The Wall—Emptiness

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The enlightenment of The Buddha introduced an entirely new vantage-point to the human experience. 

In summary, his grasp of reality addressed two, apparently different views which he said were the same thing looked at from alternate perspectives. Those two dimensions were the conditional and the unconditional realms of form and emptiness, which according to him arose dependent upon each other. 

Today and tomorrow we’ll consider these two, metaphorically through a model of a wall and a ladder that leans against that wall. The metaphor came in a dream following a day of contemplating the various understandings of the word dharma. 

I discovered in my research that dharma was derived from the Sanskrit root dhṛ, which means to support or hold, and often referred to cosmic law. In my dream, I saw a ladder leaning against and supported by a blank wall.

The story is told that Bodhidharma sat in meditation staring at a blank wall for nine years. What did he see? Let’s take a walk into a realm almost too strange to imagine. In fact, it is only possible to enter this realm through the imagination. It is the realm of a transcendent wall, which strips conceptuality down to the ground of all being. Think essence—pure essence, infinite essence, 100% essence, without any otherness. Such a realm is impossible to imagine because to imagine it requires separation and otherness: an imaginer as well as what is being imagined, and such essence is transcendent to all divisions. It is a realm where subjects and objects melt into one another. It is non-dual in any and every way. 

Form requires dimensions of at least the aggregation of time, space, and circumstances. Not the imagination. Essence is the sentient eye seeing itself beyond all time, space, and circumstance. This essence is what Eckhart said was, “The eye through which I see God is the same eye through which God sees me; my eye and God’s eye are one eye, one seeing, one knowing, one love.” 

Form content needs context within which to exist but essence is both content and context at the same time, which is a contradiction already. Essence is entirely “+” and “-” fusion and such a thing cannot exist except in the imagination, or so it seems to conventional wisdom.

What would such a realm approximate? The closest thing imaginable would be a black hole, which instead of sucking in otherness, sucks in itself (symbolically an Ouroboros—expressing the unity of all things). An infinitely large (or infinitely small: size is a contradiction) sucking machine without motion or any defining characteristics. Why? Because this is the primordial seed essence before mother and child. Form mother and children come next. “Large” is a defining characteristic. “Small” is a defining characteristic. “Motion” is movement from one space/time circumstance to another and this requires otherness which in the case of essence is so profound it cannot exist.

Defined thusly, in a dream, essence is transcendent to both life and death. It is beyond time, space, and circumstances. Such a condition is non-conditional, non-contingent, and non-everything. In fact, it is transcendent even to that prior statement since “non” is otherness and pure essence is non-non and is indefinable. It is wholly beyond; even beyond imagination and logic and every other frame of reference, which requires discernment. This would be 100% potential energy without even a glimmer of kinetic energy. Conceptually it is impossible to imagine. All concepts fail to capture essence. 

I think this way of envisioning essence is a fairly accurate description of something that is 100% ready: neither alive nor dead but ready for either, neither or both, only this is transcendent to all such defining characteristics which imply life or death. Readiness is unborn and never dies. This would be an independent, wholly essential, unconditional non-thing with no other purpose except existence itself. This is a Self with no other. It would be the womb of creation without a child, forever and ever: another with no otherness, yet transcendent to such distinctions. It would be completely empty of everything, yet completely full at the same time. It would be everything and nothing at once. It would be completely meaningless and completely meaningful—The Big Bang before either bang or big—pure singularity of the essential kind.

Is this what Bodhidharma saw? We’ll never know but countless Zen Masters have spoken about this ineffability using names like Mind Essence, Ground of Being, Original Face, and Purity. Some have called it Buddha—the Dharmakaya. Others have used the word, God. The founder of the Rinzai Zen (Lin Chi) used the idiom, “True Man of no rank” because, within this ineffable sphere, there is no discrimination and discrimination is conditional, only possible when otherness is present. 

