Reflections of reality

Look in a mirror, and what do you see? You see your face looking back at you. You don’t delude yourself with the notion that a reflection is really you. It’s just a reflection: an image appearing in a mirror. In your mind’s eye, imagine yourself. That too is just an image appearing before you. Both the image in the mirror and the image in your mind are reflections of you, but it’s the real you that is seeing them both.

Those images—All images are reflections but not what’s real. In every case, it takes an ineffable real you and objective images for perception to occur. Just you or just images won’t do the job. Both are necessary; it takes one who watches and what is watched. Reality joined to a reflection of reality is what it takes to make sense of anything. If we can see a reflection of our self, (otherwise known as a self-image) then the image seen can’t possibly be who we truly are. The true seer is the one doing the seeing. The unreal us is the image being seen. We are not reflections. We are real people seeing thoughts, and what we see are just images. For those curious about the split between what’s real vs. reflections (otherwise known as duality), you might want to read my post “God in a Box ” by clicking here.

Coming and going.

“The Master arrives without leaving, sees the light without looking, achieves without doing a thing.”—Lao Tzu: TaoTe Ching

The quote above has special significance to anyone who has unveiled their true nature. And I use the term “unveil” instead of achieving with intent. Indeed our true nature, for all practical purposes, is buried deep within and must be uncovered. It never comes and never leaves. 

Until that moment our sense of self is anything but permanent. It comes and it goes, riding the waves of good times and bad, dangling on a string of judgments. The importance of the principle is of such significance that it represents a pillar among various Buddhist sects in metaphorical terms of guests and hosts. If you Google “Zen, guest and host” you’ll end up with more than 780,000 hits all of which examine the matter from every conceivable direction.

The essence, however, is very simple even though the means of “achieving without doing” can boggle the mind with infinite permutations. In essence “The Master” is your very own mind; the one that sees without looking. The impediment to unveiling this master is a mind that is seen, not the mind that sees. The Buddha taught that our true mind can’t be seen, it can only be experienced through samādhi the awakening of our never-leaving body of truth. While difficult to explain, when awakening occurs there is no turning back. Only then we know what before was only a figment of our imaginations.

When we think of truth we imagine matters in rational terms; the product of our mind that is seen. While this distinction may appear esoteric it is central to genuine awakening—Hard to ascertain but incredibly powerful when experienced. The difference between the two was laid out by Nāgārjuna in his doctrine of two truths:

“The Buddha’s teaching of the Dharma is based on two truths: a truth of worldly convention and ultimate truth. Those who do not understand the distinction drawn between these two truths do not understand the Buddha’s profound truth. Without a foundation in the conventional truth, the significance of the ultimate cannot be taught. Without understanding the significance of the ultimate, liberation is not achieved.”

Nāgārjuna taught that “true things” exist fundamentally and can be perceived as such by the senses, while “false things” do not exist as they are perceived. The difference? Truth conceived conventionally keeps ultimate truth concealed. Things appear to our logical mind to contain an independent, self-nature, that is flawed by bias and preconceived ideas, but in his Fundamental Verses on the Middle Way (The Mūlamadhyamakakārikā), Nāgārjuna provided a logical defense that all things are empty of such a nature but are instead interdependently related. Even emptiness itself has no inherent, independent self-nature. 

Consequently, what we imagine is a fabrication. While the rational mind of relative truth is necessary to lead us to ultimate truth, so long as we do not let go and see clearly, we will forever be in bondage. It is the experience of awakening to our true nature (not the appearance) that sets us free to enjoy the fruits of the master that never leaves.

The virtual and real side of you and me.

Our two sides.

We live in a wondrous time of the merger between science and the realm beyond matter. For the most part, we attribute this merger to science, and it is true that we most welcome science-based theories that lead to the edge of the beyond. Science has become our friendly rational doorway to the ineffable. Every day, whenever I post to my blog, Google Analytics provides a tool that allows me to observe the nature of topics that attract the most interest and spread the quickest and most far-reaching throughout virtual cyberspace. What I have learned through this capability is that the idea of relativity and virtual reality has the greatest appeal. So with that in mind, my post for today deals with this matter of virtual and non-virtual reality.

