The roots of Chan (Zen)

“You cannot sound the depth of the Buddha’s realization by sitting meditation.”

Current movements trying to modernize Buddhism (like Secular Buddhism) don’t go far enough, as they still rely on dogma (e.g. the four noble truths) or meditation. Early Chan was already more developed. Here are some of the achievements that are mostly forgotten or unknown in other Buddhist traditions.

1) Zen is not about being good or bad: “Cutting the bad and cultivating the good to become a Buddha – that is a wrong thought stemming from one’s own mind.” Zen goes beyond those categories or wants to detect what lies behind it. Any criteria and moral judgment has to be treated with caution, being a product of thought that is superimposed on “reality”.

2) “Truth” lies beyond any norms, the mind has to blast them. This goes for the norms of Buddhist teachers, too: “If one does not seek understanding and wisdom, he will avoid the delusions of dharma teachers and meditation masters.”

3) Events trump words: “Who deduces the dharma from events instead of relying on the teaching of a master can be called a man with sharp wisdom.”

4) The life of a zen adept welcomes all feelings, he “neither rejects jealousy nor greed” because he knows they are empty, but “turns any place of bad influence (karma) into a Buddha event”.

The place of precepts are the four immeasurable states of mind (kindness, empathy, shared joy, equanimity), no set of sila or rules that paint the world in black and white.

5) Scriptures (sutras) are seen as products of the mind and therefore misleading: “When there are no sophisticated gimmicks of the mind, what need is there for sitting meditation and right mindfulness?”

Thoughts toward enlightenment and the invocation of scriptures and commentaries only nourish intellectual understanding: “Don’t use mind to get rid of mind!”

6) Karma has not existed per se but is created by mankind through believing: ‘I do bad, so I will be punished; I do good, so I will be rewarded.’ The ‘bad’ karma arises only by this distinction itself.

All those quotes come from the Tunhuang rolls, the earliest findings of chan transmission. More can be read in Jeffrey L. Broughton’s The Bodhidharma Anthology (Berkeley 1999). It becomes obvious were so many Buddhist schools in the East and West went astray and that not even in zen dojos you will find much of this early spirit.

 

Why the four noble thruths are wrong

The four noble truths are given in Buddha’s first speech, and the first one includes “birth is dukha, aging is dukkha, illness is dukkha, death is dukkha; sorrow, lamentation, pain, grief and despair are dukkha; union with what is displeasing is dukkha; separation from what is pleasing is dukkha; not to get what one wants is dukkha; in brief, the five aggregates subject to clinging are dukkha.” This is one popular translation, and dukkha is usually understood as “suffering”.

When we look closer at them for a moment and do not take them for granted, we find them flawed. Besides people who claim never to have been ill, there are those who die young and therefore not age. There are more logical problems with death, as we should understand it as being braindead, and with birth, as the five aggregates (skandha) according to the Sutta Pitaka include mental formations (samskara) like thoughts and opinions and a consciousness (vijnana) that a newborn obviously does not possess. The four noble thruths thus seem to stem from a lack of medical knowledge. It is ridiculous when Buddhists, if monks or laypeople, consider them a prerequisite for being (called) a Buddhist.

Interestingly enough, the only sutra spoken by a woman, the Shrimala Sutra (pdf) of the Mahayana tradition, has already corrected this wrong view. It calls three of the four noble truths conditioned and impermanent, thereby false and deceiving. The three truths of ‘there is suffering’, ‘there is a cause for suffering’ and ‘there is a way’ (the eightfold path) are not a refuge and not the highest truth, according to this sutra. As a result only the third noble truth is considered highest wisdom, namely ‘there is annihilation of suffering’. In other words, ‘true’ is that suffering can be extinguished, untrue is that there is suffering per se, untrue are the definitions (phases) of suffering and untrue is the eightfold path. How lucky Mahayana Buddhism is to know those wise words of a woman.

The Shrimala Sutra is quite unique, progressive and advanced in another area, the Bodhisattva vows. They sound quite different to those of the Brahmanetsutra that are usually taken and given as precepts in the zen tradition. They speak about respecting those who have taken the vows (of the Shrimala Sutra, of course), not being stingy or greedy, staying poor (more specifically: sharing any wealth, “assisting the poor and friendless”, the diseased, troubled, trapped and bound) and using the dharma “with a mind unoccupied by material things” to serve “the multitude of beings”. So far, so good.

This blog wouldn’t exist if it just took any sutra for granted as a whole. In one vow, the catching and keeping of animals is desribed as a “wicked occupation”, and those involved in it – though not abandoned – obviously risking “subjugation”. In the teeth of the passage’s unclarity it leaves open an “inclusion” of the wicked. That is at least better than to exclude all killing (and thus diminish the work of soldiers and butchers), stealing (making it hard for some starving people to survive), lying (which is impossible according to scientists) or sex (for monks, leading them to abuse of novices), as the Brahma Net Sutra does in its popular major vows.

