If it walks like a duck…

The common-coin understanding is that Buddhism is a Godless religion, and the reason for this view is that the Buddha didn’t focus on the concept of God but instead focused on understanding the mind and overcoming suffering. It’s worth the time and energy to thoroughly investigate this matter.

First is the notion that God can be understood conceptually. The Buddha’s perspective was that such a thing was not possible and, when thoughtfully considered, this is, of course, true. God is transcendent to all considerations and can’t be enclosed within any conceptual and rational framework. To even attach a name such as “God” is to be lost in a delusional pretense.

Sokei-an Shigetsu Sasaki used the name “Great Nature” and “Great Self.” There are many names to point to the nameless creator of heaven and earth but Sokei-an perhaps said it best. He said, “If you really experience ‘IT’ with your positive shining soul, you really find freedom. No one will be able to control you with names or memory of words—Socrates, Christ, Buddha. Those teachers were talking about consciousness. Consciousness is common to everyone. When you find your true consciousness, you will not need the names or words of any teacher.” 

As a result, Gautama addressed only what can be controlled and didn’t participate in fostering further delusion. So the question is whether or not ‘IT’ can be defined, even marginally. What are the characteristics of ‘IT’ and how does ‘IT’ function? Whatever name is chosen, regardless of religious affiliation, the nature of God is understood to inhabit the entirety of creation. 

The creator can’t be severed from what is created, which is the point of the Buddhist understanding that all form is the same thing as emptiness. Rather than using the name “God” (in vain), the name “Buddha” is used, and “Buddha” means awakened to the true essence of oneself. We might use any name but the essence would not change. An awakened person is said to enjoy the mind of enlightenment. 

If you read Buddhist literature extensively, you’ll find a laundry list of sorts, which speaks to this mind of enlightenment. It includes the following qualities: complete, ubiquitous, full of bliss, independent, transcendent, full of wisdom, never changes, the ground of all being, the creative force of everything, devoid of distinctive nature (ineffable) yet all form endowed with this nature.

When we take all of this in and digest it, a duck begins to emerge that walks, talks, and looks like a duck. In the final analysis, a name is fleeting, but the substance remains forever. Here is what Jesus is recorded as having said about where God lives: 

“If your leaders say, ‘Look, the Kingdom is in the Heavens,’ then the birds will be before you. If they say, ‘It is in the ocean,’ then the fish will be before you. But the Kingdom is inside of you, and the Kingdom is outside of you. When you know yourself, then you will know that you are of the flesh of the living Father. But if you know yourself not, then you live in poverty and that poverty is you.”—Gospel of Thomas 3.

We must acknowledge that languages are means of articulating something but the something is never the same as the words we choose. What possible difference does the name make? We have grown excessively protective of our own names of choice and sadly have lost touch with our very own souls.

Tracking a koan.

A story is told in the Platform Sutra of a conversation held between Daman Hongren (fifth Chinese Chan patriarch) and Dajian Huineng (sixth Chinese Chan patriarch). Huineng was an illiterate, unschooled commoner who, upon hearing the Diamond Cutter Sutra, realized enlightenment and subsequently sought out Hongren. When Huineng met the patriarch, he was assigned the lowly job of rice-pounder, where he remained for many months before proving his worth to Hongren.

The conversation between the two was thus: Hongren—“A seeker of the Path risks his life for the dharma. Should he not do so?” Then he asked, “Is the rice ready?”  Huineng—“Ready long ago, only waiting for the sieve.” 

Two questions, and a single short answer which reveals the nature of enlightenment—both sudden and gradual. Sudden, since awakening happened quickly, but fullness required the sifting of life’s sieve—The rice was ready, but the lingering, residual chaff had to be blown away by the winds of life.

The insight flowing from this conversation is enhanced through the lens of an ancient Greek word for perfection. The word is “Teleios,” which means having reached the finale—the logical culmination of maturation. Like birth, first, we come into this world, and then it takes many years of living to reach maturation.

More than forty years ago, I came to a realization of my true nature, but I also needed further shifting to fully grasp the magnitude of what had occurred. It is one thing to experience profound transformation, and it is another to allow it to flower and revolutionize your life. Besides, the initial experience was so contrary to the ordinary, that when it happens, I barely know which end was up. It took time to absorb the experience, allow it to infuse me, and to settle in.