Ordinarily, people don’t think that virtual reality applies to our conditional world, but the most cutting-edge science confirms that our ordinary lives are in fact virtual, and conform to the principle of relativity. Of course in our everyday realm, it messes with our head to consider that ordinary and the extraordinary is one and the same thing different only in terms of descriptions.

To define anything we must do so by comparing one thing to something different. This point was made by many wise people among them being the Buddha, who lived, by most accounts, between 563 BCE and 483 BCE, Śāntideva—the founder of the Avaivartika Sangha in the 6th century CE, and Nagarjuna who lived during the period of 150–250 CE. Even Albert Einstein who was born 14 March 1879 and died on 18 April 1955 confirmed the principle.

Three of these were mystics and of course, one was a theoretical physicist. This idea of defining, by comparison, has come to be known as relativity within the physical realm and dependent origination in the mystical realm. But words aside, they mean the same thing, which brings me to the topic for today.

If you look up the notion of virtual reality you’ll learn that it is a form of reality considered to not be real. This of course begs the question of, what is real? You can’t define one thing except in relation to the opposite of the thing. Thus we only know what “up” is by comparing it to “down.” Motion is only relevant when considered against non-motion (kinetic vs. potential energy). And virtual reality is only meaningful once you define non-virtual reality (reality itself).

The ancient understanding of reality is, that which is never born, does not die, does not move, is the same everywhere found, and doesn’t change. Anything that doesn’t comply with that understanding is considered to be virtual (or unreal). An illustration of this understanding, which everyone can grasp, is watching a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images, with or without accompanying sound. We, of course, know this as television where we observe images changing. None of us ever thinks that these changing images are anything other than virtual, but what we fail to consider is that our entire conditional world is no different from this medium: All of it is moving, changing with a beginning and an ending. Yet nobody thinks of our conditional world as virtual. Instead, we consider it real and think of our bodily selves as real, and this misunderstanding causes undue hardship and suffering.

Another, even more, relevant example, is what can happen when we communicate with someone through virtual cyberspace of the Internet. Discussions occur, and many times people become quite upset over ideas they find disagreeable (which are completely virtual) In such a case we have a virtual being (you and me) conducting a virtual conversation and becoming agitated over virtual ideas. That is what could be called a “virtual triple whammy.” In Buddha-speak (e.g., Sanskrit) that is what is known as duḥkha: translated as suffering, anxiety, stress, or a state of mind of unsatisfactoriness.

The relevant question is, shouldn’t we be more concerned with matters that are real instead of getting stressed over matters that are virtual? That rhetorical question brings to mind the words of Jesus, who said:  “Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock. But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash.” Matthew 7:24-27 

Upon thorough consideration, these two: The virtual and the real are glued irrevocably into One single entity. One of these (the virtual) appears clearly before us and we take it to be real, and the other (the real) is hidden within our virtual sand-being, buried under our feet and remains the unseen solid rock upon which we stand.

The scholastic trap.

Most people regard themselves as smart and have consequently fallen in love with the rational model for dealing with and solving our challenges and problems. We want to understand our world and the issues relevant to us. If we can’t fathom the reasons, we seem powerless to move. This is both a distinguishing aspect of being human and a threat to our existence. When someone is holding a gun to your head, you need to set aside the desire to rationally resolve the dilemma and come to terms, not with the conceptual reasons and understanding, but instead to first deal with the reality of the threat.

Scholasticism was developed as a method of critical thought, which dominated teaching by the academics (scholastics, or schoolmen) of medieval universities in Europe from about 1100–1500 CE. This model was employed to articulate and defend orthodoxy in an increasingly pluralistic context. 

It originated as an outgrowth of, and a departure from, Christian monastic schools (the forerunners of current universities). Not so much a philosophy or a theology as a method of learning, scholasticism put a strong emphasis on dialectical reasoning to extend knowledge by inference and to resolve contradictions. 