Neuroscience and Zen

The philosopher Colin McGinn once stated in his book Mysterious Flame: Conscious Minds in a Material World (Basic Books 1999) that consciousness (mind) was based on a natural feature of the brain but evades our cognitive capacity. Introspection, the perception of mental activity, was “too late” because it was too much mind already, whereas the view from the outside on the brain was “too early” and would only look on matter.

In recent years a lot of neuroscientists became interested in meditation and studied the mind of Buddhists, mainly of the Tibetan fraction. As we know from books of the Dalai Lama titled “The Art of Happiness”, Tibetans seem to have an interest to get happy through their Buddhist practice. By the way, this reminds me of an episode of the TV-series The Sopranos where a crippled Russian caretaker, after the mob boss suggested a couple of changes to become happy, says to him s.th. like: “What is it with you Americans, only you are possessed by happiness so much.” She was wrong – the Tibetans are, too.

No wonder that scientists found the part of the brain which is stimulated by meditation and causes feelings of happiness, and they even proved that meditation enhances empathy. Although there is a suspicion that Buddhists meditate because it gives them pleasure, that they are somehow rewarded (by their brain), the question remains what empathy is, as long as it is located in our head. It is the same question we ask about the meaning of awakening, taking precepts and studying scriptures: What is it good for? Empathy or compassion, as the Buddhists prefer to call it, makes no sense when not applied, when not put into action. Traditional Buddhism believes that intention causes main problems between people and is the deciding factor of morality (and even karma). Well, it isn’t.

Like fantasies that have never made it to realization, intent is a mind’s game and sometimes just leads to nothing. In daily life we are shown that actual deeds and their outcome are much more crucial, and we often do not even ask for the intention behind it. Having found a way to spice up your empathy does therefore not proof that you are able to bring anything good to someone’s life. It is probably much more interesting to find out which part of the brain is responsible for putting thoughts into action, for making dreams come true, so to say. It is not the same part that stands for empathy, and that may very well be the reason why Tibetan monks are not well known as generous donators. How we evaluate an action is still s.th. else, by some the Layman Pang, when he dumped all his belongings into a lake instead of donating them (not to make the surrounding poor villagers greedy), may just be considered a chump.

In the war of religions, or in this case: in the war between Buddhists, it was found out that adepts of Tibetan meditation methods (remember, it is those which imply Green Taras and other comical elements) enhance the activity of the so called gamma waves, responsible for a feeling of well-being, whereas Zen Buddhists stimulate rather their alpha and theta waves. Maybe that is just because they do not care so much about concepts of “happiness”. As we can see that artificial stimulation or the reduction of blood-flow also changes brains activity, we already know that meditation is not a requirement.

I dare to say that a somehow mystical experience is necessary to drop not only the attachment to belongings, status, career, reproduction etc. but also that to concepts and categories (like “happiness”) – and make this non-attachment part of ones everyday life and practice, as an ongoing process. A pure insight as a rationale will not do, will not lead to the required implementation. It has to be rather shaking one’s reliance on cognition and clearly overcome the boundaries of the common mind, like dreams sometimes do. When you ask yourself why so often Buddhists do not make a difference, but fly first class, drive an expensive car, own land, houses, fancy dresses and even consider their wives, husbands, boy- or girlfriends “theirs”, you may understand the mismatch of a rather logic realization to a “transcendent” one. Ikkyu’s was transcendent, the Dalai Lama’s is not. One travelled to brothels, the other one into bulletproof cars. What a pity we do not have Ikkyu’s brain anymore.

A most common drive of people is that to power over others, and this seems to make happy, too. Recently I saw the former German chancellor Helmut Schmidt on TV, over 90 years old and in a wheelchair, again violating a law against public smoking, not being stopped by the pussies who invited him. Defying a rather new democratic achievement, this guy who once relied on Kant’s axiom also underlined his friendship with one of last century’s worst war criminals, Henry Kissinger. The death of three German RAF-terrorists in Stammheim, claimed by the only surviving (stabbed) Irmgard Moeller to be a murder (although that might be part of her strategy), suddenly appeared in a new light to me. I imagined what a stubborn guy with a friend like Kissinger would have been able to order and cover up. The new chancellor candidate of his party, Peer Steinbrueck, named Schmidt and Gerhard Schroeder as his role models. Schroeder once answered to the question if he was greedy for power that without such a greed one could not become a chancellor. All of them are quite cool rhetoricians, and I consider them intelligent beings. Nevertheless, when Steinbrueck justified his perks, he reminded me of a soccer player named Philip Lahm who once commented that soccer stars are not overpaid because they obviously have a high market value.

Why all this name dropping in a blog like this (which surely could mention hundreds of figures from all the other parties, too)? First to tell you that it is possible to piss a Buddhist off, and becoming angry is not s.th. we should totally unlearn. Second to demonstrate in which areas we  may detect that all those prominent people are not detached at all. On the contrary, they use their greed for wealth and power to justify working for others, Steinbrueck guessed that we would find no one to do this job anymore when each politician is required to go public with the details of his bank accounts and belongings, being deprived of privacy. Well, I hope that you get the point.

