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The word “dharma,” is sometimes defined as “the truth of how things are,” yet the truth is that things are not really things.
“The world is not made up of things that persist. It is made of events, processes. It is dynamic. This dynamism is its way of existing....we ourselves are, first and foremost, not permanent entities, but processes.” This quote does not come from a Buddhist text, but from a book by Carlo Rovelli, a preeminent contemporary theoretical physicist, in which he makes a case for the study of quantum theory as a study of relationships. What we call dharmas, including ourselves, are processes that exist in a constant state of change brought about by their relations with other processes. It may be helpful to refer here to Indra’s net, a metaphor for life as a vast network of jewels that simultaneously reflect other jewels and are reflected by them, each reflection an alteration. Our Buddhist understanding of interdependence is that all things exist as the result of their interactions with a complex matrix of other entities and act as a cause for the entities with which they interact. We are not independent. We are both result and cause, constantly changing. We are participants within this vast process that we call “the world,” and cannot stand outside it to examine it objectively. Furthermore, I see this world of which I am a part only from my viewpoint. Although my perspective may agree with others upon many things, Uchiyama Roshi is correct in saying that my world comes into being and dies with me. I find no ground to stand on within a never-ceasing process, and this is either frightening or liberating. I think a thrilling option is offered by a line from a prajna paramita sutra: “The bodhisattva courses in emptiness, setting down nowhere.” Rather than fighting change, we ride it, soaring as we steer its flight and course in the freedom of emptiness. A famous exchange has been recorded between a Ch’an master and student in which the student asks the master sitting in zazen what he’s doing and the master replies, “Thinking of not-thinking.” When the student asks how one does that, he answers, “non-thinking.”
Okumura Roshi translates the response as “beyond thinking,” but neither answer seems quite right to me. “Non-thinking” feels negative and as though effort is required to distance oneself from thinking. “Beyond thinking” appears to point to a location that must be accessed. I recently read a statement by Niu-t’ou Fa-yung (594-697) that offered his perspective: “The moment when the mind is in action is the moment at which no-mind acts.....No-mind is that is which is in action; it is that constant action which does not act. The no-mind of which I speak is not different from the mind.” Physical action is non-conceptual. It is direct doing, the foundation for which is an inherent constant awareness that does not itself act, but which is always present in action. It might perhaps be expressed as “paying attention” and is present when I tie my shoes without thinking. Fa-yung also says that this no-mind of action is not different from the thinking mind and this leads us to consider what is sometimes called Original Mind. Original Mind is that which is aware, pays attention and thinks. It functions as both direct physical response (doing) and the process of conceptualizing (thinking). If I consider our form of zazen, shikantaza, I find that it helps clarify the difference between the moments when I am carried away by thoughts (thinking) and those when I return to paying attention to what I am doing (not-thinking.) Shikantaza is the practice of wholehearted doing. The Zen master’s best answer to his student’s question might have been “just sitting.” (Thanks to Jim Gother and Doug Stream for the terms “paying attention “and “inherent.”) Basic to theistic religions such as Judaism, Christianity and Islam is faith in an omniscient, all-powerful higher entity (Jehovah, God, Allah) to whom humanity is responsible. Buddhism is non-theistic, so in what do Buddhists have faith, if they do?