Scholastic thought is also known for rigorous conceptual analysis and the careful drawing of distinctions. In the classroom, and in writing, it often takes the form of explicit apologetic disputation. A topic drawn from the tradition is broached in the way of a dialogue with a question, opponent’s responses are given, a counterproposal is argued, and opponent’s arguments rebutted. Because of its emphasis on rigorous dialectical method, scholasticism was eventually applied to many other fields of study. 

John Calvin stands out as the prime example of the logic of proof-texting, so convoluted that you need a step-by-step scientific roadmap from the beginning of time to endless eternity to fathom his disputations. His seminal work “Institutes of the Christian Religion,” published in 1536 CE, is his most significant contribution to hyperbole: the standard by which most Protestant (meaning “to protest”) theology continues today. I know this personally since I studied Calvin and reformed thought extensively while attending seminary.

Scholasticism began as an attempt to unify various contradictions on the part of medieval Christian thinkers: to harmonize the various authorities of their own tradition and to reconcile Christian theology with classical and late antiquity philosophy, especially that of Aristotle but also of Neoplatonism.

The main figures of scholasticism were Anselm of Canterbury, Peter Abelard, Albertus Magnus, Duns Scotus, William of Ockham, Bonaventure, and Thomas Aquinas. Aquinas’s masterwork, the Summa Theologica, is often seen as the highest fruit of Scholasticism. Important work in the scholastic tradition has been carried on; however, well past Thomas’s time, for instance, by Francisco Suárez, Molina, and among Lutheran and Reformed thinkers.

This entire approach, by design, is based on conceptual, abstract thought, assuming that a transcendent God could be converted into an object for theological study. The Age of the Enlightenment was a response to the scholastic movement and continued the tradition which it initiated. This movement is a manifestation of the Western attempt to rationally grasp reality but is by no means the only movement. 

In the East, a completely different model arose based on trans-rational vision and was best exemplified by the man who has been acknowledged as the father of Zen and known as Bodhidharma. This was the name given to him by his spiritual teacher (Hannyatara Sonja). His real name was Bodai Tara (surname Chadili), and he lived during the 5th century CE. This places him 1,000 years after the time of The Buddha and roughly 500 years before the scholastic emergence in the West. As nearly as anyone can prove, Bodhidharma transmitted Zen from India and into China and was a towering giant in the long history of Zen Masters. Reading what he had to say can be somewhat daunting.

One of his most profound teachings comes to us from what is now known as the Wake-up Sermon. In this sermon, Bodhidharma addresses the matter of “understanding.” In light of our ordinary grasp of this matter, what he has to say seems startling. Consider this—“People capable of true vision know that the mind is empty. They transcend both understanding and not understanding. The absence of both understanding and not understanding is true understanding...That which exists, exists in relationship to that which doesn’t exist.” 

What does “...the mind is empty” mean? Emptiness (in a Buddhist sense) has two meanings which are: (1) nothing is self-existing but rather depends upon something else, and (2) form is fundamentally lacking substantial existence. While similar, these two ways of grasping emptiness are subtly yet notably distinct.

Our mind has two aspects. One aspect is our “conditional mind”—our ordinary mind of thoughts and emotions, which we employ to manage and negotiate our conditional/relative world. This is the aspect of mind used by scholastics and the model standard in our world that is leading us into a quagmire of grief. 

The other aspect is our “unconditional mind”—fundamental consciousness atop which sits our ordinary mind of rational thought. In Buddhist vernacular, “unconditional mind” goes by many different handles, one of which is Buddha-mind (bodhi)—awakened mind. These two aspects are interdependent, and as Bodhidharma says, “That which exists, exists in relationship to that which doesn’t exist.” 

It would not be inaccurate to say that an “unconditional mind” doesn’t exist since the only way it could be perceived is by objectifying it (which renders it unreal). In its unmodified state, bodhi is real (yet imperceptible), but when objectified it becomes an abstraction (a delusion/unreal) in the same way that God becomes unreal when objectified. So, on the one hand, we can say that one aspect (it doesn’t matter which aspect we refer to) exists together with the other aspect (the first way of understanding emptiness) and that our unconditional mind is truly lacking substance—there is nothing there objectively (yet everything) except when manifested: the second way of understanding emptiness. It is important to understand this latter point.