Practicing Buddhism is the ability “to do the job” without expecting rewards. You should not trust anyone too much who can’t do so, especially when he or she openly confesses to it without understanding the third-ratedness of such a moral. Those guys are also taking pleasure in certain parts of their minds, and they are even willing to create precedents. Nevertheless they have not understood what life is about. When your mind is misled, as peaceful or happy it may feel, your actions will not be too wise. Zen is about bridging that gap and make your deeds rooted in the power of powerlessness.

Whatever neuroscience tells us about the neuronal field that reacts to our meditation, concentration or contemplation, it is basically the relation of action with nonattachment and independence, the freed mind, that corroborates an awakening, the root of wise deeds. Our politicians appear to be clever, voters may even believe they might have acquired some wisdom, but their dumb analysis of their own needs and motives speaks the language of delusion. We have to turn our view back from ideas and neurons inside to the matter outside, the matter that sticks to a Tibetan monk as well as a German politician. If neuroscientists fail to find this connection, they will have fallen for the same limited concept of the mind that lies behind Buddhist’s “intention” (cetana) which is supposed to create karma: “Intention, I tell you, is kamma. Intending, one does kamma by way of body, speech, and intellect” (Anguttara Nikaya). Let us correct: What one does and what one is can not solely exist in the brain (mind). That goes for any empathy, be it a monk’s or a politician’s.

Sitting in concentration camps

You may have noticed that a lot of so called “zen masters” are fans of “Engaged Buddhism”. This is a Buddhism that gets involved in political topics and moral dilemmas of society. One example was given by a teacher named Glassman. He built up a bakery where homeless people and ex cons found work and self confidently learned to make profit. Glassman’s “Peacemaker Order” did a lot of other good things. One of Glassman’s rather strange ideas was to do sit-ins in former German concentration camps. Glassman’s disciple Anshin Thomas copied his teacher’s idea of street retreats and living with the homeless. So what is wrong here?

In Zen tradition we find stories of masters who mixed with the homeless. The point was of course that a common person would not detect them by the eye, one had to watch the homeless closely or get them involved in a zen dialogue to find out. Still others tried to blend in wearing their robes, Menzan Zuiho wrote an illustrated booklet about the life of one exemplary zen beggar named Tosui. In another story a guy wants to become the disciple of a certain homeless teacher. “You can’t do it”, the teacher says, “you’d have to do what I do.” – “Of course I will”, answers our guy, and the teacher browses a load of garbage to retrieve a gnawed away and dirty riceball and eats it. Disgusted, our guy turns away. “See, I told you: You can’t follow me.” The reason those stories are given is to teach us non-attachment. They are not meant to show us how to copy a certain lifestyle. They go far to shatter the mindframe of the disciple.

Sitting in former concentration camps does not go thus far (only sitting in current concentration camps would do so). Neither does living with the homeless for a week or so, when you have the chance that they are provided with in modern cities, to find shelter, clothes and food in all the organisations that care for them. Recently I saw a German documentation on TV, an experiment with a couple of people that were well-fed and had good jobs. They became homeless people in Berlin for a short time and found different ways to deal with it (some of them gave up early). One entrepreneur created a clever way to beg for money that provided him with so much money that he usually could sleep in a hotel room. A young physician, married with children, said this experience helped him to understand the unfortunate in society. He was later visited by an older guy whom he had met in one of the homeless shelters (well, a house with beds, meals etc. run by Christians). This older guy was allowed to stay overnight at the doctor’s house.  He seemed much too educated, well-versed and dressed to me. Anyway, he  stole the doctor’s watch and other things and left early in the morning; he had also mixed with the homeless, probably just to find fools like the physician. That is why wrong views are weighing more heavily in Buddhism (as part of delusion, a main root of suffering) than the lack of empathy.

Actions like becoming homeless without naturally being so or sitting in concentration camps that are museums nowadays have the touch of marketing stunts. Those stunts will be quoted often to characterize the teachers who did so. It is no wonder that the zen guy most famous for it is a Jew by origin. This “zen-act” was actually more a proof that he has not gotten rid of his family’s roots and education (but beware, this is what becoming homeless means).  At least he could have been conscious of the danger of being perceived that way. And living from the remains or donations of others is in itself what monks are supposed to do anyway, although the homeless in our documentation complained that (contrary to monks) they were not really acknowledged, not “seen”. There we have it again. It is just the robe that changes people’s attention in a certain cultural field (where the robe makes sense).