One of the critical ingredients for me of this settling in concerned the Japanese words “mu” and “shin.” Mu is, of course, the Japanese word for “no,” and you find Mu in the koan about Jōshū’s dog: “A monk asked, ‘Does a dog have a Buddha-nature or not?’ The master said, ‘Mu (No)!’”

When I lived in a Zen monastery, this was my koan and for a long time it made no sense. In Zen, you are taught that Buddha-nature inhabits all sentient beings, one of which is a dog. So how could it be that Buddha-nature infuses everything but not a dog? But as life sifted me, it began to become a part of who I was, and ever so slowly, I understood. 

What I came to understand concerned variations on Mu. One of these is the obvious negation no. An alternative is nothing meaning the absence of something. And another is no-thing, (which is similar to nothing but more precise, meaning not a thing). These latter two can be combined, which rounds out the correct Buddhist understand of emptiness, which the Buddha said is form. Seen in this combined manner, emptiness becomes more than just the absence of form. It then becomes the wellspring of form (and everything else). Mu is not a phenomenal thing. Instead, it is the soil out of whch grows all things. If it was a thing, then it could not be all things.

The Heart Sutra says form is emptiness. That is a profound equation, but it rattles your brain. In a way this is the premier koan. We all think we know what form is. It’s the measurable stuff that surrounds us. We can sense it in every way. But emptiness is an entirely different kettle of fish. How can you perceive that? The truth is you can’t perceive emptiness. You can only experience it, and the reason is actually quite simple (but only when you understand—before that, it makes no sense). 

Emptiness is who we truly are. It has no discernible properties, but all form emanates from there and all form is infused with the indelible dimension of the ubiquitous power of creation. If emptiness had detectable properties, it would be limited. Buddha-Nature (your true nature) is not limited. Buddha-Nature is emptiness and it is you.

I was helped to fathom this when I learned a few things about the Chinese and the Japanese language. Every culture sees things differently, and these two languages see life in ways that are radically different from the English perspective. 

From a Western point of view, we have a heart, and we have a mind. We see these as two separate and different matters. Not so with the Chinese and the Japanese. The heart and the mind are one integrated whole, so they call it XIN (Chinese) or SHIN (Japanese), and both of these terms mean heart/mind—the integration of thinking and emotions. That was one piece of the puzzle.

The next piece concerned the seeming dichotomy between illusion and reality, and here again the cultural framing played an essential role. What we ordinarily consider real is what we can perceive, whether internally or externally. We see the objective world of form and the fabrication of thoughts and consider both real. But there is a problem here: Both our thoughts and the outside world of form are constantly changing, and both lure us into identity attachment and thus suffering. 

That part is the illusive dimension of XIN/SHIN, otherwise known as form. But The Buddha had said that form is emptiness, so in essence, he was saying that we could only perceive the manifestations but not the source of mind. In fact, this is what he had said in the Mahāyāna Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra:

“Seeing the actions of body and mouth, we say that we see the mind. The mind is not seen, but this is not false. This is seeing by outer signs.” Elsewhere he spoke of finding the fire of mind only by seeing smoke.

When we look for the mind, we find nothing—the mind can’t see itself, and this is where Zen shines because what we aim for in zazen is a cessation of form, long enough to experience the lack. Bodhidharma had said: “That which exists, exists in relationship to that which doesn’t exist.” And Rinzai’s teacher Huang Po, was particularly lucid in his teaching about the relationship between abandoning form and finding yourself. In the Chun Chou Record, he said: 

“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 Nirvānic nature is Mind; Mind is the Buddha, and the Buddha is the Dharma.”

One of the fascinating aspects of Zen study is to begin patching together apparently disparate pieces into a seamless tapestry of meaning. When we arrange all of these pieces, a picture emerges centered on this notion of Mu and Shin and what it reveals is this equation: “Mu shin=Shin” where the first part “Mu shin” (the absence of thoughts and emotions) is joined to our true nature (Shin) which is formless/the void/true mind/the Buddha/yourself. 

Formlessness is lacking form. It is emptiness itself: “…the void is not really void, but the realm of the real Dharma. This spiritually enlightening nature is without beginning...this great Nirvānic nature is Mind; Mind is the Buddha, and the Buddha is the Dharma.” 