Something (anything at all), which is unconditional, can’t possibly be defined or rationally understood since understanding is itself a set of conditions. If we objectify something real (make it perceptible), we strip it of life and make it abstract. The opposite is to reify something unreal (an object), which is to engage in delusion, believing something to contain life, which doesn’t. Our imaginary ego is a case in point of this latter, and our ego is fundamentally corrupt. The illusion of ego blocks access to bodhi since, in a delusive state, we make two errors— (1) We mistake our self-image for who we are, and in so doing (2), we remain blinded by ignorance and don’t have access to who we are genuinely.

Any object, by definition, is limited by conditions of time/space and circumstances, whereas bodhi (since it is unconditional) is transcendent—without limits. When we say “I understand,” what we are really saying is that we have a set of ideas under consideration, which we then accept as “understanding.” That is our conditional mind at work, and our conditional mind is incapable of real understanding since it is constrained by conditions perceived by our rational thought processes (left brain stuff). This is a conditional mind looking at unconditional mind and falling prey to delusion—believing its own PR. 

Contrast this with what Bodhidharma says: “The absence of both understanding and not understanding is true understanding.” If I said “I don’t understand,” this would be no better than saying that I do understand. Both of these expressions are manifestations of rational thought processes (different only by alternative conditions). What we ordinarily grasp as understanding is not understanding at all. It is a rational surrogate—an abstraction, which is rooted in the idea of “self”—a delusion.

When we say “I understand,” we are making reference to something which, in fact, doesn’t exist. There is no “I” except what we conjure up in our imaginations (a product of our conditional mind) which we consider as our identity, and this is grasped as separate, distinct, uniquely defined, and set apart from every other set of ideas belonging to other “not me’s.” 

The practical, everyday impact of this way of seeing is that proper understanding is beyond isolation and belonging to any individual, however intelligent. We are all, in truth, united and bound together at the level of unconditional mind (how could it be otherwise?). Individually we are a piece of this whole but just a piece, and while we may think it is possible to see the whole picture all by ourselves, this is a delusion of ego which is always joined with arrogance and defensiveness. True understanding is beyond the limitations of a conditional perspective.

Mahayana Buddhist thought (Zen belongs to this branch) stresses that bodhi is always present and perfect, and simply needs to be “uncovered” or disclosed to purified vision. We find in the “Sutra of Perfect Awakening” The Buddha teaches that, like gold within its ore, bodhi is always there within our mind, but requires obscuring mundane ore (the surrounding defilements of samsara and of impaired, unawakened perception) to be removed. Thus The Buddha declares:

“Good sons, it is like smelting gold ore. The gold does not come into being because of smelting...Even though it passes through endless time, the nature of the gold is never corrupted. It is wrong to say that it is not originally perfect. The Perfect Enlightenment of the Tathagata (A Buddha: our true mind) is also like this.”

The task, therefore, is not to create—enlightenment but rather to allow the afflictions of suffering to burn away the dross. To do otherwise is to reify reinventing an already existing wheel, leaving the go intact.

 Our desire to contain understanding within a scholastic framework only is a trap that threatens our existence. True understanding is not limited to conditions, which come and go. True understanding is beyond all limitations. Many will say that until we rationally understand a situation, our analysis is incomplete. It is only complete (the definition of τέλος) when we move beyond the conditional mind, reach the end, and embrace the unconditional mind.

Such a critique is like asking to have a conversation with a murderer holding a gun to our head and inquiring about his motives. The first step is to disarm him (or her). Then we can explore his or her reasons. This one-sided rational approach is what got us into the out of control entanglement we find ourselves in today. To continue down this road of conditional limitation and ideological opposition is a surefire prescription for disaster.

Complete Release— Number 2

Image via Wikipedia

Yesterday this identity issue appeared to be unresolved with us trapped in a logical box. So now let’s shift gears and come at this from a different tack by turning, of all places, to the Bible and look at an insightful passage:

“For our light and momentary troubles (causes and effects at the conditional level) are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.” —2 Corinthians 4:17-18

“How does the Bodhisattva-mahasattva meditate on the Void-Void? This Void-Void is where the sravakas (see ending note) and the pratyekabuddhas (see ending note) get lost. O good man! This is ‘is’ and this is ‘not-is’. This is the Void-Void.” Chapter 22—Mahaparinirvana Sutra.