Of course zen history knows a lot of masters who gave advice to emperors. Muso Soseki was one of the most famous. It is not uncommon for zen monasteries to get involved even in martial activity, as the history of the Shaolin Temple shows. Modern zen adepts on the other hand should neither be living copy machines of the past nor the parrots of political parties or grassroot movements. When you make an individual decision to participate in a social activity, you may ask yourself if it is to stand out or to “get lost”, to blend in. And when you answer to current questions of moral like assisted dying or stem cell and embryonic research, you should not fall in the categories of manmade ethics and law but ask yourself what insight into the human condition has taught you.

A decade ago the German Buddhist Union in a press declaration made by engaged Buddhists refused to support such research that was ironically started in almost all developed Buddhist Asian countries at the same time, with one aim for sure, to alleviate the physical suffering of living beings. It was, by the way, not even possible to turn the one hundred thousand Buddhists in Germany into organ donators because some of them believe they might have a consciousness after being braindead. Clinging to life is a form of attachment that Buddhist practice should qualify, i.e. provide the understanding that a suffering human life in terms of Buddhism is one that can suffer from its (developed and active) mind and consciousness. No embryo and no braindead person can obviously do so. It is not for Buddhists to stop research in the area of physical suffering of those beings with an active mind and consciousness. Often the politically active and “engaged” Buddhists do a lot of damage to the potential of Buddhist ethics. And they seem to be worse in the Western world than in Asia.  The fear of Germans particularly stems from their attachment to the past, a phase of euthanasia in their ancestor’s history. Here they do not differ much from the attachments of the Glassmans and Thomasses.

Why animals are awakened

Traditional Buddhism that relies on a literal understanding of the Pali Canon tends to support a strange view on animals. On the one hand they are refused the chance of awakening and classified as a low realm of being. This goes so far as to tell people that they could be reborn in such a realm when doing wrong. In Zen we know of the guy who was reborn as a fox for 500 years because he once has given an inadequate answer. On the other hand many Buddhists take the precept of not killing as an argument for vegetarianism. But in the Pali Canon we find a passage where the Buddha explicitly names 10 kinds of meat that should not be eaten, for example that of snakes and horses (if you’ve ever eaten a horse salami, you know what the Buddha missed). This implies that there are other kinds of meat that are eaten by Buddhists, especially chicken, pork and beef which for probably very practical reasons are not prohibited as they are commonly included in food donated to monks.

The comprehension of “suffering” in Buddhism is only possible for mankind but its full definition also only applies to mankind. Of course animals are born, get sick, become old and die. But as far as we know they do not perceive it as such, their consciousness being different. Suffering therefore cannot be understood as the process of being born etc. (most of us will not even remember it) but as the suffering FROM it, suffering FROM being put into the world because one was never asked if he’d really wanted that, suffering FROM a sickness because one is attaching the thoughts to it that it is not comfortable, not justified and keeping one from having fun, suffering FROM becoming old because one is not able to fuck and hop around anymore, and suffering FROM dying because one does not want to lose control and be dead. All this suffering happens in the head, it is within the conscious thought process of humans. Buddhism can NOT end the suffering from pain (but a physician may do so), it can NOT change the facts of decaying and dying. Although we find ridiculous passages even in Mahayana sutras where a country ruled by a Buddhist following the Dharma would be free of any plagues, wise Buddhism is not about ending physical suffering but only about ending the compulsive attachment of thoughts to the process of impermanence. Because men want hope, a lot of Buddhists take refuge in the believe of reincarnation, dreaming that thus they’d conquer suffering and death. No one can testify for reincarnation, and all the phenomena surrounding near-death experiences can usually be explained on the basis of ones belief and mindframe and are the result of a (mal)function of a still living brain. I have been there myself.

If the Buddhist teaching is only about the suffering FROM thoughts (and feelings expressed through them), it only tells something about the suffering of men, not of animals. The point is not that animals cannot understand the Dharma and thus not awaken, the point is that they do not NEED to understand it at all. Animals just do not suffer from thoughts because they do not create conflicting categories with the attachment to an ego-self. That is why we can call them awakened. It is just the other way round again, we could even envy animals for not having to overcome the chaos of the mind that leads men to meditation.

Kato Roshi, a close friend of the famous Sawaki Roshi, once stated: “Animals are awakened.” One has to know that Zen does not exclude the broad spectrum of feelings that people can live through. It rather takes them as they are, without judging and building categories in the mind like “Shit, I do not want to be lovesick now.” A dog that is walking against driving direction on a highway because his or her mate is lying wounded or dead at the grass verge (as I have seen it in a video recently) will touch our hearts – but still most probably this dog just IS the suffering then and not a somehow split personality that we become when we really suffer and at the same time deny it and want to be  in another condition. Not suffering for men can indeed mean REALLY AND ONLY BE SUFFERING, s.th. psychologists may put at the end of a reaction chain as “acceptance”. Overcoming suffering of the mind does not connote rejecting what is really going on – it implies just to not judge it, to be one and not in conflict with it. Watching animals I am constantly amazed by their ability to just live, go on and fight for their survival if threatened. And even if I see “love” in them, I am sure that they have no concept of it, like we do, and I try not to project my own on them. Critics of Buddhism often misunderstand this aspect and hold Buddhists as incapable of what Christians call agape, a love that cares selflessly for others. And Buddhists themselves sometimes hope that even the physical pain and suffering will go away if they just practice meditation enough. These are just illusions.