Bodhidharma simply called it “The Void” or the primordial mind and what he was experiencing for nine years was a view of his own mind. Names are mere handles to represent what can’t be, and never will be, adequate to describe what is utterly transcendent. Exodus 20:4 speaks clearly about the admonition of God: “You are not to make an image or picture of anything in heaven or on the earth or in the waters under the earth.” 

And the understanding of this admonition is clear: any and every word or handle harkens a conceptual image engraved in the mind: a shadow—a surrogate, of the energy which inhabits and moves all of life. Essence is things exactly as they are, sans any and all defining characteristics. This is suchness. The nameless is the beginning of heaven and earth. “Those who know don’t talk. Those who talk don’t know.” — Stanza 56, The Tao Te Ching.

The Matrix—Illusory Mind

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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. 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 real self; the union and the 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 have 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 Middle Way. Much of the harm done by not following this path is unintentional, but real nevertheless. How could we know inside the feedback loop? 

Unlike Keanu Reeves, we follow this way 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 from which we can escape 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. 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 a 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 right 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. 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. The threat is everywhere and there is a good reason for the concern: Everything is changing. 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? This is a realm without multitasking. 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”—things as they truly are.

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 a life without death. 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 an 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. 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.

God in a Box

The temptation

Confusions about the nature of God are always lurking in the background and complicating clarity. So I want to offer alternative perspectives on a fundamental Christian principle that arises from Matthew’s book in the Bible. Here’s the passage:

“For whoever wants to save his ‘life’ will lose it, but whoever loses his ‘life’ for me will find it. For what will it profit a man, if he gains the whole world and forfeits his ‘life.’” Matt 16:25-26

The New Testament of the Bible was written in Koine Greek. There are two different Greek words in this passage for life. As is the case in any translation, this difference is lost to the English eye, distorting the intended meaning. The two occasions in the first sentence mean “soul”—the Greek word used was psuche, from which we derive the English word Psyche as in Psychology (and has often been interpreted as ego—“I”). The other life in the second sentence means life eternal, in the absolute sense (In a word—essence—and the Greek word was Zoe).

Many Christians think of “soul” as the vessel of enduring life, which designates the individual, and we say things like “He’s got soul,” which means “personality.” Another ordinary expression is “soul-mate.” Another still—“soul-food” or “soul-brother.” The common-coin understanding of “soul” is selfhood, which is characterized by our idea of who we are: Our image of self or self-image—the idea, rather than the reality of our essential being.

An alternate reading, or understanding, of psuche, is mental faculties. The soul is often believed by ordinary Christians to represent that part of the person, which rises to heaven after death (or gets a ticket to another place). Still, such understanding could only make linguistic sense by merging psuche and Zoe, and that merging does not exist in the selected passage.

This passage from the Bible can be understood in a variety of ways. One way—the orthodox way—is that a person must lay down their life (tarnished soul or self-image, figuratively) and be born again thus receiving the essence of God lost in Eden—to trade in the old fallen person for a new person with the Holy Spirit resident in their being, which couldn’t be there before due to our polluted and fallen nature. In other words, to accept Christ’s payment, on the cross, to redeem us all from the debt owed for the sin of disobedience in Eden. God wants justice and demands payment; otherwise, the breach of separation will remain, and we’ll just head for purgatory.

This entire explanation rests on the head of a pin: the basis that there was, in fact, a debt to be paid for the unjustified sin of disobedience in Eden, which becomes moot if Eden was metaphorical vs. an actual place. That sin was seen by God as so horrific that it required the sacrificial death of God’s only son—a curious notion since Genesis 2 is the story about God creating another son, Adam. And what was that terrible sin? Eating an apple from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, instead of fruit from the tree of life. In other words, trading away eternal life by gaining mortal discernment.

Clearly, the severe punishment was unwarranted since Adam and Eve didn’t yet possess the capacity to know they were making a bad choice until after they ate from the wrong tree. This would be equivalent to imprisoning your child (and their eternal progeny) because they made a poopie mess, for the rest of their life, before you potty trained them. They could only have known wrong following the choice, which equipped them with the requisite capacity for discernment, and to understand wrong, you must know what is right.