When we are finally done with hope in temporal life; when we see completely that there is nothing to hold on to that doesn’t result in suffering; when we finally get it that attachment is a dead-end, rooted in a deluded sense of separate and independent identity, then we can emancipate ourselves by releasing from attachment to attachment. 

Is relinquishing opinions.

Believers in emptiness

Are incurable.”—Nagarjuna

And this from Buddhist scripture:

An is, in this context, means form as when we refer to something: We say it is a ladder. The is has defined characteristics. The not-is has no defining characteristic, which makes it emptiness or in other words the Void. 

The Void is the Wall—Essence: the unconditional nature of us all. One side of reality against which the ladder, (e.g., the other side) rests. Emptiness and form are the divine partnership, which frames reality. The Void is, as the apostle Paul says in 2 Corinthians, unseen. So what does that make the Void-Void? The answer to this question is what makes Zen, Zen and to answer the question we turn to the 14th Patriarch of Buddhism—Nagarjuna.

He really knit this together as well as anyone ever has. His expositions on emptiness are sublime. What he leads us all to see is that if emptiness has any validity then it must measure up to emptiness itself. Empty-Emptiness; the Void-Void. Let’s examine this carefully and see where it goes. First, appreciate Nagarjuna’s interest and focus. He was not interested in meaningless philosophy and speculation. He wanted to rip apart speculation and arrive at the residue of truth. He wasn’t trying to create a new dimension of faith. He was working with the raw material spoken by the Buddha, and his focus was the dimensions of reality, which sat on a three-legged stool. The legs were:

1. Emptiness/essence/The Void (sometimes referred to as  Śūnyatā)—our unconditional Self

2. Form/matter/temporal life (in Sanskrit “Rupa”)—Our apparent self

3. Dependent origination

These three integrated measures of reality define what is known in Buddhism as the Middle Way. Here’s how these three fit together. Form must emerge from somewhere. That somewhere is the ‘is’ of ‘is.’ ‘Is’ equals otherness with defined characteristics, which makes it limited in time, space, and causality. ‘Is’ therefore is not the somewhere, otherwise, it would define itself, like a car with no driver. 

The somewhere must not be limited. It must have no properties yet all properties at the same time, therefore the somewhere is the indefinable, transcendent essence, which, as Paul states, is unseen—the Tathagatagarbha (Buddha-womb). These two—form and emptiness—come into existence simultaneously. One can’t precede the other for the same reason that a thinker can’t precede thinking. 

Creation by definition implies a creator just like a thinker implies thinking. This simultaneous arising is what is known as dependent origination. But that dependent origination as stated earlier seems to occur in the imaginary box, which looks like an unsolvable problem.

So let’s take the next step and see how we can resolve it. What is the pinnacle of surrendering? Surrendering from surrendering. What does that mean? It means the logical ground of faith. Surrendering is an action; a motion and form is the instrument of motion, but not the prime mover of the motion. Something must propel the motion of surrendering. It doesn’t occur by itself just as a car requires a driver. Mind essence is the indefinable, unseen Void-Void which propels motion. 

But this mind essence is not mind as we normally think of, as a product of our limited and independent brain. This is the primal mover of all motion. This mind moves flags, the wind, and us. It is the is of “is”.  When Nagarjuna postulates empty-emptiness, the Void is transformed back into form in a never-ending feedback loop, which can’t be separated.

This inseparable feedback loop of form/emptiness is this very special mind essence (our true nature) not emptiness or form but both. If it were one or the other we would still be non-integrated and dual, regardless of logic. 

The Buddha created a completely new paradigm, which brought speculation about self/SELF (anatman/atman) to an end, thus resolving the identity issue. If only emptiness/essence (atman) this would be like a ghost. If only form/flesh (self) this would be the non-walking dead—“Just like a plant or stone”. 

