No Two Things

A man wrote a letter to the editor of The St. Petersburg Times in the spring of 2009, saying that he wanted oil companies to drill for oil in the Gulf of Mexico off the west coast of Florida “because we need a victory over the all-powerful environmentalists.”

This was about a year before the BP oil spill.

Why would anyone demand that their nest be subjected to potential fouling? “Please subject my home to fouling so that I may have a victory over those who tried to prevent it.”

Another letter writer informed us that our legal system provides a presumption of innocence to all accused persons and that accused terrorists had no right to be tried in federal courts because an obviously guilty person should not be presumed innocent!

He concluded that we need to try “jihadists” before military tribunals after they have been tortured “to extract valuable information from them.”

For what it’s worth, here’s a link to the famous fact-checking site of the former St. Petersburg Times, now entitled Tampa Bay Times.

A book could easily be filled with examples of ignorant ramblings that newspaper publishers feel compelled to print.

Almost everyone alive today is deluded. The ignorant who demand that their nest be fouled so that they can experience the thrill of victory while losing their habitat is the part of us that is that stupid.

The people who think we defeat terrorism by becoming terrorists are the part of us that is that stupid.

That’s what the Buddha taught. There are no two people, there are no two things. Consciousness or Awareness is a seamless whole and there is no such thing as an independent individual.

The proof of that assertion can be proven but not by chaining words together. It can only be experienced and it can only be experienced by those who practice authentic Zen every day.

The Metaphor of Mirrors and Movies

The mind is the mind of a Satan if it is not the awakened mind of the Buddha. A Buddha mind does not divide reality into categories, nor does it like and dislike. Like a mirror, it simply accepts what is and its equanimity is not affected by the scene reflected in it.

Equanimity is the seventh factor of the seven factors of enlightenment. We might think we have experienced equanimity, but we haven’t. It appears in the highest of the meditative states, the immaterial attainments.

A movie screen is another metaphor for the Buddha mind. When fires burn in a movie, the screen remains cool to the touch. When a town floods, the screen remains dry. A movie monster lurks in the dark, and as the hero approaches doom, we think: “No! Turn back!”

Unenlightened life is just like that. We get caught up in the plot and come to believe that what is happening is real. But an enlightened mind remains cool, dry, and free of monsters.

Like a mirror, a movie screen, or a still forest pool, it is unaffected by what seems to be real. It is not indifferent; indifference is evidence of a closed mind. Equanimity is open, soft, and accepting, not indifferent, closed and hard.

The awakened ones understand that the ups and downs of life are just scenes projected onto the movie screens of our minds. They understand that each scene was caused by a previous scene, that each thought, word, or action leads to the next thought, word, or action. And none of it is us.

Our inherent Buddha nature, our true self, is unaffected by the illusions projected onto or reflected by it. Our ignorant self denies that it is the screen or the mirror, and insists that it is a self that experiences the events flickering on the screen or reflected in the mirror.

We’re all living our mundane lives, thinking we are pretty much OK. In fact, we’re a bunch of Satans, walking around with deluded minds filled with junk and passing the time by doing stuff we like to do and avoiding stuff we don’t like to do. We live in the dungeon of the unenlightened and are quite proud of it, too dumb to know we’re dumb.

We have to drop our current modes of thinking. Only when we drop our body and mind that we cherish so much can we be liberated from the prison of body and mind.

Karma and the Satanic Mind

If we find ourselves today in an unpleasant situation, it is because every thought we have ever had, every act we have ever performed, has brought us to that situation. Where we are now is the sum total of every thought we’ve entertained and everything we’ve ever done.

That’s the law of cause and effect. The effects we are now experiencing arise from previous causes. The Sanskrit word “karma,” often translated as “action,” can also be translated as the law of cause and effect because every action produces an effect.

If we find ourselves in a pleasant situation, it’s because every thought we ever held, every act we ever performed, has brought us to that situation. Where we are now is the sum total of everything we’ve ever thought or done.

But the best situation to be in is one that is perceived as neither good nor bad. If we adjudge our situation to be pleasant or unpleasant, our mind is defiled. Our thoughts are satanic if we categorize everything we do as something we enjoy doing or don’t enjoy doing. Our mind is satanic if we divide our personal acquaintances into people we like and those we don’t. Or countries we like and those we don’t. Or religions we like and those we don’t.