This presents a serious dilemma. Either God’s sense of justice was flawed (punishing the entire human race for a naïve choice). This story is a metaphor—the most logical possibility—in which case one needs to ferret out the more profound meaning. If you follow the story carefully, mortal discernment came along as a package deal which involved self-consciousness. Before eating the apple, neither Adam nor Eve had any self-consciousness. After they ate it, they became self-aware and covered their nakedness. Before that point (assuming there is a dimension of time called before and after—a separate topic, worthy of consideration), the two were naked as a jaybird and didn’t know there was anything else.

And forever after, good Christians regard their nakedness as evil—the stain of Satan/the serpent—and the temptation of Adam by Eve, which has caused a significant burden of guilt and perverted sexuality among millions of Christians for centuries. So the story goes, God was angry about the choice to trade away eternal life to get mortal discernment, so much so that he cut off the entire human race from his union, and thus created separation and duality. If a human father acted in such a heavy-handed and unjust fashion, he would appropriately find himself standing before a judge in a family court charged with child abuse.

On the other hand, there may be an alternate understanding. Perhaps the first understanding is not what Jesus meant at all. There is no support for this convoluted story, spoken by Jesus, anywhere in the Bible. The story is there, but not spoken by Jesus. The story has been knit together with various strands through a process known as proof-texting: the practice of using de-contextualized quotations from a document to establish a rhetorical proposition through an appeal to authority from other texts; A sort of a consensus by proxy (e.g., circular thinking). It is possible to knit pieces of different yarn together to make any fabric you wish. Isn’t it possible to see this as a metaphor with deep meaning rather than a factual account of a real place with real people and a real talking snake? The clear answer to that question is a resounding yes.

Perhaps what the text meant was that we must lose our mental/mortal illusions or ideas to experience God's immortal essence without fabricated mental images. This second possibility is very close to the Buddhist formulation. The lack of orthodox endorsement does not mean that there haven’t been solid Christians (Augustine, Bernard of Clairvaux, St. Francis of Assisi, John of the Cross, many others, and most important of all, Meister Eckhart—a German Christian theologian, philosopher, and mystic who lived 700 years ago) accepted this second version. A case in point comes from him. Here is what he said:

“Man’s last and highest parting occurs when for God’s sake, he takes leave of god. St. Paul took leave of god for God’s sake and gave up all that he might get from god as well as all he might give—together with every idea of god. In parting with these, he parted with god for God’s sake, and God remained in him as God is in his own nature—not as he is conceived by anyone to be—nor yet as something yet to be achieved, but more as an is-ness, as God really is. Then he and God were a unit, that is pure unity. Thus one becomes that real person for whom there can be no suffering, any more than the divine essence can suffer.”

God, according to Eckhart, is “divine essence—is-ness.” Not an idea, but a nameless, indefinable, immortal reality from which there is no division. The Buddha used the expression “thusness” to speak of the ineffable. Eckhart’s “Is-ness” is the same as the Buddha’s “thusness.” Both mean unembellished essence.

These are very different viewpoints with very different results. The orthodox church promotes the first understanding, but many serious Christians accept the second. In any event, with mortal ego-centricity intact, suffering continues. Common (or uncommon) sense proves that.

By accepting the first explanation, a conventional born again Christian must only speak some words of acceptance (either silently or otherwise)—“I confess my sin of disobedience and accept Christ as my new lord and savior.” Nothing else is required or needed. The mortal ego-fabrication can stay entrenched and functioning with all associated corruption continuing, and no motivation to change it. No further action is required beyond the confessional words.

The presumption is that the Holy Spirit will, thereafter, do everything else with no action required from the corrupted person. After those words of confession, you become a robot moving at the dictate of the Holy Spirit (allegedly), and Katy bar the door for anyone questioning the convictions of a born again Christian since, in that case, it is God speaking through a person. To a serious Buddhist, this point of surrender is the starting point, not the ending.