The combined union of emptiness-form provides all that is needed for the existence of life. It has the driver (essence) and the car (form) and the combination—not one or the other—makes the motion of surrendering possible. Neither alone would suffice. The two become one, but the One is two interdependent aspects of the same thing—the Ladder with a Wall. That being the case, dependent origination remains intact but no longer in a box constrained by mundane logic. This union has a name called mind essence. The technical term is the sambhogakaya—one of three aspects of a Buddha.

Attaching to anything, including attachment, creates misery. It is quite possible to become dogmatically undogmatic and cling to a fixed position of being uniquely undogmatic, but that would still leave us attached, resulting in the sort of dilemma we see today with people getting locked into unswerving ideologies and unable to compromise. 

Letting go of everything creates emancipation thus enabling us to conform to actions demanded by evolving circumstances.  When we see that, then we no longer fix our eyes on what is seen but rather fix our eyes what is unseen. What Paul asked of Christian believers to do as an act of blind faith, The Buddha and Nagarjuna reasoned as a logically discerned premise. 

There is a logical foundation for faith, which arose 500 years before Jesus walked the earth, and it came from Gautama Buddha, later to be refined by Nagarjuna sometime during the 2nd century CE, about a hundred years after the apostle Paul died during the 1st century CE. 

The problem is fairly simple to solve once we let go of the fixed limitations of conceptual, mundane logic, by escaping from this box of rational logic and accessing intuitive, supra-mundane logic. When the Heart Sutra says that emptiness is form and form is emptiness we need to look carefully at these words as an equation: as mirror images. The union can’t be broken.

Complete release means surrendering from faith in this material existence and placing our faith completely in the unseen union of mind essence: the Void-Void. From that point on, wisdom shifts from the mundane to spiritual origins and becomes Prajnaparamita—Perfect Wisdom—we enter the realm of Nirvana: “The ‘Dharmata’ (True Essence) of all Buddhas” and then see reality, as it is without discrimination. That is the ultimate wisdom. Complete release means the total absence of delusions, which thus allows the shining jewel of prajna to burst forth.

“Buddhas say emptiness

The problem with the conventional understanding of Paul’s statement is that it keeps God at bay; as a separate reality—in the bye-and-bye, not accessible in the here and now. What the Buddha brought to this discussion is integration. God/Buddha-Nature is both in the bye-and-bye and in the here and now. 

Buddha-Nature can’t be divided and neither can we since we are fundamentally Buddhas. The curious thing about Paul’s statement is not what he said but how it is usually understood. The conventional wisdom of his day—that God lived in heaven in the sky (where the Pie resides)—was used to interpret what he said. If you read his statement carefully you will not find a separate God.

And contrary to the Christian notion that we are separated from God, The Buddha saw this separation as impossible! We could quibble about the difference between God and mind essence and miss the point, which is that every moment within every sphere of existence, our beingness is the inseparable union of the seen (which dies) and the unseen (which lives forever). The true you and the true me is indiscriminate and exactly the same. It has no definable properties yet infuses all properties. Unless this is true then we are all like immovable stones.

This post concludes this series on surrender but more needs to be said about this matter of essence—the true you and me. Without a solid grasp of essence this entire matter floats about in the air with very little practical understanding and nothing is more practical than grasping our true nature.

Note: A sravakas is a disciple and a pratyekabuddhas is a lone Buddha; said to achieve enlightenment on their own, without the use of teachers or guides, by contemplating the principle of dependent arising.

The illusion of you and me.

The shadow of self or the reality casting the shadow?

The tenet of “no self” has been a fundamental, defining loadstone of Buddhism since the very beginning. The term originally used for self/ego was “anatman” 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 a broadly unresolved matter. What Nagarjuna said in his Two Truth Doctrine was that there is a difference between the conventional, discriminate view (the common-sense view) and the sublime, indiscriminate view (ultimate truth) 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 transcendent 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 remains unresolved. 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)?”

Infinite us.

We have a vision problem. We can see some things and not others. And naturally, we assume that what we see is the true you and me. 