At the core of Buddhist teachings lie a few basic concepts: suffering, impermanence, interdependence, emptiness of fixed being, yet none are seen as dogma to be accepted without question. The Buddha himself, in his address to the Kalamas, stressed that one should not have faith in ideas received from outside sources, whether leaders of the kingdom, books, or the Buddha himself. Only when we have considered an idea deeply for ourselves and tested its truth may we embrace it. Dogen, in Bendowa, says: “...when assisted by right faith, a pathway for departing delusion does exist. . . If people genuinely practice with right faith, they all attain the Way equally, without distinction between the dull and the sharp-witted.” The question is, “What is right faith?” Doubt is at the root of right faith, for it leads us to question and experience the truth of the teachings for ourselves until we reach a clarity of understanding that leads us to trust. A Buddhist’s faith is trust based on experience. At first, it is the knowledge that Buddha’s teachings have alleviated the suffering of thousands that encourages us to begin practicing zazen and studying the teachings. As we sit in zazen, study, and test our understanding, we gradually find, perhaps to our surprise, that we have faith. My teacher, Tozen Akiyama, once told me that when he asked his teacher what he understood after 30 years of practice, the reply was: “Just that I am going the right way.” This is not the unquestioning faith required by dogma. It is a faith, a trust, rooted in experience. We must be willing to practice and to test the teachings if we are to know that we are going the right way. As followers of the Buddha, we vow to realize the Buddha Way, to lead a life that actualizes it. But how do we do that? Does it lie in our intellectual familiarity with the Buddhist concepts of loving-kindness, compassion, empathetic joy, or equanimity? Or our intellectual grasp of the truth that everything is interdependent and impermanent, including our self?
No. This is the framework of intellectual understanding upon which we realize the Way, but it is not realization itself. Actualization lies in doing, not in thinking about. Being able to quote the sutras won’t cut it and feeling compassion for someone may merely be the disguised condescension of pity. But what if I were to keenly feel my deep relationship to the untold number of forces past and present that make me who I am, so keenly that the barriers between myself and others fade away? If “us” and “them” were to coalesce into “we”? Then it would be completely natural to care about those we encounter, because they are no longer “other.” This is what it means to be a bodhisattva. These enlightening beings so deeply absorb the understanding of impermanence and interdependence that their responses are rooted in the kindness of “we”. They do not need the precepts because it would never occur to them to break them. There is a famous exchange between two Zen masters about this. Referring to the Bodhisattva of Great Compassion, known to have a thousand hands with an eye in the palm of each, one asks: “How does the Bodhisattva of Great Compassion use so many hands and eyes?” The answer is, “Like a person groping behind for their pillow in the night.” A need arises and a hand reaches out. As simple and as direct as that, without intervening judgment. Grasping the principles of the Buddha Way, we actualize them by seeing those we encounter with a deep clarity that bypasses prejudices and fosters natural, helpful response. The bodhisattva’s four great vows culminate in a vow to incorporate the Buddha’s teaching into our daily lives: “The Buddha Way is unsurpassable, I vow to realize it.”
The Lotus Sutra tells us that the purpose that compels Buddhas to appear in the world is to free beings from the delusions within which they are trapped. From what does the Buddha work to free all beings? First and foremost is the suffering created by our fruitless clinging to people and events that we mistakenly believe to be permanent. Related to this is the mistaken idea that we have a permanent self that stands alone, apart from the great river of impermanence within which everything else flows. The Buddha Way offers a joyous embrace of a changing world in which we are inescapably intertwined with all beings, offering compassion and care based on a vision of reality just-as -it is. Our Way is how we live, moment by moment, and with the fourth great vow we express our intention to realize the Buddha Way as the Way of our lives. We do this recognizing that we are fallible human beings and may often fall off the Way into the ditch of delusion, but also knowing that the wonderful thing about a vow is that it doesn’t go away, instead offering to once again be made our own. Knowing this, we can step forward and work to make our life realize the Buddha Way. With all our faults, we can be bodhisattvas who do what we can to offer compassion to those we encounter, walking the Buddha Way toward freedom from our own delusions. To realize the fourth great Vow is to be as faithful as we can to the first three. Beings are numberless, I vow to free them. Delusions are inexhaustible, I vow to end them. Dharma gates are boundless, I vow to enter them. The Buddha Way is unsurpassable, I vow to realize it. Each moment of each day is our Way, the path we walk to carry out our vows. Today is where we realize the Buddha Way, right here, right now. In this little essay I want to examine two Mahayana Buddhist concepts that offer differing definitions of Buddha Nature. One understands that all sentient beings inherently possess a Buddha within themselves, obscured by defilements like ignorance and greed. Dogen (1200-1253) rejects this understanding that Buddha Nature is something we need to uncover and nurture. In contrast Dogen says that we, like all things, ARE Buddha Nature.
