isolated matter. By itself it is empty (non-existent). Only when joined with something else does it exist.

It is somewhat easier to grasp this distinction with a simple example. Up and down are obviously different yet they don’t exist independently. These two define each other. Neither up nor down could exist independently yet both exist in relationship to each other. That is essentially the Middle Way: "Not up. Not down. Neither not, not up. Neither not, not down". Both are true together. Neither are true apart. That relationship is known as dependent origination and the implications of that principle are far-reaching. We, of course, embrace independence and fail to see the connection.

How then does this understanding inform this matter of self and other? If we apply this criterion to a person, the question is what is the connective tissue? If I’m not independent what is the other side of me? Or of you? Obviously we have a bodily form, which we are looking at and that part certainly looks real and independent. Yet the Buddha said “no”. It is neither real nor independent. By itself a body is no more real than up apart from down.

To answer this question we need to switch over to another Sutra — The Heart of Perfect Wisdom Sutra, which says that form=emptiness. We know what our own form is. It’s our body. But this sutra says that this bodily form is empty (e.g. not real, not independent), instead it is codependent with this thing called emptiness. Neither of these is real by itself and both are real together. So how can we define and understand the empty part? The truth is you can’t define or conceptually understand emptiness. It can only be experienced because emptiness is your primordial mind, which can’t define itself.

The father of Zen (Bodhidharma) said this, “To say that the real Dharmakāya of the Buddha resembles the Void is another way of saying that the Dharmakāya is the Void and that the Void is the Dharmakāya ... they are one and the same thing.... When all forms are abandoned, there is the Buddha ... the void is not really void, but the realm of the real Dharma. This spiritually enlightening nature is without beginning ... this great Nirvanic nature is Mind; Mind is the Buddha, and the Buddha is the Dharma.”

The other side of us all is this spiritually enlightened mind. It can’t be seen or understood by our conceptual mind, but without that “we” (the bodily part of us) couldn’t exist. Without that part, we would be nothing more than a fiction. This mind is what produces, not only our bodies but everything else. This mind is spiritually integrated with everything.

The Four Horses of Zen

In the Samyutta Agama sutra, the Buddha told a parable of four horses. There is an excellent one, a couple of lesser horses and a bad one. He said the best horse runs before it sees the shadow of the whip.  The second best will run just before the whip reach his skin. The third one will run when it feels pain on his body and the “bad” one will run after the pain penetrates into the marrow of his bones.

I was a bad and stubborn horse, a glutton for punishment, as the saying goes. My ego was very large and it took a long time and much beating before I was broken. Zen has many aphorisms. One fits this beating process. The saying is, “No suffering. No enlightenment. Little suffering. Little enlightenment. Great suffering. Great enlightenment.” The point of this aphorism is that there is a relationship between depths of suffering and motivation. We humans are problem solvers par excellence, but we are also pragmatists with big egos. If we don’t acknowledge problems there seems nothing to solve and we don’t like to whine and complain. We’re rugged individualists after all. Winston Churchill apparently said of Americans, “You can always count on Americans to do the right thing—after they’ve tried everything else.” If it ain’t broken we don’t fix it and the last thing we want to admit is that we’re broken. Our egos hate this idea of brokenness, but it’s the key that unlocks the mystery of awakening.

Bodhidharma said that without suffering there is no awakening and he is quite right. When life is sailing along and all is rosy, why bother fixing what’s not broken? In such a state the last thing we want is to rock the boat and “see the shadow of the whip”. All of us want to preserve the good and avoid the bad and while life is good who needs to think about everything turning south? We’re not so wise in such moments. We imagine our Nirvana will last forever and consequently we rarely plan for the rainy day. Instead we wait until we’re under water and hoping for the Queen Mary to come sailing along.

In psychological terms we are swayed by what’s known as The Normalcy Bias. We get used to what we assume are fixed norms and resist change. Problem is everything is in a state of change, norms included. A wise person will acknowledge change and learn about pulling up our anchors and riding the waves. Few of us have the foresight to anticipate coming catastrophes but the truth is no life lasts forever. Sooner or later we all end up broken and become fertilizer. By then the opportunity to awaken is gone.

Transformation

Buddhism has been around so long that it is hard to recall the locus—the essence from which it grows. But by recalling the condensed teaching of the Buddha, the essence is the very first point: Life is Suffering. Everything else about Buddhism is centered around that locus. So whenever we become overwhelmed with the multiplicity of the branches springing from this ancient practice all we have to do is remember the root: Life is Suffering. This is why Buddhism has such an enduring appeal—Everyone suffers and nobody wants to. And no more thorough practice has ever been conceived to understand suffering and to provide a means for overcoming it than Buddhism. Suffering springs from our mind and begins with how we perceive and understand ourselves and the world in which we live. And this is why Buddhism is a full exposition of our minds.

Master Hsuan Hua writes about this matter in the opening section of The Shurangama Sutra. He points out two aspects of our mind: One aspect superficial but unreal, the other hidden but real. He says that the hidden part is like an internal gold mine which must be excavated in order to be of value. This gold mine is everywhere but not seen. The superficial part is also everywhere but seen and it is this superficial part that lies at the root of suffering. He says,

“ The Buddha-nature is found within our afflictions. Everyone has afflictions and everyone has a Buddha-nature. In an ordinary person it is the afflictions, rather than the Buddha-nature, that are apparent...Genuine wisdom arises out of genuine stupidity. When ice [afflictions] turns to water, there is wisdom; when water [wisdom] freezes into ice, there is stupidity. Afflictions are nothing but stupidity.”