And if we find ourselves in a pleasant life and do not practice Zen (who needs it? I’m happy!), then we are merely coasting, using up the momentum of our good karma.

If we find ourselves in an unpleasant life, at least we know we are using up our bad karma, but only if we practice.

Either way, practice is the only worthwhile activity.

 

No Independent Self – A Basic Buddhist Teaching

When venerable Ajahn Brahm received some beautifully wrapped gifts when visiting Japan, he left them wrapped and started through the customs line. He was advised to open the packages before going through customs, just in case someone had unscrupulously planted drugs in one of the gifts, using the monk as a courier. He declined to open the packages, saying that if someone had put drugs in one of his packages, he would get three square meals a day in prison so why should he be concerned?

Ajahn Brahm flies from time to time, visiting countries where he has received invitations to visit and lecture. When asked if he had any fear that his plane might someday crash and burn, he asked why crashing and burning was something to fear. Then he added: “After all, it’s a free cremation, isn’t it?”

Few Buddhist practitioners have reached such a level of selflessness but those who at least have an intellectual grasp of emptiness can appreciate where Ajahn Brahm is coming from.

One’s location on the continuum from strongly independent, isolated and fearful to a universal, fearless confidence and connectedness indicates where one stands on the path to enlightenment.

The unenlightened have a strong sense of an independent self that is under attack from a hostile universe. The enlightened have realized their inherent Buddha nature and live fully and fearlessly.

 

What Is The Goal Of Zen Practice?

As we work our way through the ten steps of this program, we will gradually begin to understand what the Augustinian monk Abraham of Santa Clara meant when he said: “He who dies before he dies does not die when he dies.”

Abraham’s quote echoes the words of the Buddha: “All that arises is of the nature of falling. That which does not arise does not fall.”

Both Abraham of Santa Clara and the Buddha shared the same insight: Only an independent self can live and die; where there is no independent self, there is no thing that can come into existence and there is no thing that can go out of existence.

If during our lifetime we can drop the notion of an independent self, our ignorance dies and we are free. We understand that there is no independent self created at birth, and no independent self capable of leaving awareness when a body dies.

However, we use the word “understand” with a caveat. The fundamental Buddhist doctrine of no self cannot be understood with a thinking mind. This “understanding” becomes clear in deep meditation. When we have sat by The Still Forest Pool for a long time, the jhanas arrive and we understand.

When we experience the jhanas, we leave the world of desire, the six worlds mentioned in Master Hakuin’s chant, and we arrive in the world of form. When we leave the jhanas and enter into the immaterial attainments, then we make it to the world of formlessness. Nirvana is even beyond that.

Amazingly to those of us who are still mired in the world of desire, one of the ten fetters that bind us to this desire realm is the desire to leave the world of form and to enter the world of formlessness! That is one of the higher fetters, experienced only by those in the neighborhood of Nirvana.

When we drop our desires and opinions, we have abandoned mortal thoughts of life and death. We wake up and realize that there is no independent self created at birth and destroyed at death. This is the truth of which the Bodhisattva known as the Christ spoke when he said there was a truth that would set us free.

When he said: “I and the father are one,” he was putting into words what he had realized, what all awakened sentient beings realize when they wake up. “I and the father are one” is just another way of saying: “All living beings are truly enlightened and shine with wisdom and virtue.”

It’s also another way of stating the ultimate truth: Anatta. No self. No separate self independent of everything else.

It is easy to understand how people who heard the Christ say those words could easily interpret them as being exclusive to him and to him alone. It is not surprising that they failed to understand the deeper import of what he was saying, and that they began worshipping him, trapped in their own delusions and lack of understanding.

If the Christ had said: “Wonder of wonders! I just realized that we humans and god are not separated from each other at all; in fact, we are one!” then he would not have been put up on a pedestal as the one and only human being that had become one with a god.

The Buddha, at the moment of his awakening, said the same thing that the Christ said at the moment of his awakening. The Buddha made it clear that he was a human being who had awakened; the Christ used words, perhaps put into his mouth by Paul, that led many to believe that he was not one of us. The Buddha made it clear that he was one of us. In Buddhism, the Buddha is respected or venerated, but he is not worshipped.

The Buddha does not own the truth, any more than the Christ or Abraham of Santa Clara. The truth just is. Those few who have experienced a truth that is beyond words experience difficulty in explaining what they have found to others. The others become their followers, their followers worship them or their words, and after a few generations their deep insight gets watered down to a few orthodox beliefs. The bath water remains, the baby is gone.