By accepting the second explanation—not recognized by orthodox Christian dogma—there is a different form of acceptance: by ridding oneself of a fabricated mortal self-illusion (psuche/ego), it becomes possible to accept one’s immortal essence and reality as a genuine creation of, and inhabited by God, and by so doing acknowledge what has always been and can never be otherwise—the presence of God’s ubiquitous essence (Zoe). Duality is a myth. Unity has always been. If there were a trick of Satan (ego?), that trick was to create an image of God (A Matrix of illusion) that masks the reality of God.

If God actually (vs. metaphorically,) created duality, that would be the same as God undoing his intrinsic nature (his immortal essence, which by definition is unified, ubiquitous, and omnipresent). God is everywhere all of the time—and that means within and outside—so how can God come and go? And even if God could come and go, does that depend upon human behavior? To suggest such a perspective turns God into a sort of yo-yo traveler dependent upon mortal circumstances. The Bible says that God’s love is unconditional and that a defining mark is omnipresence.

There seems to be a conundrum here. The problem is not God’s immortal presence—God never left—but our mortal awareness, which is obscured by self-generated illusions of a soul, placing the ego (e.g., ego-centric) at the center in place of God. The only eternal thing is God’s ever-present essence. You—the mortal you—flesh, bones, blood, and matter (including mental fabrications), will pass away like leaves in the wind. However, your nameless immortal essence endures forever because it is never born, nor does it ever die.

To many, this is a critical and delicate matter. It was for me. I struggled with the apparent dilemma for years, thinking I had to choose one side or the other. The fact is there really was no choice, only the one I imagined. If the matter of handles can be set aside if only briefly, it is possible to examine the underlying metaphorical meaning which transcends words and labels. If you read my post on “The Wall—Essence,” you will see my thoughts about transcendence. In that realm, there are no names nor labels. These are things that we mortal folk use to communicate ideas. If God exists—and how can there be any serious question about the matter—then the nature of God is an eternally ever-present, immanent, transcendent essence—Zoe. The Buddha used the word “Dharmadhatu”—he didn’t speak Greek, to say the same thing. Immortal essence is blocked by the mortal illusion—psuche.

I do not refer to myself as a Buddhist or a Christian. These are just names that cannot encapsulate our intrinsic, essential self-understanding. Words are just boxes (limitations) that we must struggle to get beyond. The Buddha cautioned not to be attached to names, even holy ones. He said, “So-called Buddha-Nature is not something that has been made.” Words can be prisons when we become attached.

It is what lies beneath the words that matter. In the final analysis, God is not an idea. Not even a name, but is everywhere yet, not abiding in a particular place: “Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.” (Spoken by Jesus; Matt 8:20) The Buddha expressed this non-abiding like this: “The Dharmata is Nirvana—the true essence of all Buddhas. Nirvana has no grotto or house to live in.” (Mahaparinirvana Sutra) The meaning of both of these expressions is that transcendence infuses all of existence yet is not restricted to place or form.

My blog’s name is “Dharma Space,” which means “Integration of one’s temporal nature with the underlying life principle by undoing of all egoistic falsehood”—thus accepting the indivisible conjunction of matter with essence. That premise is not limited to a particular perspective. I subscribe to the teachings of The Buddha because they come along with a minimum of baggage, with a complementary focus on freedom from dogma.

I also accept the truth about this integration from wherever it may be found. Jesus spoke such truth. Ego-centric humans have polluted the water of truth by pouring the poison of a mortal self-image into the well of life and ruined the lives of many in the process. Awakening is what Buddhism is about. That is the meaning of a Buddha: to awaken from a mortal ego’s self-created nightmare and accept your immortal essential nature. If you do that, it doesn’t matter what label you use. You can use the label of Buddhist, Christian, Muslim, Hindu, or Jew. It won’t matter. You’ll be a Buddha with a meaningless label.

