Surrendering from Expectations

Everything except essence is fleeting and will come to an end. That was the message Alan Watts made in his book, “The Wisdom of Insecurity.” 

The passing of some things is quicker than others. A Galapagos Land Tortoise lives close to 200 years. Some life forms come and go in a matter of days. The parasitic wasp, for example, lives as an adult for 3 days or less. As far as we know, the universe since the Big Bang has lasted 13.7 billion years, but it too will end at some point.

Life looks long, but by nature, an end there must be.

Whatever flourishes always wanes; met, one must part.

The prime of manhood is not long;

Luxuriance meets with illness.

Life is swallowed by death; nothing exists eternally.”

Holding on to fleeting form invites suffering. The book of Ecclesiastes begins and ends with:

“Meaningless! Meaningless! Says the teacher. Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless”.

Chapter 2 of the Mahaparinirvana Sutra says,

“In all the world, whatever is born must die.

The message is the same. These forms of vapor are easier to see than mental fixations, but the rule still applies. Take, for example, the mental obsession of expectations. We start each day with a set of expectations. We expect clear skies, so we don’t take an umbrella. We hope it will take a particular amount of time to travel from our homes to our destinations. We expect certain acceptable conditions in our environment. Any one of these expectations may or may not come about. If they do, we are pleased. If they don’t, we become upset. Our emotions and repose balance on a razor’s edge of outcomes to expectations. Nobody can predict exactly what will happen in the future, so we walk a fine line and hope for the best.

Often, when things don’t turn out the way we want, we try to force a different outcome. If that fails, we may increase the heat and intensity, believing that we can dominate and prevail. What is not noticed is the interdependent connection to this forcing. From one side, there is shoving. From the other side, there is being pushed, which simply invites a responsive shove. What started with our pressing turns into being shoved back, which then invites more back-and-forth shoving. Some nations and people have been pushing back-and-forth for so long nobody can remember who made the first shove.

It is impossible to function without making predictions, having hopes, and expecting certain conditions. The problem is what happens when our predictions go south. Becoming attached to the outcome is the problem. The secret of emotional stability and release from self-righteousness is to surrender from outcomes. In truth, results are not the product of our isolated actions. Both Krishna and the Buddha said: The greatest effort is not concerned with results. We just do our best and release from success or failure. 

There is, however, a most subtle difference between having no expectations (and possibly no action) of attempting to shape outcomes. I have written concerning this delicate balance in a post In the world: enlightened social responsibility. The story of John Chapman (known as Johnny Appleseed) is instructive in this regard. You can read about what this means in another post: Cleaning house.

It is of vital importance to work for the common good and not withdraw. Ultimately the outcome of any action is not exclusively our own. Our ideas may last an instant or as long as the universe, but they will always be approximate—just reflections on the surface of shimmering water.  

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.

Complete Release— Number 1

The first of the Four Noble Truths acknowledges that during every person’s life, they will experience suffering. While this may seem like a negative assessment, it is honest and realistic, neither negative nor positive. By studying the dharma, we come to understand that there is a causal link between suffering and attaching to mortal life. We also learn that by breaking this attachment, suffering is undone, and life is transformed.

The problem is that attachment, of all forms, has another causal link to identity. By misunderstanding who we are, we set off a cascading chain reaction involving ignorance, greed, and anger. When we see ourselves as independent and separate beings, we create further delusions, which reinforces even more. 

The ego is imaginary and fabricated through our thoughts. These thoughts further imagine an imaginer, which only has value and worth by attaching to fleeting life, like a leach sucking blood to survive. Whatever we choose to identify with becomes our basis of joy and sorrow. 

We may imagine that our worth depends upon other temporal entities: another person, a job, status, wealth, or anything conceivable, but nothing of a phenomena nature lasts or conforms to how we wish it to be. We may have once loved a person deeply, but they, and we, temporally change into someone we no longer love, and nobody lives forever. 

When change or death comes, we experience sorrow. But this base delusion (and the presumption of attachment which flows from it) produces greed and possessiveness. Since mortal life is ever-changing, loss inevitably occurs, which then activates anger, creating lousy karma and endless cycles of samsara—greed, anger, and ignorance—all cascading from misidentifying.

This dilemma is nothing new. People have forever wrestled with the same issue before the Buddha and ever since. This is and has been, the battle of two opposing Titans—one the ego (the illusion of identity) vs. the seeming champion, the true SELF. 

Until The Buddha, the SELF appeared to be winning the contest. But this victory turned out to be possible only by the ego committing suicide, which it is extraordinarily reluctant to do. Additionally, any sort of identity (e.g., self or SELF) must have defining properties. So, where is the transforming power to be found?