And that is who we are. Now the curious thing about my own awakening is what was taking place within me while immersing myself in Mu practice. Yes, I had been given the Jōshū’s dog koan, and yes, I was following the prescribed method, but there was a much deeper internal koan occurring that had been haunting me for many, many years, and there didn’t seem to be any way to either get rid of it or make rational sense of it. That koan was the mind-bender: who am I? So while I was immersing myself in dogs, this deeper koan was down there underneath. It didn’t seem to be even slightly related to dogs or Mu but what happened was that the answer to my who am I? question, emerged as the solution to the Mu koan because the answer to one is the answer to the other.

I had been struggling for years, believing all the time that I was a worthless excuse for humanity, and in my moment of awakening, I realized that I was already Teleios (complete). I knew, at the most fundamental level of me, I was perfect, had always been perfect, and would never stop being perfect, and ever so slowly, the winds of life began to blow away the chaff of the terrible part of me.

Mixing it up.

We’re a curious species. Being human puts us at the top of the food chain. It also puts us at the top of other chains, such as the chain of creativity. No other life form (at least none that we know of) can imagine and solve problems as we do. 

Unfortunately, this seems to be a two-edged sword. One way cuts in the way of creation, and the other way cuts in the form of destruction. We are masters of both.

Awhile back, I wrote an article called a “Bird in hand” and spoke about compounds that result from mixing different things together. The point of that article was that once mixed, an entirely new compound results. The separate ingredients can then no longer be detected, but something new has been created.

I’m an old man now and have been kicking around spiritual conclaves for quite some time, and I’ve noticed a meaningful thing about compounds. People show up in a wide variety of such places for various reasons, but the alleged reason is they go there seeking God. After a time, many remain for other reasons, and they forget about why they came in the first place. A rare few figure out an essential truth: God doesn’t live in churches, synagogues, or temples. God lives in people.

Many people pay lip service to what their own scriptures tell them. For example, Christian scripture says that “You are the body of Christ.” If you happen to be a Buddhist you’re taught that everyone contains the enlivening essence of The Buddha. But too few seem able to accept the resulting compound and just go ahead and act like God is absent from the true temple of themselves.

Have you ever wondered what our world would be like if everyone conducted themselves by embracing this fundamental principle? If we really want to make the world a better place, begin to see yourself and others as a compound container of divinity. I am aware that most of us exhibit some less than ideal nastiness, but it’s also mixed together with genuine love and compassion. Adversity seems to bring out the goodness that is always there. And even if you don’t accept the idea that we are the resulting compound mixture of spirit and matter, it never hurts to pretend that we are.

Seeing the Unseen

In the Diamond Sutra, The Buddha has a conversation with Subhuti, one of his esteemed disciples. In the course of their conversation, The Buddha mentions five different kinds of vision. These same five are reflected in the Mahaparinirvana Sutra.

The five ways of seeing are:

1. The mundane human eye—Our mortal eye; the normal organ with which we see an object, with limitation, for instance, in darkness, with obstruction. There is a viewer (subject) and what is viewed (object) and thus duality.

2. The Heavenly eye —It can see in darkness and in the distance, attainable in Zazen.

3. The Wisdom eye —The eye of an Arhat (an advanced monk) and two others: the sound-hearers (Sravaka: One who hears the Dharma as a disciple) and the (Praetykabuddha: A “lone” buddha who gains enlightenment without a teacher by reflecting on dependent origination). These can see the false and empty nature of all phenomena.

4. The Dharma eye —The eye of a Bodhisattva can see all the dharmas in the world and beyond. With this eye, the Bodhisattva sees the interconnectedness of all and experiences non-duality. He then embraces genuine compassion seeing no difference between himself and every other manifestation of Buddha-Nature. He is in undifferentiated bliss. This is what Sokai-An says is the Great Self—“Self-awakening’ is awakening to one’s own self. But this self is a Great Self. Not this self called Mr. Smith, but the Self that has no name, which is everywhere. Everyone can be this Self that is the Great Self, but you cannot awaken to this Self through your own notions.”

5. The Buddha eye —The eye of omniscience. It can see all those four previous eyes can see.

Complete and thorough enlightenment is to see with the eye of a Buddha, which according to Buddhist sutras, could take many lifetimes, so we should not be dismayed if we don’t leap to the front of the line overnight. What none of us knows is where we enter this stream of insight. We only know how we see, not what we don’t. For all we know, we may have been on the Path for a Kalpa already.