The use of the word stupidity may sound harsh and uncaring but sometimes stark truth is more effective than placation. The important point of his statement (and a message of the Sutra) is that there is a key relationship between suffering and wisdom and both of these rest on a fundamental principle of faith—That at the core of our being there is a supreme goodness which is ubiquitous. Many people get confused with words, especially this word “Buddha-nature”. When the uneducated hear that word they start thinking about a ghost which they imagine looks like some ancient Indian person. What we think makes all the difference. But instead of the label Buddha-nature we could call it “Mind-nature” because Buddha means awaken. When we awaken to our true primordial minds, our world is transformed. Buddha-nature is the unseen gold mine which inhabits all of life. Without accepting that core we are incapable of accessing wisdom and without wisdom we are all trapped in suffering. The flip side of suffering is bliss, just as the flip side of up is down, but when we are immersed in down it is most difficult to “pull ourselves up from the bootstraps” and rise above misery. During those down times it seems that everything is down.

We have all had conversations about the essential nature of people. Some say that we are rotten to the core—that there is no essential good there. Such people have given up on their own human family. This voice is split between those who believe in God and those who don’t. On the one hand if there is to be any essence of good it is purely the result of that good coming from an external God. The “non-believers” hold no hope at all—Just rotten to the core. Neither of these voices acknowledge intrinsic worth. To one the worth is infused, to the other there is none.

The eternal presence of Buddha-nature is a contrary voice of faith: The recognition of intrinsic, essential worth, present in all of life and it is this gold mine, which when accepted in faith that manifests in wisdom in the midst of affliction and turns ice into water.

Nature of mind and the desire for liberation

Engine of motion

What traps us? The Buddha taught that we trap ourselves because of deluded thinking. We misunderstand our true nature and thus imagine that we’re fundamentally corrupted. And in this cloud of delusion we experience frustration, anxiety and remain firmly persuaded that we’re broken wheels and desire being saved.   

On the one hand we are corrupted and do need saving. Evidence of such corruption surrounds us. But when seen from a fundamental level there is nothing to save. Yes I know this sounds like double-talk but only because we don’t understand our true nature.  If we did there would be no confusion.

In the commentary on the Diamond Sutra, Huang-po says, “Buddhas and beings share the same identical mind. It’s like space: it doesn’t contain anything and isn’t affected by anything. When the great wheel of the sun rises, and light fills the whole world, space doesn’t become brighter. When the sun sets, and darkness fills the whole world, space doesn’t become darker. The states of light and darkness alternate and succeed one another, while the nature of space is vast and changeless. The mind of buddhas and beings is like this. Here, the buddha says to save all beings in order to get rid of the delusion of liberation so that we can see our true nature.” 

Because we rely solely on bodily experiences, a conclusion of corruption is inescapable and from that logical premise desire arises. From that perspective this is correct. But we are not fundamentally a body. As Huang-po points out, fundamentally we share the same mind space as a Buddha. The mind is the production factory and our body is what’s produced. This is an important distinction. To not recognize this error is like imagining that our car manufactured itself and just suddenly appeared in our garage one day. Obviously our car was produced somewhere and just as obviously so was our body. But then some will say, “This is nonsense. Our body was produced through the biological union between our father and mother.” OK, so where did their bodies come from? This sequence must go all the way back to the beginning of time and we’re still left with the same dilemma.

On the other hand consider the possibility that there is a difference between an objective body and a subjective spirit. An object is inanimate and has no consciousness or power to do anything, much less produce itself. Ah but a spirit is an entirely different matter. Our spirit produces everything, either for the good or for the bad depending on what we think. Our spirit is the engine. Our body is the vehicle of motion and unless we see this distinction we’re left with the swing between the rising sun of goodness and the darkness of despair.

Bipolar

Manic depression; Bipolar affective disorder is a certifiable mental illness that can mimic something akin to phases of awakening. The principle of dependent origination says that everything in life is a reflection of this fundamental principle and this is illustrated with the broadly known relationship between suffering and enlightenment. Bodhidharma said that without afflictions there could be no enlightenment. The two are linked by the principle of dependent origination. A famous Zen saying is, “No suffering. No enlightenment. Little suffering. Little enlightenment. Great suffering. Great enlightenment”.

In his commentary on the Sutra of Complete Enlightenment, Chan Master Sheng Yen said that nobody having good dreams wants to wake up. Only when they have nightmares are they eager to do so. The point to all of this is that there is a correspondence between the magnitude of both suffering and awakening. The entirety of Buddhism concerns the alleviation of suffering. There is no other purpose for this quest than that. So some reading this may think to themselves, “I don’t suffer so Zen isn’t right for me.”

I have two rejoinders to this observation: Not yet, and denial. The “not yet” part is the realization that it is impossible to live and not suffer because the fundamental nature of conditional life is suffering. The “denial” part concerns resistance (a form of attachment which creates more suffering). Nobody wants to suffer and unfortunately this motivates many to stay in states of denial. The pain is too sharp to bear so we stuff it down and try to go on with life and this can eventually be a large problem because it isn’t possible to keep suffering locked away forever. Sooner or later it seeps out and corrodes our sense of wellbeing.

When you learn to mediate (and practice it) all of that suppressed mental poison gets released, you clean out the pipes and move on toward wholeness. It isn’t fun to lance that boil but it beats living with the compacted aftermath of suppressed suffering. Along the way toward restored mental health there can be wide swings from one depth to the opposite, but this is the necessary result of mental house cleaning. Zen is not a practice for the faint of heart. It’s only for the most desperate and those who exhibit the necessary courage to go through the anguish required to have a life worth living.