I began this series on surrender concerning complete release, which I said would be reserved for a later discussion. The time has come, and I want to start the ball rolling with a reflection on thinking. When we think, by definition (defined by dependent origination), we are the thinker. Thinking and a thinker are directly linked. It would be nonsensical to say that thinking comes from nowhere. Thinking and thinkers arise as a single entity, just like a mother is only a mother with a child. These are interdependent entities. One can’t exist without the other.

When there is no thinking, no thinker exists. But when we don’t think we don’t just disappear. Therefore we are not the thinker; otherwise, we would disappear when thinking ceases. It is clear that we/what are independent of both thought and the thinker, which seems to defy the premise of dependent origination. 

Interdependent existence, you’ll recall from an earlier post, are the two legs of a Ladder—the two discriminate aspects of form, one part defining the other (good/bad, in/out, etc.). When we imagine ourselves, there is an image of a self (or SELF), which, when we see clearly, is just a thought. This thought (or idea) is linked to an imaginary self, which we refer to as the thinker who thinks thoughts, but this can’t be true. 

If it were true, then we would disappear when we stop thinking. Logic cancels this connection. So if this imaginary self is the product of thinking, who (or what) is the independent being who jump-starts (originates) the thinking process? A car doesn’t move without a driver (at least not yet). Who’s the driver? 

The answer, as strange as it may seem, takes us to the Wall— Essence. The Heart Sutra says that form is emptiness; emptiness is form. These are the two legs of life that are irrevocably joined together. Two-legged ladders must lean against a wall or fall down. The metaphor works perfectly. It would logically follow that if we are not the imaginary self, then we must be the opposite: the non-imaginary self, which has been known since before the time of The Buddha as the independent who that we indeed are. The independent who thus seems to be essence—the true SELF (with no identifying properties). But don’t jump there quite yet.

Read the following quote carefully from Bodhidharma, the acknowledged father of Zen. He said this about motion: 

“The Buddha is your real body, your original mind. This mind is not outside the material body of four elements. Without this mind we can’t move. The body (by itself) has no awareness. Like a plant or stone, the body has no nature. So how does it move? It’s the mind that moves.” 

Huineng, the sixth patriarch of Ch’an, reached the exact same conclusion upon hearing the Diamond Sutra recited and realized enlightenment. I encourage you to take the time to read, carefully, this text. And when you do, please observe this: “...when a bodhisattva gives rise to the unequaled mind of awakening, he has to give up all ideas.”  

There is an extremely subtle twist to Huineng’s enlightenment that may not register unless we slam on the brakes and reflect. One day Huineng heard two monks arguing about the movement of a flag. One said the wind moved the flag. The other said that the flag moved independently of the wind. Huineng said to the monks that neither the wind nor the flag was moving. Instead, it was the mind that moved. Was Huineng saying that the flag was being controlled by some extraterrestrial force, or that he projected his mind psychically to wave the flag? Hold the question.

In the Mahaparinirvana Sutra — Chapter Five, the Buddha says (when referring to his Adamantine Body, which means having the hardness of a diamond—unchanging), “It is neither action nor fruition (e.g., cause and effect). It is not one made, not one that dies. It is ‘no-mind;’ It is one not countable; It is the All-Wonderful, the One Eternal, and the one not presumable. It is not consciousness and is apart from the mind (e.g., transcendent to both). And yet it does not depart from the mind. It is a mind that is all-equal. It is not an ‘is,’ yet it is what is ‘is.’ There is no going and no coming, and yet it goes and comes.”

Elsewhere in this Sutra, the Buddha spoke of the non-self as the imaginary self, otherwise known as an ego. This non-self is interdependent and is linked to thought, which is vaporous: a mirage, which seems very real. That part fits perfectly within the box of dependent origination. Within this box, the non-self imagines itself using the tool of imagination, which further reinforces the artificial sense of reality. It is the Matrix, which I spoke about earlier. However, this does not explain Bodhidharma’s mind or our question, who’s driving the car? 

What animates our being? Does our being animate itself, like a flag waving in the wind? Bodhidharma says no. Our being, without mind essence, is just like a plant or stone. That would be like a car, which drives itself without a driver.

So with that pregnant issue hanging in mid-air, we’ll take a break here and pick up tomorrow with concluding remarks.

Renunciation

Letting go may be seen as either a negative or a positive. On the one hand, it could be a sign of weakness; of just giving up when tenacity or perseverance is required. Failure to achieve is often seen in this way. On the other hand, letting go may be exactly what is needed. It is impossible to grasp one thing when we are full of another. The difference between these can be understood against the background of time—a function of memory.

Our experience of time results from memory. It is established that people with damaged left-brain capacities have no memory and lose a sense of time. The reason for this loss is that memory occurs in our left hemisphere and without an ability to compare the present moment to the past, time goes away. If there is no past, projection into the future likewise goes away. It is impossible to learn from experience when there is no time.