Zen Buddhism provides a practice that leads to the awakening of which Jesus the Christ spoke. Rote prayer (Lord, thank you for this day and its many blessings; be with the sick and afflicted, guide, guard and direct us for in Jesus’ name we pray, Amen) does not lead to awakening. Blind belief in a god, a savior, or a prophet does not lead to awakening. Singing songs in a church building, listening to sermons, and putting money in collection baskets do not lead to awakening.

Awakening requires active work. Buddhism lays out a daily path of practice that is active work and that leads to awakening.

Paradoxically, striving to awake never works. Enlightenment cannot be grasped or attacked. All we can do is create the conditions for awakening to occur. An authentic daily Zen practice creates those conditions.

If we were chained to the floor of a dungeon and were offered a trip to the top of the castle, we would take it. Once there, admiring the view of the valley, the river, the mountains and lakes, breathing the fresh air, hearing babbling brooks and the songs of birds, we would not choose to return to the dungeon if given the choice.

However, the point of Zen practice is not to lift us from a dark place into the light. That’s what self-help or self-improvement programs try to do.

The point of Zen practice is to enable us to see, to experience the fact that the dungeon/death and the top of the castle/life are mind alone. The dance of life and death is a creation of mind. Remember Dogen’s words.

An enlightened mind is neither enslaved nor liberated. The middle way is neither up nor down, neither happy nor sad. Nor is it a bland nothingness; it is a fullness, a wakefulness beyond mere joy or bliss. One experiences bliss upon entering into that state beyond bliss and one experiences bliss again upon re-entering the mundane world.

Only the awakened reside in that state of Incomprehensible and Incomparable Enlightenment. Awakening happens when it happens. It cannot be forced to happen. We cannot practice Zen so that we can win enlightenment. We can only practice Zen with diligence every day to create the conditions that allow awakening to occur.

We do not practice Zen to save ourselves from some vengeful, angry god who gets so mad that steam comes out of his ears. We do not practice Zen to gain entry into some man-made vision of a Billy Graham heaven where the golf courses are really nice. We practice Zen to allow our original, undefiled self to awaken. If we practice Zen with diligence, we learn who or what we are. The bottom of the bucket falls out, and we awaken to a reality that has always been there but which no one can describe.

When a person awakens, that is the Second Coming. It comes unexpected like a thief in the night. When a person awakens, that person realizes that life and death, gods and devils, right and wrong, and every other dichotomy, are illusions created by the unenlightened mind.

Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction

Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction

I hesitate to mention MBSR because my belief is that Buddhist practice creates the conditions for enlightenment to occur. My unenlightened, judgmental mind tells me that MBSR demotes Buddhism to just another stress-reduction program in competition with yoga classes, tai chi exercises, and those twelve step programs. Ugh.

However, if a person is under so much stress that they can’t practice, then MBSR is available for such persons and it is probably better than other stress-reduction programs, as long as the practitioner does not grow to believe that Buddhism has no higher aim.

So somewhat reluctantly I provide a link to an MBSR program in howtopracticezen.com. Just don’t forget that Buddhism has much more to offer.

Years ago I was chagrined when Jack Kornfield wrote a piece saying that sometimes meditation could not touch the severe problems that some people had. He argued that those people need Western psychotherapy.

My first reaction was that it was outrageous to say that twentieth century Western psychotherapy could solve problems not solvable by Buddhist practice. (Even though I have no idea what psychotherapy is). But his article is well-worth reading; he is a deep, sincere thinker. I disagree with his conclusions but if you are having trouble with meditation practice, he may be speaking to you.

But one should return to Buddhist practices upon successful completion of MBSR or psychotherapy sessions. I am certain Mr. Kornfield would agree with that.

The rabbit that cooked itself

Although the term “Zen” is usually translated as “meditation,” the actual practice of sitting meditation is just a part of Zen practice.

Zen meditation is not the same thing as Hindu meditation where the practitioner recites a mantra with closed eyes in an effort to merge with some higher being.

The presence or absence of one or more higher beings is irrelevant in the practice of Zen. That allows Zen to be practiced by those who hold religious beliefs as well as by those who don’t.

Zen practitioners don’t recite mantras nor do they fully close their eyes completely during practice. Sitting meditation is called zazen, where “za” means “sitting.” The full practice of Zen includes zazen but it also includes much more.