That detectible is the objective part of us. We can touch, feel, see, and perceive it in every way our sensory faculties allow. That part is finite. It is born, it grows, and ultimately dies. That objective aspect has an imaginary identity, and we define and clothe it in a nearly unlimited set of configurations. We cherish such configurations and use them to represent us. We group these configurations into common frameworks in order to feel comfortable with others who choose similar arrangements, and we call this grouping, “flocking together with birds of a feather.” These birds love to fight other birds that don’t look the same.

This is the ordinary way of understanding ourselves in relation to others, and there is an unseen problem here because nothing objective possesses sentient qualities. A stone is a pure object. So is a blade of grass. Neither of these (and many other examples) has sentient qualities of consciousness, at least as far as we know, but we do. All animate beings have both sentient qualities and consciousness. These are the faculties that differentiate us from pure objects, and these are what make us human. But neither consciousness nor sentient dimensions can be seen because this is what is doing the seeing.

There are two parts of us, which are completely integrated into a single human being. One part is seen. One part is seeing. One part is infinitely different and seen, and the other part is infinitely the same and unseen. One part is finite, and one part is infinite. The true you and the true me is never born and never dies, but the other part does both. We’re told we now share the earth with 7 billion very different objective human bodies, and yet on another level, there is only a single, just-like-everyone-else infinite us. It’s a profound mystery.

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 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: (1) not yet, (2) and denial. The “not yet” part realizes 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). And I am not throwing stones of blame. I too remained in denial too long and paid the price. I wrote about this in another post: The Four Horses of Zen.

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.

What's Zen?

We live in a time awash in technology and assume that it is based on electronics. But the principle of technology is much broader. Fundamentally technology means an application of knowledge, especially in a particular area that provides a means of accomplishing a task. Anything from a simple hammer to charting the cosmos properly belongs to the realm of technology.

The common coin understanding of Zen is wrong. Ordinarily, Zen is considered a branch on the tree of Buddhism but few people realize that Zen came first, a long time before there was such a thing as Buddhism's religion. The Buddha used the mental technology of Zen to experience his enlightenment. While Zen isn’t electronic, it is similar since our brain works by exchanging electrical transmissions, and Zen is the most thoroughgoing technology for fathoming the human mind ever conceived.

The human brain is the most sophisticated computer ever and can calculate at speeds a billion times faster than any computer yet built. Furthermore, it is “dual-core,” computing in parallel mode with completely different methods. One side works like a serial processor (our left hemisphere), and the other works as a parallel processor (or right hemisphere). The left creates code, and the right reads the code. The left is very good at analyzing, dissecting, and abstracting (but doesn’t understand) while the right interprets (but doesn’t read) and says what it all means.

Lao Tzu expressed this division of function like this: He who knows, does not speak. He who speaks, does not know.

Zen is the mental technology of using this equipment to understand itself. The true mind watches the movement and arising of the code to grasp how the “machine” works. Everything perceived and processed is watched. There is a conditional and object-oriented aspect, and there is an unconditional objectless aspect. Both sides of our brain have no exclusive and independent status. Only when they function together are they of much use. 

Our subjective nature is unseen and without form. Our objective nature has form and is seen. Our brain could be considered hardware and our mind software. Software instructs the hardware on how to operate. Together these two are mirror opposites and rely upon the other side. In Buddhist terminology, this relationship is called “dependent origination,” which means they only exist together. The same is true for anything. Up and down are mirror opposites, and neither can exist separately. Nothing can. Everything can only exist in that way.

The two sides of our brain are mirror partners. Our whole brain is the mirror partner of our mind. Our mind is the mirror partner of no-mind. Every nuance becomes progressively more concentrated and potent. The entire universe in infinite configuration and form is essentially empty. If you delve into quantum physics, you arrive at nothing. If you go to the farthest reaches of space, you arrive at nothing. Before the Big-Bang, there was nothing. Now there is everything. Everything is the same thing as nothing. And this amazing awareness comes about by simply watching the coming and going of the manifestations of our mind. That’s Zen.

A Bird in hand.

Here or There?

Permeate. Interpenetrate. Assimilation: all mean essentially the same thing—To infuse one thing completely into another thing, so the distinction between the two no longer exists. 