In Zen, we are taught to live in the moment by detaching from the baggage of the past and to let go of the illusion of the future. When our memories are healthy (not damaged) this is a valuable way of living. When we are full of either the illusion of the future or the baggage of a dead past it is very difficult to be present. This concentration on the present is a primary focal point of zazen. But the principle has a much broader application beyond sitting.

To a significant degree, we have learned to undermine our own capacities and potential with limiting stories and ideas we tell our self. “I’m not good enough”; “She is better than me”; “I am flawed and thus unworthy”...All these and more are examples of self-imposed limitations which undermine functioning. Where did these stories come from? In a substantial way, they come from our memories. 

We learn through experience which we then recall when similar occasions arise and then we compare our memories to unfolding conditions and take the next step and project. What this process does not consider is changing circumstances. The conditions which may have existed no longer exist.

Pema Chödrön said that “...renunciation is the same thing as opening to the teachings of the present moment.” Every moment is unique. Every moment is a manifestation of circumstances that have never existed before. By letting go, we are more able to meet present teachings with openness and clarity—Impossible when we remain lodged in the past and future.

Unbound or Rebinding?

Many have wondered how to classify Buddhism since it is not preeminently concerned with a God concept (as normally understood by westerners). Is it a method of psychotherapy? Is it a philosophy? A moral code? Religion? What? 

These suggest a desire to define, categorize, and set apart Buddhism from other categorical forms. And the answer is “All of the above” and “None of the above.” The truth is that Buddhism can be (and is) understood to conform to all of these definitions (or not) depending on the nature of the person under consideration—which is infinite in variation—and at a deeper level, without variation.

At the level of self-awareness, there is no end to differences—as varied as snow-flakes. And at the deeper level, we are all just snow. But to go to the heart of an answer, it’s necessary to deal with the matter of a self. Buddhism teaches that there is no such thing as a substantial self—only an illusory one, shaped by unending changing circumstances and karma. This self-substance illusion gives rise to possessiveness, greed, and aversion, which produces suffering and anxiety. And this illusion cascades across every human dimension from the psychological to moral persuasion, to relationships with others and the sublime.

At the deeper level—where we are just snow—there are no differences, and “self” is understood as an interdependent reality connected with everything with no boundaries. There is no inner vs. outer; no beginning vs. ending, no versus anything since there is no discrimination.

Religion (in a western form) is concerned primarily with re-tying a broken link with an external God. The word Religion means —re, “again,” lig, “align,” and ion, “action,” and how this retying occurs differs according to dogma taught by the various religious forms. 

Buddhism is radically different on this score, where there is no presumption of a broken link with an external God. The problem is the same—alienation and estrangement—but the presumption is different. In Buddhism, alienation happens due to the empowerment of the elusive self (ego). This impediment blocks integration with both our true nature and the world in which we live.

For a very long time in Buddhism, the goal of liberation from bondage—the alleviation of suffering—has been understood as Nirvana’s realization, which is seen as extinguishment when the fuel is used up. And the metaphor here is a dying flame of a candle when the oil is expended. There are some sects of Buddhism, still, which maintain this means freedom following literal mortal death. 

Other sects propose this liberation as a here-and-now proposition, which is called parinirvāṇa (e.g., nirvana-after-death), to which an entire sutra was devoted—Mahaparinirvana. The key to any understanding of Nirvana is an acceptance of what is considered to be extinguished. In other words, “life and death.” If life is understood as a physical matter, then death must be understood in the same fashion. In this case, true liberation can only be realized when physical life’s flame uses up physical energy.

On the other hand, if life is understood as unobstructed essence at the snow level, death is associated with unenlightened snowflakes—the illusion of a substantial self, which creates a living hell of alienation and opposition. Zen teaches that true liberation is a matter of waking up to the unbroken and ever-pure nature, which has never left us in the first place. So there is nothing to re-tie. To attempt to find what has never been lost is a guarantee of continuing in bondage, sort of like dying of thirst in the midst of water.

And while many who practice Zen are persuaded of this ever-present, never-lost reality, they still reach for a special psychic state which they associate with Kensho, Samādhi, or enlightenment. What they fail to see is that this very reaching is what blocks what they seek. The subtle trap inherent in this quest for fulfillment keeps the traveler locked into an “other-worldly, not-now” mentality. The goal is always moving away, the faster the chase.

It must be said that the key to either western religious forms or Buddhism to genuine liberation/salvation is surrender, from the quest or from the attempt to achieve what is already present. It is this state of yielding and acceptance; this acknowledgment of emptiness, that produces the desired state of selflessness. And when this state is achieved, the world opens, and we go through the door as new yet ageless beings.