To practice zazen, we place a square mat on a floor so that the leading edge of the mat is about a foot from a wall, center a round cushion atop the mat so that the trailing edge of the cushion coincides with the trailing edge of the mat, and then sit on the round cushion with back and head erect, eyes slightly open but unfocused, looking down with the eyes but not with the head.

We don’t move a muscle during the sitting. As the teachers say, if the body is moving, the mind is moving.

We remain alert and alive in the present moment, making no attempt to enter into a trance.

The Buddha sat outdoors, under a tree. He had no factory-made mats or cushions, although the early texts say he fashioned a cushion of grass. He had given up on his teachers; none of them could answer his questions. He was not satisfied with homilies such as: “Brahma is in control; just trust in Him.”

The Buddha vowed that he would sit in meditation until his questions were answered. He placed his faith in himself, not upon any external entity.

He paid attention to his breath as it flowed in an out and according to the Pali canon, on the morning of the seventh day he saw Venus and purportedly exclaimed: “Wonder of wonders, all living beings are truly enlightened and shine with wisdom and virtue. But because their minds have become deluded and turned inward to the self-centered ego, they fail to understand this.”

After he became enlightened, he remembered having lived before. He remembered lifetimes as a human, but he also remembered lifetimes as an animal. He remembered being a rabbit who saw a holy man starving to death, a man who would not kill a rabbit even to save himself. The rabbit that would become the Buddha after many more lifetimes threw himself onto the monk’s campfire, cooking himself alive, so that the monk could eat him without violating his vow not to kill.

We westerners read such stories and think: Well, Buddhism sure is a crazy Asian religion. If you can believe a rabbit could recognize a monk in trouble, and then do a bunny hop into a campfire to painfully immolate himself for the benefit of that monk, you can believe anything. You can certainly believe in multiple lifetimes if you can believe the rabbit story.

Yet the story of God becoming a man through a virgin birth and suffering an agonizing death inflicted upon him by people capable of mind-boggling cruelty because he taught people to love God and each other, only to be resurrected after three days and then rising into heaven on a cloud after promising to return to earth at some future unspecified date to reward believers in him with eternal happiness and unbelievers with eternal torment is deemed plausible by westerners.

It isn’t hard to understand why the Chinese told the Jesuits that Christianity sure was a crazy western religion.

Sniper

In the spring of 2009, I saw a pickup truck with “My boss is a Jewish carpenter” on one bumper and “This vehicle will be unoccupied in case of Rapture” on the other.

Centered on the glass behind the passenger compartment was the Eagle, Globe, and Anchor (the logo of the Marines), under which appeared the word:

SNIPER

I wanted to pull the guy over and ask him if he could detect any incongruity between his bumper stickers. If I had, he most likely would not have given me a reasoned discourse in support of the proposition that the stickers were not actually contradictory at all.

I forgot all about that incident until today when I saw yet another vehicle with a Marine Corps sticker on the rear window and a “Keep Christ in Christmas” bumper sticker. I think it’s called cognitive dissonance but to me it’s just plain amazing that someone proud to be a warrior is concerned about keeping Christmas a religious holiday as distinguished from an excuse for secular shopping binges.

If your job is to shoot people in the head using a high-powered rifle having a telescopic sight, and if you are so proud of that job that you openly advertise it, and expect a heavenly reward for your actions, you are one deluded human being. A human being more in need of pity than compassion.

If you have a less aggressive role to play on this earth, perhaps you’ll understand the concept of loving kindness a little easier than someone who is hostile to the very idea of a human family.

Those who are hostile to other humans are of course without mercy when it comes to killing cows, pigs, and other unfortunate sentient beings.

Regardless of where we stand on the spectrum of humanity having on one end a fierce individuality, together with the anger, hatred and fear that comes with it and on the other end a fearless, happy kindness, all of us have Buddha nature buried within us.

Some of us work to cultivate metta/loving kindness, bringing more happiness into the human dharma realm. Some of us work to bring more hatred and sadness into the world.

Those who proudly proclaim through their bumper stickers that they are demons have a lot of cultivation to do in the future. Lacking wisdom, they have to travel down to the immense suffering at the bottom of the dharma realms before they realize they need to go the other way. The wise do not have to learn everything the hard way.

So when we cultivate loving kindness, we include every sniper in the world and hope that they may be well, happy, calm and peaceful.