Mix the color red with the color blue and purple results. Now there is no more red or blue. Combine liquid water with extreme cold and ice results. Now there is the result of interpenetration. Mix spirit with matter, and what do you get? A sentient being with no more boundary lines between matter and spirit. Now mix two or more sentient beings, and what do you get? Chaos. 

Red is different from blue, and they don’t fight. Water and cold are different, and they don’t fight. Spirit and matter are different, and they do fight. Isn’t that odd? How can it be explained?  The problem is consciousness and perception. Red, blue, water, and cold are not conscious, but suddenly, there is fighting over differences when you add consciousness. And the reason is simple: Consciousness produces the capacity to perceive, and what a sentient being perceives are differences. 

Nobody can perceive a spirit, just what a spirit produces—sentient matter. There are both benefits and consequences of being human. We are a mixture of matter and spirit. We are sentient beings. We perceive only differences. We don’t perceive our true spiritual nature because it can’t be perceived through our ordinary senses. We would rather have what we imagine is a couple of birds in the bush instead of the one in our hands. The one in our hands is no longer either spirit or matter. Now it is simply One whole sentient being: the infusion of Spirit and non-spirit. We are the Middle Way.

Making Omelets

Ordinary—Extraordinary: two sides, one coin. The two come along as a single unit of life and can’t be pulled apart, however much we may want. 

Before I became aware of this partnership I knew only the ordinary and the glued-on suffering. It was what and who I thought I was. Life had a different plan, however. Adversity stripped away the outer, ordinary covering and I discovered the indefinable extraordinary that lay beneath. Here there was no suffering and since that discovery, my life has been geared to a single focus: to share that discovery and help others to find their own place of no suffering.

I have come to know that all of us have these same two, inextricable sides. As I age, the outer part of me becomes more decrepit. It’s unavoidable. When I was younger I could sit zazen for days and dwell in that place of no suffering. That is no longer possible. Now my body hurts most all the time, but fortunately, when I had the opportunity I found the quintessence of being human. And in the process, I discovered the difference between physical pain and spiritual/emotional suffering.

What is that extraordinary place? How can it be grasped? I don’t know how to adequately provide an acceptable answer and I’ve been trying to craft one for a very long time. Those who have traveled the path of Zen, and realized this extraordinary place have said, more eloquently than I could, that it transcends description. I believe that it does. 

Is it God? Is it Buddha-Nature? Are there any labels that will adequately suffice? I don’t think there are, but this lacking by no means implies that it is not real. Experience confirms its existence and my puny attempts here in Dharma Space are admittedly inadequate. But insufficient as they are, I do what I can to share the wealth.

My aging shell was cracked a long time ago and just keeps on going the way of all flesh. That will never stop. It is the way we are and I accept that erosion without sadness. But the truth is that there is an inner shell, more important than the outer one that must also be broken—the shell of the ego, known as our self-image. This shell is the primary one that denies access to the extraordinary place: The Dharma Space, where the truth of our freedom from suffering exists. There is nothing that anyone can do to stop the advance of physical degradation but everyone can, and must, be the agent of cracking their own inner shell if the taste of essence is to be experienced.

Around 700 years ago in Germany, a Christian theologian, philosopher, and mystic by the name of Meister Eckhart said this...

“The shell must be cracked apart if what is in it is to come out, for if you want the kernel you must break the shell. And therefore if you want to discover nature’s nakedness you must destroy its symbols, and the farther you get in, the nearer you come to its essence. When you come to the One that gathers all things up into itself, there you must stay.”

However, this quintessence might be described is limited to the linguistic symbols we must employ when we communicate. The danger of any communication, however, is to participate in a fraud, leading those still locked in suffering, to mistake the symbols of communication for the essence which are inadequately being described. That is the danger but it is a risk that must be accepted. The surrogate of words can never take the place of tasting the sweet divine nectar. And to so taste requires personal in-the-mouth experience. My words will not give anyone the taste. So be encouraged and beware. As you read, know that within, you possess a profound, indescribable treasure that lies hidden beneath your own shell. Breaking it hurts but so does giving birth.