Yesterday a very tiny ant that had managed to crawl under the foil of my Menthos roll in the drawer peed her acid on my hand, and 18 hours later I still see the red dot on my skin that hurt for a while. We should not forget how small we are on this planet and in this universe and how much we have in common with the tiniest living beings when it comes to our will to live. All the same it is only us who believe that we stand above them, in spite of biology’s teaching that we are just mammals, another kind of animal. The only animal that needs a Dharma to become whole again. Maybe just a funny and juicy error of evolution.

Rob(b)ing

Robing is the belief in another status symbol, that of the Buddhist. There has been extensive writing about the importance and meaning of the robe, as a symbol of the dharma for example, especially in the tradition of Dogen Zenji. Zen Buddhists learn to sew their own robe, and they follow Dogen’s instructions in the Shobogenzo since hundreds of years. The main reason for a robe, as it was given in the Pali Canon already and transmitted by Dogen, is to be unattached to nice, precious and up-to-date dressing. Therefore the material of the robe should consist of discarded dresses, those of corpses and the sick. Nowadays robes are often just bought online or in shops. Even those who sew them do not go to cemeteries,  hospitals or the homeless to get the right textiles, meaning those that cause aversion in the common guy, an aversion the Buddhists  should overcome or should have left behind already when sewing their own robe.

The robes we see famous and high ranking zen abbots and masters in may not be of a simple unattractive earthen color. Even the monks in Thailand stand out with their orange garment, and Zen roshis may be seen in gold and purple, their robes bestowed on them even by an Emperor, being worth tens of thousands of dollars when sometimes sold by their crooked or poor disciples. Robing therefore is like wearing a tie when you want to become a manager of a huge company. It is the dresscode for Buddhists, and the differences in the robes stand for the hierarchy, at least in Zen. It has created another popular decoration, the rakusu, a pinafore that may signify lay ordination and the “taking of the precepts”. You may ask if someone who has taken the precepts must really remind himself of having done so, as if he had Alzheimer’s already. Or does he need to  prove s.th. to others who either don’t know anything about Buddhism and the meaning of the rakusu or are wearing it themselves during sesshin (meditation retreats)? Why all this showing off? Who the hell can be unattached (a sign of awakening) and still care for a dress code?

It seems to me that the ten oxherding pictures that describe the way of a path seeker from illusion to enlightenment and his final return “to the marketplace” want to teach us otherwise: to mix with common people, to blend in, to avoid external signs of standing out and being someone special. As I have analyzed the precepts and sila elsewhere, I dare to say that the rakusu simply speaks of a certain delusion, namely that it is necessary to take vows and precepts that are inscribed in the human heart or mind already. The rakusu, and that is its irony, confirms this illusion and thus tells us that its bearer is most likely unawakened. Morality on the other hand is an instinct, independent of a nation or culture, and has not to be learned, as the work of Marc Hauser (“Moral Sense Test”) has shown. Therefore any precepts are superfluous and speak only of the insecurity of those who attach to them, their disability to link to their natural instincts.

On Thai TV I just saw another couple of monks on the pallet of a police car on their way to the monkey house, as prison is called here, be it due to gambling, sexual misconduct or drunkenness.  Of course a set of rules like the 250 or more of the Vinaya increase the risk of a moral misbehavior, of their violation, but those monks were just unable to deal with common law. It is funny to see that even in the Bodhisattva precepts of the Mahayana tradition, derived from the Brahma Net Sutra as a set of 10 major and 48 minor rules, in one tradition it is prohibited to take money, and in another (of course the Tibetan) it is allowed. You also get an impression here how reliable oral and written transmission is.

Existentialism and Zen

Recently I read Jean-Paul Sartre’s novel “Nausea” in German. It was published in its original French version in the year 1938 and introduces some of Sartre’s main philosophical ideas. People  sometimes ask if Zen Buddhism is a kind of nihilism or existentialism, as the zen adept often speaks of emptiness (shunyata), the non-substantial nature of anything and anybody. So let’s have a look at the protagonist Roquentin’s view on life. I translate from the German version (“Der Ekel”, Rowohlt 1963).