Discrimination

Discrimination is understood as both an aspect of reality and something we should avoid. On the one hand, we are taught to be discriminating—to choose wisely one thing and not another. On the other hand, we are aware that to discriminate unwisely—against one group of people in favor of others—is a form of undesirable bias. The obvious key to these opposite perspectives is discernment guided by wisdom.

One of the premier Mahayana Sutras—The one Bodhidharma considered as foundational—is the Lankavatara. The surprising teaching of this sutra is that there is no such thing as discrimination within the framework of genuine Nobel Wisdom (Ultimate Reality)—these are presented as polar opposites. This teaching clearly states that discrimination (of any kind) is a manifestation of ignorance; of misinterpreting what we perceive as real and not understanding that perception occurs in the mind. The Buddha said that it is like seeing one’s own image in a mirror and taking the image as real, or seeing the moon reflected on the surface of the water and taking it to be the actual moon. To see in this way is dualistic whereas to see truly is a matter of Oneness revealed within inmost consciousness.
However, short of this unity, our fashion is to grasp the illusions and become attached, forever discriminating and thus never attaining tranquility. “By tranquility is meant Oneness, and Oneness gives birth to the highest Samadhi which is gained by entering into the realm of Noble Wisdom that is realizable only within one’s inmost consciousness.”

“Not realizing that the perceived world is only something seen of the mind itself, the ‘ignorant and simple-minded’ cling to the infinite vastness of external objects as this vs. that, imagining that they have a self-nature of their own, and fall into habit-energies based on false imagining. The result of this ignorance is minds which ‘burn with the fires of greed, anger, and folly,’  (e.g., the nature of an ego) finding delight in a world of multitudinous forms, their thoughts obsessed with ideas of birth, growth and destruction, not well understanding what is meant by existence and non-existence, and being impressed by erroneous discriminations and speculations since beginningless time, fall into the habit of grasping this and that and thereby becoming attached to them.”

When, by virtue of our discriminating minds, we are attracted, we cling. And when we are repulsed we resist. In our mind the world is ordered by objects which we like and don’t like; actions which we endorse and those we repudiate; thoughts which we desire and bring us joy and others we wish to avoid. We see the external, objective manifestations (forms) and go completely unaware of the unseen emptiness which undergirds all forms. Because of this, our nature is to cling to objective symbols of reality—names, signs, and ideas; as our mind moves along these channels, feeding on multiplicities of objects and fall into the notion of an ego-soul and what belongs to it; making discriminations of good and bad among appearances and cling to the agreeable. As we thus cling, we oppose the truth of our ignorance and therefore are trapped in karma born of greed, anger, and folly. The accumulation of karma then goes on and we become imprisoned in a cocoon of discrimination and are unable to free ourselves from the rounds of birth and death.

The beginning chapter concludes in this way... “In this world whose nature is like a dream, there is a place for praise and blame, but in the ultimate Reality of Dharmakaya which is far beyond the senses and the discriminating mind, what is there to praise?”

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.

The Basement

Many of my initial posts are building on a fundamental premise inherent in both Taoism and Buddhism—the premise of dependent origination. Simply stated, this is the simultaneous arising of apparent opposites. Death and life; Light and dark; Mother and child...Every dimension, observable or not. Nothing exists in isolation, and it is incorrect to think that one thing precedes another.

That premise is portrayed in Lao Tzu’s metaphorical relating to the primordial nameless and ten thousand things and is picked up and reflected as a Ladder and Wall in my posts. Since postings are sequential, with viewers entering various times, the reader may wonder what this “Wall” and “Ladder” are all about. Toward the objective of clarification, it would be helpful to the reader, to begin with, my initial post: “Digestion,” where the initial basement is laid.

This will be a common theme as I progress through the labyrinth of mystery and manifestations. It will be more useful to grasp the foundation before proceeding with interior decoration.