Wait a minute, if we are Buddha Nature doesn’t it mean that anything we do is Buddha Nature? Yes, and that’s the problem. Buddha Nature in Dogen’s sense contains everything, both good and evil, with we humans acting as the source of evil. There are natural disasters such as earthquakes and tsunamis that cause great suffering, but they result from the coming together of natural forces without intention to harm, and in that sense are not evil. But we humans have intentions driven by our desires that lead to evil choices, to wars, hatred of the other, indifference to the natural world. These two approaches offer contrasting visions of our position in the world. The first suggests that we live independent of the world in which we exist and that our practice is to develop our inner potential to be Buddha. The second suggests that we are participants in the world of Buddha Nature, which is a constant interdependent interaction among all things, and that our practice is to become beneficial elements within that process. Both approaches encourage us to practice goodness, one in developing our potential for Buddha wisdom, and Dogen’s in meeting our responsibility as part of Buddha Nature by reducing the evil it contains through acting as the Buddha taught, undriven by greed, anger or delusion. The questions become, “If I am Buddha Nature, how do I practice goodness as my contribution? In what way do I belong?” The third great bodhisattva vow opens the door into the infinite richness of our every moment. “Dharma gates are boundless, I vow to enter them.”
“Dharma” describes the truth of how things really are, the reality of our interconnected, changing existence. Realizing this truth, we find liberation from suffering rooted in clinging to an imaginary world within which we can satisfy our ego’s desire for control. Gates do not swing open of themselves. We enter by unlatching the gate and stepping forward. This is as true for stepping forward into dharma, the truth of things, as it is for stepping forward into a meadow of spring flowers. We must see the gate, open it and enter . What is it we find as we enter dharma gates? We find true relationships among the many conditions that bring things into existence. This morning’s cup of coffee is just another cup in my hand until I enter the dharma gate that reveals it to be the result of an infinite series of collaborations, the most recent being between a cup, coffee filter, coffee grounds, water, a teakettle, a gas flame, a stove and . . . In truth, entering the dharma gate of sipping coffee is not a matter of making a list; it is simply a sense of the myriad ways in which my life is embedded in the life of the whole. We enter dharma gates by being aware and stepping away from the isolation of self-obsession. The most important, and often most difficult, dharma gate is that which opens into the truth of our relationships with others. We seek to offer openness, kindness and understanding, but often make missteps. To enter a dharma gate at this moment is to acknowledge those missteps and seek more appropriate ways of responding. It can be hard and require compassion for both ourselves and the other person. “Dharma gates are boundless, I vow to enter them.” This is joy. It is also how we acquire understanding to fulfill our vow to free all beings and, indeed, ourselves. The second of the Four Great Bodhisattva Vows outlines a crucial step toward fulfilling our initial vow to free all beings: “Delusions are inexhaustible, I vow to end them.” We have already discovered that for the Bodhisattva, the enlightened being who forgoes nirvana to free others, these great vows represent a lifetime practice. They intend to pursue the vow in each moment, without regard for ultimate “success.”
To free others from their delusions we must first examine our own false beliefs and perceptions. Among these is the perception that we stand alone. Our ideal of rugged individualism, the growth of the “me” generation mesmerized by self-help, and the urge to satisfy the demands of our ego all conspire to mask the truth of our deep and undeniable connection to the world around us. The message you are now reading is the result of the coming together of myriad things, and it would not have been written if you didn’t exist. The second false belief that we cling to is that we can keep things as they are, that we are in control of events. We deny the truth that nothing lasts, that everything changes. As a result, we see ourselves as victims of the reality of a life in which our hair grows gray, our dearest friends die, and our relationships alter. Our delusions are inexhaustible and they can bring pain, yet there is a clear wind that will disperse them and that is to accept impermanence and interconnectedness as true reality. This will not banish the pain of loss, but it will remove our futile rage that things “shouldn’t be this way.” To fulfill the second great Bodhisattva vow is to accept that what I want may not be what is, and to work as skillfully and compassionately as I can with what is. Each day brings new challenges and to be a Bodhisattva is to live a life of acceptance and adaptation, working moment by moment to fulfill our commitment: “Delusions are inexhaustible, I vow to end them.” "To establish the bodhi-mind means to vow that, and to endeavor so that, 'Before I myself cross over, I will take across all living beings.'" This quote from Dogen's fascicle Hotsubodaishin in Shobogenzo sets out the intention that is a prerequisite for embodying the mind of Buddha, the mind that recognizes the transience of all things and feels great compassion for the suffering this creates.