“Nothing has changed, but everything exists in a different mode. I cannot describe it. It is like nausea and still its the opposite; finally an adventure befalls me, and when I ask myself, I see that it is me whom it befalls, that I am I and that I am here … something will happen.” (p. 6) “I don’t know if the world has suddenly shrunk or if it is due to me that all sounds and forms suddenly combine to such a unity. (…) I go home after an empty Sunday – and it is there!” (p. 62) “Here I sat, bend forward, my head downwards … and suddenly I had this enlightenment. It was breathtaking. Never before had I felt what it meant: to exist. (…) One cannot say two words without speaking about this existence and in the end still doesn’t touch it. When I believed that I thought of it, I thought of nothing, I had an empty head or at best one word in my head, the word: “to be”.  (…) If one had asked me what this existence is, I would have answered in good faith that it is nothing, at best an empty form that attaches to things from the outside without changing their nature.” (p. 113) This culminates in: “When I say ‘I’ now, it seems to be unsubstantial … I am forgotten … Suddenly this ‘I’ becomes paler and paler, and now it is over – it dies down. Clear, immobile, abandoned the mind (consciousness) rests between the walls; it extends into eternity. (…) This is the significance of one’s mind: to know its own needlessness.” (p. 178)

What Sartre’s protagonist describes is an awakening experience similar to reports we get from Buddhists who talk about their own enlightening moments. Not being captured by Buddhist terminology, there is no doubt for Sartre that they are happening to an unsubstantial “I”. They come all of a sudden, they create an impression of a unity of all phenomena whose nature is empty, they shake one’s life to the bone while the (logic, idea-connecting) thought process actually comes to a halt.

The characteristics “clear”, “immobile” and “eternal” could directly stem from those Mahayana sutras like the Mahaparanirvana Sutra that deal with the Tathagata, the Buddha-Nature, and speak of an atman (self) as correcting the prevalent belief of Buddhists in an anatman (non-self). The self here is the true nature of phenomena without being a self in the sense of an “I”,  it is the antidote to the danger of falling into a kind of nihilism when sticking solely to the  concept of anatman. It just means that the interpreters of the dhamma have detected a logical problem and defect in the Pali Canon or, if you want to believe that, certain adepts have left out an important teaching of Shakyamuni himself. A lot of Buddhists make the mistake of justifying rebirth with an underlying stream of life or existence that they derive from the concept of Buddha-Nature but see as somehow  identical to their personal existence which actually ends with braindeath. But Buddha-Nature knows no “re”, no coming back, as it is eternal and devoid of any individual signs (which makes the whole reborn tulku and lama business in Tibet a make-belief Buddhism). “Behind the existing which stumbles from one present to the next, without past, without future, behind those sounds which molder from day to day towards death, the melody remains the same, unchanged.” (p. 184)

Sartre’s protagonist was sitting when it first happened to him – but in a position that you will not find recommended in any handbooks for meditation. Still his view on life changed, and the basic nausea or disgust that he felt made room to a non-distinguishing, all-encompassing moral when he later on in this philosophical novel is the only one to console a guy in a library who has touched and stroked the back of some male pupils while teaching them and was immediately scolded and offended by the other adults in the room. The protagonist knows that he is “meaningless for all eternity” (p. 137) and naturally does the most ethical thing that this moment requires. In this act we can see the struggle ended that had troubled him before: “I feel responsible and guilty. (…) My thoughts, that is I; therefore I cannot stop thinking. I exist because I think … and cannot stop me from thinking. (…) I myself extract me from nothingness on which after all I put my hope.” (p. 108) But whereas his doing speaks otherwise, the protagonist still considers all sense-giving efforts of mankind to be fruitless and an illusion. “Nothingness was only an idea in my head (…) it hadn’t come before existence, it was an existence like many others and appeared after them.” (p. 143) In the aftermath of enlightenment, rationally analyzing it, in a style that we know of koan, even what was detected or experienced before is doubted, is destroyed, to go farther, to find the pure deed and doing itself. Ideas and concepts of the mind are not to be trusted, but with existence comes a certain responsibility.

Sartre developed a kind of insight that could be called “Dogen without Buddhism” or “Secular Buddhism without Buddha”. By acknowledging the “I” as an individual struggling for meaning and insight that are not there per se, he allows this “I” to see through itself by its needless mind and detect a clear, unmovable, eternal entity (Dasein). Enlightenment is manifested in the acts of the awakened which blast the common limits of people’s ethics.

Misunderstanding the eightfold path and the precepts (sila)

Disciples of Buddhism often misunderstand the teaching of the sila, as they are given to monks, and laypersons are free to accept them. In Southeast Asia laypersons can stay silent when a certain sila is recited in temples, knowing that they can’t keep it. The sila are just a guidance for laymen, or better for those who feel ethically insecure and do not possess wisdom (prajna). For the others their wisdom is giving them the right view on the precepts, as it leads them to the eightfold path. It is not the other way round. By keeping the precepts, one will NOT acquire wisdom automatically. Thus one popular distinction of the eightfold path into wisdom (referring to right view and right intention), ethical conduct (right speech, right action, right livelihood) and meditation/samadhi (right effort, right mindfulness, right concentration) is misleading because it suggests that the three divisions are on an equal level. You can clearly find out by watching those Buddhists who insist on the sila (and especially on right speech when they don’t like what is said) that they mostly lack higher wisdom, even when they do meditation a lot. So samadhi, too, is not a guarantee for wisdom. We find wise people everywhere who are neither Buddhists nor thinking of precepts or doing meditation. The way to wisdom is obviously not restricted to Buddhists.