Manjushri is the Bodhisattva who represents wisdom. He holds a sword in his right hand—symbolizing his ability to cut through the delusions of the non-Self. In his left hand, he holds a book—the Perfection of Wisdom teaching on Prajnaparamita, which grows from the lotus: the symbol of enlightenment. On his head is a crown with five eyes—The eyes spoke of above.

Manjushri symbolizes prajnaparamita: the perfection of wisdom.  His wisdom is transcendent, meaning that it is divinely rooted and takes shape circumstantially. In the normal sense, rules are discriminated against and governed by duality, administered in a fixed fashion, and rarely reflects justice. Life is fluid and ever-changing. To apply fixed rules in the fluid dimension of ordinary life ensures conflict. Precepts are both the letter and the spirit of the law. The letter defines within the framework of form and spirit undergirds the form with essence/emptiness.

Nagarjuna referred to these as two aspects of a common reality, which he labeled as conventional and the sublime. The Buddha said in the Mahaparinirvana Sutra that while his true nature is eternal and unchanging (e.g., sublime), he takes form and adapts his shape (e.g., conventionally) according to specific circumstances as needed “To pass beings to the other shore.” In one case, he may take the form of a beggar or a prostitute. In another, he emerges as a King. 

Whatever specific circumstances exist, The Buddha transforms to meet particular needs to emancipate those in spiritual need. It is The Buddha who implants the seed of inquiry, which compels those spiritually ill to seek the Dharma. This explains the motive to action, which many experiences. It is an itch that seeks relief and nags us until we resolve our illnesses. Manjushri is the moderator of the fused realities of form and emptiness. His wisdom comes from beyond but is applied materially, just as Bodhidharma’s Mind determines motion. The throne upon which he sits in the lotus depicting the source of his power.

That explanation accounts for the metaphysics of seeing the unseen. The depth of that seeing is a function of advancing capacity, which is a measure of our success in eliminating delusions. The URNA (a concave circular dot—an auspicious mark manifested by a whorl of white hair on the forehead between the eyebrows, often found on the 2nd and 3rd Century sculptures of The Buddha) symbolizes spiritual insight. The practical “working out” is managed through the Noble Eightfold Path. As the name indicates, there are eight functions, and these are divided into three basic categories as follows:

Wisdom—The seed from which the next two categories grow. This seed is rooted in transcendent Buddha-Nature, not the self, symbolized by the lotus seat upon which Manjushri sits—the foundation; ground for his wisdom.

1. Right views

2. Right intentions

Ethical conduct—These are forms of wisdom expression, the structure for how wisdom takes shape.

3. Right speech
4. Right action
5. Right livelihood

Mental discipline—These are means for refining capacity and depth. As capacity advances, sight increases.

6. Right effort
7. Right mindfulness
8. Right concentration (Zen)

These eight are not necessarily sequential functions, although wisdom must infuse the other functions. In truth, prajna—wisdom is omnipresent, transcendent. The eight functions are not designed to acquire or create prajna. Our lack of awareness occurs not because prajna is absent but rather due to illusive mind. These eight functions are designed to reveal prajna by removing those dimensions of life that fuel the illusive mind. They are the “dust cloths” we use to remove obscurations. Rightly, they arise together, but this may mean that some aspects are lacking or weak.

Before concluding this introduction on seeing the unseen, a key point must be made: these eight steps along the Path are form expressions of emptiness. Some technical terms may help here. There are three aspects mentioned in Buddhist metaphysics to refer to the totality of Buddha-Nature. The three are the dharmakaya, the nirmanakaya, and the sambhogakaya. All three “kaya” aspects are already embodied within each sentient being, and fruition is a matter of coming to that realization. 

The first—dharmakaya is the formless, indescribable unseen essence of which we have been speaking and the aspect we have referred to metaphorically as “The Wall.” This aspect of Buddha-Nature is called emptiness or the Void. 

The second aspect— the nirmanakaya, is the enfleshed form of Buddha-Nature that we see when we look out upon life. This aspect is form. When we see as Sokai-An says, “man, woman, tree, animal, flower—extensions of the source.” When we see one another, we are seeing what the Buddha looks like in each of us. 