The bodhisattva, the enlightening being, makes four great vows in order to fulfill the crossing over of all living beings. In the next four posts I hope to show how we can understand and carry out these seemingly impossible vows in our daily lives. We can never completely fulfill them, yet our vow sets out our determination to always walk in the direction they point. The first great vow is "Beings are numberless, I vow to free them." This is obviously a lifetime effort, but from what do we free them? We free them from the same delusions that cloud our lives: desire, anger, false understanding, self-absorption, possessiveness. If we begin to worry less about ourselves and become more respectful, perceptive, and generous toward others, we will not only free ourselves, but will also offer others a model of freedom. To free all beings, we neither preach nor proselytize; we demonstrate the possibility of a joyful relationship with the world around us. We show other beings that we can see the impermanence of our lives as the constant approach of opportunity rather than the constant tolling of the bell of loss. It is by joining arms with other beings that we can together create a bridge over the quick sands of greed, anger and ignorance to the solid footing of a true understanding of our interdependence within a world of constant change. Another way of putting the first vow might be "Beings are numberless, I vow to join them in finding freedom." Realizing we are not separate, we drop the chains of our self-isolation. The Heart Sutra begins with Avalokiteshvara "practicing deeply prajna paramita" and thus realizing the intrinsic emptiness of all things and that "with nothing to attain, a bodhisattva relies on prajna paramita and thus the mind is without hindrance." Paramita is "perfection of" but what is prajna?
Prajna is often defined as transcendent intuitive wisdom, but in his "Manifestation of Great Prajna" in Shobogenzo, as translated by Kazuaki Tanahashi, Dogen says something different. He recites a litany of the manifestations of prajna: the five skandhas, four noble truths, past, present and future, earth, air, water, fire, walking, standing, sitting and lying down. For Dogen, everything is a manifestation of prajna. One definition of manifestation is "an event, action or object that clearly shows or embodies something." The event in this case is the actions of cause and effect that create the things of our world. As it grows, an acorn manifests change appropriate to its future as an oak. Prajna is appropriate choice among possibilities. Prajna manifests as all things becoming themselves. Prajna is a minnow becoming a fish, not a rabbit. We humans are more complex than acorns or minnows and our minds are so obstructed by struggles to attain success that prajna does not come easily to us. Our choices are not inherently appropriate. Yet, says the Heart Sutra, if we realize that there is nothing to attain, our minds no longer hinder the working of prajna, and we are able to intuitively choose the appropriate possibility. Dogen concludes: "Thus the Buddha, the World Honored One is the manifestation of prajna. The manifestation of prajna is all things. . . . To manifest the actualization of prajna is to actualize the Buddha, the World Honored One." Clearing our minds of our need to attain, we rely on prajna to manifest as the appropriate response to this moment. In the same fascicle of Shobogenzo, Dogen quotes a great disciple of the Buddha: "Subhuti said . . .if bodhisattvas, great beings, want to experience the profound manifestation of prajna, they should study as they would empty space." Empty space is what allows things to exist unobstructed. When we say "Give it room to grow " we are speaking of adequate unobstructed space to arrive at its appropriate form. A chair is a chair because it has space to be so. The Heart Sutra says, "With nothing to attain, bodhisattvas rely on prajna paramita and thus the mind is no hindrance." Setting aside obstructing ideas the bodhisattva creates space for the appropriate response to arise. The Heart Sutra continues, "Without hindrance, there is no fear." Letting go of our mind's hindrances, we trust without fear that the space created will allow the appropriate response to come forth, for without hindering ideas we are in unobstructed relation to the situation. Prajna, like space, is the great enabler of all things, allowing appropriate possibilities to take shape. |
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