The Buddha said in the Nagara Sutta that it is the “rightly self-awakened” of former times who followed the path. He then imitated this way to find out the truth about reality. It seems that the other awakened ones prior to him awakened before their life was thought to be a certain path.  So we should understand that the real Path begins when we are awakened and not vice versa. The Buddha had to do otherwise himself, but his life and struggle can teach us to avoid strict ascetism, for example. Nevertheless the Buddha awakened BEFORE he taught about a path, and he even refused to preach first, meaning that he was initially satisfied in being a pratyekabuddha (who doesn’t teach). WE do not have to mimic the Buddha’s life but instead can profit from the shortcut – by insight (meditation) we see through our illusions, discover emptiness and acquire wisdom. Then our path may become eightfold, tenfold, twentyfold or onefold – this is just a matter of definition and words.

What does it mean to look at the sila with wisdom and not trying to acquire that wisdom by sticking to their literal meaning? I give a couple of examples. Scientists found out that we lie a lot on a daily basis. No one seems to be an exception. A rule for always speaking the truth is therefore too abstract and unrealistic to be kept. It just means to try to stick to what we feel is “the truth”. Actually, it is impossible not to lie, and when you listen and watch carefully, you will know when praised Buddhist teachers keep their doubts for themselves or just stick to rhetoric that does not even make sense to them. A lot of lies are created to leave the liar in control of a situation.

Right Livelihood in the Eightfold Path includes not to breed animals for slaughter. As I said before, a farmer’s life is one of the most honest I can think of. It is not possible to feed all mankind without meat, and according to some reading of the Mahaparinibbana Sutta, Shakyamuni is said to have died from eating pork. We can find a lot of those contradictions in the Palicanon, even a foulmouthed Shakyamuni, e.g. when he scolded Devadatta. We can not take the words of the Palicanon for granted, we have to drop teachings which don’t make sense (anymore) and see their core just as a hint (in those two cases: to restrict our consumption of meat and our use of reproach). That’s why we call it a Path, s.th. going on, and not a status quo.

Another example is the rule against the ingestion of intoxicants, including alcohol. We now know that moderate drinking (e.g. of wine) can prolong life. Even if this wasn’t “true”, we also know that drugs which change the mind (perception) have led some people to deep insights. There are always exceptions from a rule. When the Buddha allowed medicine, he must have known that it may consist of alcohol and mind-changing ingredients. Nowadays anti-depressants keep people alive (by preventing suicide). But for some the non-prescribed drugs as wine or beer have a similar effect of soothing and motivating them. I could go on like this when taking further sila into account, which some lays like to follow at least on certain days, as not to sleep on soft and high beds (although that may just ease the pain of some elderly), not to use perfume (although some disgusting smells could be averted by a deodorant), not to visit musical and theatrical performances (as if there was no wisdom to be found in art). Not to speak of all the monks who accept money …

To explain why a soldier or a butcher can be a Buddhist will raise more concerns. It was widely misunderstood even in the zen scene (especially by Brian Victoria) that the prohibition to kill does not mean that no one could “rightly” do so. Whatever a civilian court may rule in such cases, a man of insight who has dropped his attachments and is able to kill without hate, greed, remorse etc. would actually be an ideal soldier. It is therefore not possible for those with prajna to accept an exclusive viewpoint where an awakened person would refrain from participating in a war or killing in self-defence or as assistance in an emergency. No one hopes for it, but when a necessity is felt, he or she is able to swing the sword without swaying it (without hate), as was taught by former zen masters like Takuan and Omori Sogen. We have to understand that the sila are made to make us ethically alive and survive and not to have us eradicated from the planet.

The freed mind: Chit Wang

Buddhadasa Bhikkhu used the term “chit wang” in Thai for the void mind as we find it in the texts attributed to Huangpo and Huineng (which Buddhadasa translated himself from the English). From this liberated Buddha-mind the power for any social revolution may arise. As we clearly see in most of Southeast Asian countries, they are in need of reform. What seems to be important for a society’s identity (like the Thai’s or Burmese’s), the lay-monk distinction, can be clearly detected as the main obstacle for change. It is always the more traditional and easy-to-chew Buddhism that is popular here, and it is infiltrating people’s mind for quite a while through a TV channel called DMC. The monk behind it is called Luang Phaw Dhammajayo, and (a parallel to the Vietnamese described in last week’s blog entry) he is quite a rich landlord, too. His greasy talks rely on superstition, a simple understanding of kamma and rebirth, and thus do just the opposite of Buddhadasa’s teachings – they bind and create illusions. Of course, this is required to collect money from his followers who have to dress in white and move up the ladder of this “Dhammakaya” movement.

