A Christmas message.

The name changes. The essence doesn't.

Suppose I said, “The universe is mine or ours.” Clearly, such a statement is delusional since the universe is pretty big, and to suggest that it belongs to you or me is ridiculous. But suppose I shortened the span of space and said, “The earth is mine or ours.” Smaller span but still pretty big and still ridiculous. How far down do we need to go before it stops being ridiculous? Or, for that matter, how much bigger? We could go all the way down to the quantum level or outward to the farthest expanse of space, and the essence of the statement won’t change. 

The word “The” is a definite article: something definite or unconditional. “The universe” is not contingent and isn’t altered by our presence, and isn’t waiting on anyone to possess it. Both “mine” and “ours” are forms of possessive pronouns, and both have the same meaning: To possess something. 

“My self” is different in meaning from “The self.” The first implies possession, and the second is independent, just as “My shirt” is different from “The shirt.” Okay, is it possible for anyone to possess himself or herself? Heck, we can’t even say what “The self” is, so how can it be possessed? In truth, nothing can be possessed since, in our true nature, there is no real self to possess anything.

We have this idea that we can know ourselves but, when we turn our eyeballs around and look within, nobody’s home. Some time ago, I wrote a post after reading Paul Brok’s book “Into the Silent Land.” Broks asks alarming and provocative questions such as “Am I out there or in here?” when he portrays an imaginary man with a transparent skull, watching in a mirror how his own brain functions. He notices, for us all, that the world exists inside the tissue residing between our ears. And when the tissue is carefully examined, no world, no mind, no self, no soul, no perceptual capacities, nor consciousness—nothing but inanimate meat is found. Unable to locate, what we all take for granted, he suggests that we are neither “in here” nor “out there,” maybe somewhere in between the space between the in and the out, and maybe nowhere at all.

It’s a mystifying perspective, yet all of us just continue on down the road without ever truly grasping who it is that’s continuing. Nagarjuna parsed this matter in various ways, but one of my favorites is his poem about walking, which ends this way... “These moving feet reveal a walker but did not start him on his way. There was no walker prior to departure. Who was going where?” There is no walker without walking, just as there is no thinker without thinking.

The Buddha properly pointed out that there is no discernible identity at the core of each of us, and we only begin to fabricate a self-image (ego) once we move and take action. Until then, there is no observable identity. The actions we take define who we are, not the ideologies to which we cling. Of course, what we think is usually followed by action. Without action, either for the good or the bad, we are no one at all. And when we remain still, we have a potential for unlimited either. Then we are silent and can dwell in the infinite space of tranquility, wholeness, peace, and readiness, which lies at the very heart of undifferentiated sentience.

On the other hand, when we imagine ourselves as distinctly unique individuals, we become an incomplete ego with definable differences that must possess and attach to forms to identify. That fabrication must possess and makes things mine. Then the universe, and all therein contained, stops being the universe and becomes my universe. This, however, doesn’t mean movement necessarily equates to being a possessive ego. So long as we remain aware of our genuine indefinable sentient nature and not a fabricated ego, our movement can be nonpossessive. We can continue as nonjudgemental members of indiscriminate humanity. 

What everyone will discover, if pursued, is that we exist and don’t exist at the same time. The “walker” only comes along with walking. The thinker only emerges with thinking, digestion only with eating, and the self with and through living. The question is, what or who sparks the process of all?

There’s a direct link between what we think and what we do. The Buddha said, “We are what we think. All that we are arises with our thoughts. With our thoughts, we make the world.” He then went on to say, “To be idle is a short road to death and to be diligent is a way of life; foolish people are idle, wise people are diligent.”  Jesus likewise pointed out that “the things that come out of a person’s mouth come from the heart, and these defile them. For out of the heart come evil thoughts—murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander. These are what defile a person.” 

Today there is far too much negative rhetoric and inaction. Likewise, there is far too little positive thought and action in our world. As you open your gifts on Christmas day, think about the greatest of gifts: The gift of giving yourself to make the world a far, far better place. 

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.

Buddhism's Two Realms

As Buddhism becomes known in the West, an unfortunate development has occurred due to our preoccupation with science. Objectivity is the cornerstone of science since it begins and ends with the ability to measure phenomena. Anything beyond that constraint has no scientific validity and is consequently seen of no value. There is much of value about Buddhism from that limited perspective, just as there is much value in the study of anatomy, but neither anatomy nor phenomenal Buddhism has very much to say about the sublime source of both, and neither could exist without it.

Centuries ago, Nagarjuna established his “Two Truth Doctrine.” He stated that we live within two realms—The phenomenal realm of measurable convention and the noumenal realm. And he said that without intuiting the sublime, we remain in bondage. Advance the clock to the current time and what has begun to emerge is an attempt to create a quasi-science based on just the measurable realm, leaving the essential core behind. The result is form with no emptiness, a sort of paint-by-the-numbers Buddhism to be administered by unenlightened therapists schooled and knowledgeable of the conventional realm but completely lacking acknowledge of the sublime side.

There is little argument that rational logic helps construct a vast web of contemporary usefulness, but none of this solves the spirit's crisis so prevalent today. A solution for that will always take us to the sublime. “When knowledge and views are established, knowing is the root of ignorance. When knowledge and views do not exist, seeing itself is nirvana.” (Chan Master Shangfang Yu-an)

The Tree.

A wonderful tree grows in my front yard. It is rooted in special soil known as wisdom. The soil nourishes the tree with everything necessary for abundant and healthy growth. Throughout every capillary runs, the sap of Buddha-Nature, which sustains life in the tree. During cold times the sap runs back into the soil of wisdom and sleeps until called upon by warmth as needed.

On one side of the tree are attributes of non-self, impermanence, corruption, and sadness. On the other side are the attributes of Self, eternity, purity, and bliss. Without these two sides, the tree would be divided and collapse. Both sides support each other, and the tree grows strong and tall, cycling with the weather and bringing shade, beauty, and peace to my yard. I love this tree, and it loves me back. It is there for my pleasure, and I am the gardener. We exist for each other, and together we are happy.

This is a metaphorical tree that exists in my imagination. There is no ground of wisdom nor sap of Buddha-Nature. The tree is not split into two halves. There is no self nor non-self, no impermanence or eternity, no corruption or purity, sadness, or bliss. There are no attributes since these are manifestations of another attribute, which likewise is empty—my mind. Since there is no self, there can be no “my,” and without a “my,” how can there be a “my mind?”

This wonderful tree is non-dharma dharma, which has meaning and truth yet does not exist. In every yard, in every land, in every universe, there exists this non-dharma dharma tree. If it were not so, there would be no shade, beauty, nor peace. In my front yard is no tree and no ground; no wisdom and no Buddha-Nature; no shade, beauty, and peace. And yet there is.

In my front yard, there is a tree. It is just a tree.