And the third aspect—the sambhogakaya, concerns mental powers, with the ability of one’s mind to manifest with the five means of seeing. It is connected with communication, both on the verbal and nonverbal levels. It is also associated with the idea of relating, so that speech here means not just the capacity to use words but also the ability to communicate on all levels. 

Wisdom transmitted and received through dreams, visions, and mystical experience comes via sambhogakaya. An awakening experience is modulated through sambhogakaya. This aspect contains elements of both The Wall and The Ladder—Emptiness, and Form. Actually, this is a misstatement since it seems to imply that the three aspects are somehow separate.

To see these as separate is only a matter of convenience. The problem with this view is that it carves Buddha-Nature up into separate pieces. Buddha-Nature is non-dual—a single unbroken reality. The “sambhogakaya” fuses these apparent pieces into a single aspect, thus removing the apparent duality. The Buddha calls the Void-Void—Not This; Not That yet also not-not This and not-not That. In other words, it is Not emptiness (alone) nor Form (alone), but instead, both emptiness and form fused into an inseparable bond. All three aspects are manifestations that are linked interdependently to transcendence/Buddha-Nature.

For lack of a better way of understanding these three, think “sambhogakaya” when the term “mind-essence” is encountered—the fusion of both emptiness and form but accessible to the mind. In other words, “mind-essence” is our doorway to transcendence using form. The dharmakaya is the Tathagatagarbha (Buddha-womb), the ultimate, non-differentiated source spoken of in the Heart Sutra where no eye, ear, or other form exists (yet all forms exist). You may want to re-read the posts on The Wall—Essence to get a firmer picture about the dharmakaya. This is the engine that provides motion to form, without which form could not move, and the bridge between form and emptiness is the sambhogakaya—“mind essence.” 

What we do with wisdom transmitted from the source becomes a matter of transformation into form. When we pledge to emancipate all sentient beings, it is a matter of using the integrated power of the dharmakaya, conveyed and received through the sambhogakaya and actualized through the nirmanakaya. There is no power for emancipation without employing all three aspects. In the end, we must do something. If that “doing” is a matter of independence, cut off from our source, the “doing” will be ego-centric instead of Buddha-centric.

The Buddha is ever-present and is seen in every dimension. We see The Buddha when we use our fleshly eyes and look out upon ordinary life forms. We see The Buddha when we see through visions, dreams, mystical experiences using different eyes. And we see The Buddha in the Ultimate Realm of the dharmakaya, where prajnaparamita resides. The way of seeing reflects the degree to which we succeed in removing delusions that obstruct vision. All vision moves along the spectrum defined by the limits of the mundane and the supra-mundane. This is a continuum that floats on the surface of the mind. The more delusions, the more clouded our vision. The fewer delusions, the clearer our vision.

Prajnaparamita is ever-present—it doesn’t come and go. What does come and go are delusions which block and mask it. The Noble Eightfold Path is not a Buddhist version of a Jack LaLanne “spiritual self-improvement” program. Delusions which arise from the “self/nonSelf/ego” lay at the heart of the very clouds which obscure the truth, and to start down the Path with the presumption of building ego strength or using the “tools” of the Path for personal gain is a prescription for certain failure.

Functions—including the eight of the Noble Path— are “isness”—with definable properties, but they are connected to the “is” of “isness”—the divine spark that drives the engine of “isness.” This “is” of “isness” goes by many names, but as Lao Tzu said, “The name that can be named is not the eternal name.” Bodhidharma called this namelessness “The mind of Buddha and the Tao,” a nameless name that Lao Tzu first established. The Buddha himself referred to this namelessness as the Tathagatagarbha and the Dharmata. Dogen spoke of the indivisible, non-dual union of essence and appearance as “mind essence.” Huineng used the same expression. Sokai-An used the name “Great Nature” and “Great Self.” There are many names to point to the nameless mother of heaven and earth, but Sokei-An perhaps said it best. He said, “If you really experience ‘IT’ with your positive shining soul, you really find freedom. No one will control you with names or memory of words—Socrates, Christ, Buddha. Those teachers were talking about consciousness. Consciousness is common to everyone. When you find your true consciousness, you will not need the names or words of any teacher.” (The Zen Eye) In the days to come, I will share more about prajna, which will lay the groundwork for further discussion. Then in the eight days following, I’ll take these eight, one at a time.