When the people of Southeast Asia do not question their support for the orange-robed who justify their laziness with rules and regulations of the Vinaya – the first part of the Palicanon and thus a fundament of Theravada Buddhism – the doors for guys like Dhammayo are opened. For some, this is an inevitable part of a nation’s tradition and identity, for others the lay-monk distinction is just another possibility to create classes, differences, hierarchies, and to abuse power in the name of a Lord. A monk who would have to feed himself and lead the life of a farmer – one of the most honorable ways to exist – when not meditating (and perhaps studying scripts from time to time) could not so easily be lead to DMC’s abstractions.  A monk’s life cannot be a role model for humankind (whereas the farmer’s life is just that) and would, due to his celibacy and inability to take care of himself, just cause the extinction of mankind (and therefore the dhamma). Instead of sucking on others and nevertheless denouncing their average behaviour he’d have to take full responsibility of his own life and be criticized on the same level.

Of course, abolishing the monk-layhood distinction is impossible without reading and understanding even the Vinaya not literally but metaphorically. Buddadhasa called this “phasa tam”, the dhamma language, an interpretive and revealing reading of the canon, as opposed to “phasa kom”,  everyday language and a literal understanding. Thus e.g. the precept not to unroot a vegetable would become the rule for mindful agriculture. Monks nowadays are able to use airplanes instead of walking thousand of miles but they refrain from giving up anything in the Vinaya that contradicts their right to a rather comfortable life of social welfare. They think this is justified just by sharing their limited knowledge and insight in the dhamma, and in the case of DMC they even get sponsored for leading people astray. It has come so far that the robe is nothing in the eye of a wise man anymore, it rather makes one puke when in sight. One should look at a robed person in the way the Buddha is said to have taught impermanence: See the skull of the person, watch the decaying flesh, smell the stinking fluids he or she is made of. And only then listen carefully to what is said and find out if it is anything else than the filth you have just imagined.

Religious rituals: German circumcision

This was the headline of a BBC report on TV a couple of weeks ago: “German circumcision” – as if the problem would be German. Because a Cologne court tried to outlaw the circumcision of minors (boys), verbal attacks from my fellow Jews were heard all over the world. Whereas the Muslims would be able to postpone their religiously motivated circumcision (of boys) due to an unclear passage in the Quran (although they prefer to do it to the age of 5-13), Jews feel required to cut the foreskin of their male babies on the eighth day after his birth (Brit Mila). It was disgusting to hear arguments of their rabbis on German TV, culminating in a hint to Germany’s nazi-past (thereby saying that Germans should not tolerate any suppression of the Jewish religion), thus quasi justifying a (minor) violent act on a baby with one of the most horrible events in men’s history.

For all the barbaric ideas that humans created in regard to the penis have a look here. I remember rather clearly when I was treated myself due to a phimosis at the age of five. Fortunately it could be done without any cuts and I kept my foreskin but the horror of a possible circumcision that was discussed as a possibility and the treatment itself (a “stranger” meddling with my cock) was highly unpleasant. In no way do I wish any Muslim boy something like that. When it comes to babies one might argue that they will forget. Nevertheless we know that even very early experiences can be imprinted on the mind of a baby. To make an ethical point, I will give a drastic example of what the Jewish community is pressing our parties to do (namely to create a law that allows exceptions for religious communities).

Once I read that in certain ethnic minorities (like on islands in Oceania where circumcision is also prevalent) mothers suck on infant’s penises to comfort them and make them asleep. In the US a mother was sentenced to 17 years in prison for a rather similar act not so long ago. Anyway, if such a deed would come to the attention of German authorities, there would be trouble. We widely believe that we should not impose our own will on the genitals of minors, be it for pleasure or for pain. Indeed by far not all Jewish circumcisions (by the mohel in their own community) are done under anesthesia. So how could anyone in their right mind accept a religious tradition, a rule given thousands of years ago, to trump his instinctive urge to protect his own child from any physical harm? Well, here you see the power of religion and make-belief at work. Religion can really turn one into a kind of child molester (a circumciser), and as a parent you become a conniver. Imagine for a moment another religious minority that still sucks on boy’s penises to quiet them, now asking our courts to permit it. Who would agree? Even less than those who are still defending Jewish kosher and Muslim halal slaughter that is prohibited in a couple of European countries.

Initiation in Buddhism is usually just done by spending a few months in a monastery (where of course homosexual monks may lie in wait). Luckily we don’t feel the need of any covenant with a God which would only make us feel exclusive, although “taking the precepts” has a similar sad effect on adepts of the dhamma. My parents let me choose my religion, and I opted rather for spirituality to avoid any organized nonsense. My foreskin is still giving me a lot of pleasure, and as we all guess, boy’s circumcision is as much rooted in the fear of lust as is the circumcision of girls. Buddhism has invented other hindrances out of that fear which will be dealt with later in this blog. If I’d believe in praying, I’d pray for a wise decision of German’s Federal Supreme Court that leaves the sensuality of babies and young children intact, without exception. Any religion advising otherwise should be ashamed and requires reform.