Karma & Rebirth: A Contemporary Call to Orthodoxy

Dhamma without Rebirth?

By Ven. Badulle Sangarathana

In line with the present-day stress on the need for religious teachings to be personally relevant and directly verifiable, in certain circles the time-honored doctrine of rebirth has come up for severe re-examination. Although only a few contemporary Buddhist thinkers still go so far as to suggest that this doctrine be scrapped as “unscientific.” Another opinion has been gaining ground to the effect that whether or not rebirth itself be a fact, the doctrine of rebirth has no essential bearing on the practice of Dhamma and thence no assured place in the Buddhist teachings. The Dhamma, it is said, is concerned solely with the here and now, with helping us to resolve our personal hangups through increased self-awareness and inner honesty. All the rest of Buddhism we can now let go as the religious trappings of an ancient culture utterly inappropriate for the Dhamma of our technological age.

If we suspend our own predilections for the moment and instead go directly to our sources, we come upon the indisputable fact that the himself Buddha taught rebirth and taught it as  a basic tenet of his teaching. Viewed in their totality, the Buddha’s discourses show us that far from being a mere concession to the outlook prevalent in his time, or an Asiatic cultural contrivance, the doctrine of rebirth has tremendous implications for the entire course of Dhamma practice, affecting both the aim with which the practice is taken up, and the motivation with which is followed through to completion.

The aim of the Buddhist path is liberation from suffering, and the Buddha makes t abundantly clear that the suffering from which liberation is needed is the suffering of the bondage to samsara, the round of repeated birth and death. To be sure, the Dhamma does have an aspect which is directly visible and personally verifiable. By direct inspection of our own experience we can see that sorrow, tension, fear, and grief always arise from our greed, aversion and ignorance, and thus can be eliminated with the removal of those defilements. The importance of thi directly visible side of Dhamma practice cannot be [over]estimated, as it serves to confirm our confidence in liberating efficacy of the Buddha’s path. However, to downplay the doctrine of rebirth, and explain the entire import of the Dhamma as the amelioration of mental suffering through enhanced awareness, is to deprive the Dhamma of those wider perspectives from which it derives its full breadth and profundity. By doing so, one risks reducing it, in the end, to little more than a sophisticated ancient system of humanistic psychotherapy.

The Buddha himself has clearly indicated that the root problem of human existence is not simply the fact that we are vulnerable to sorrow, grief and fear, but that we tie ourselves, through our egoistic clinging, to a constantly regenerating pattern of birth, aging, sickness and death within which we undergo the more specific forms of mental affliction. He has also shown that the primary danger in the defilements is their causal role in sustaining the round of rebirths. As long as they remain unabandoned [sic] in the deep strata of the mind, they drag us through the round of becoming in which we shed a flood of tears “greater than the waters of the ocean.” When these points are carefully considered, we then see that the practice of Dhamma does not aim at providing us with a comfortable reconciliation with our present personalities and our situation in the world, but at initiating a far-reaching inner transformation which will issue in our deliverance from the cycle of worldly existence in its entirety.

Admittedly, for most of us the primary motive for entering upon the path of Dhamma has been a gnawing sense of dissatisfaction with the routine course of our unenlightened lives rather than a keen perception of the dangers of the round of rebirth. However, if we are to follow the Dhamma through to its end and tap its full potential for conferring peace and higher wisdom, it is necessary for the motivation of our practice to mature beyond that which initially induced us to enter the path. Our underlying motivation must grow toward those essential truths disclosed to us by the Buddha and, encompassing those truths, must use them to nourish its own capacity to lead us toward the realization of the goal.

Our motivation acquires the requisite maturity by the cultivation of right view, the first factor of the Noble Eightfold Path, which as explained by the Buddha includes an understanding of the principles of kamma and rebirth as fundamental to the structure of our existence. Though contemplating the moment is key to the development of insight meditation, it would be an erroneous extreme to hold that the practice of Dhamma consists wholly in maintaining mindfulness of the present. The Buddhist path stresses the role of wisdom as the instrument of deliverance, and wisdom must comprise not only a penetration of the moment in its vertical depths but a comprehension of the past and future horizons within which our present existence unfolds. To take full cognizance of the principle of rebirth will give us that panoramic perspective from which we can survey our lives in their broader context and total network of relationships. This will spur us on in our won pursuit of the path and reveal the profound significance of the goal toward which our practice points, the end of the cycle of rebirths as the mind’s final liberation from suffering.

Karma As Rationale & Pseudo-Explanation

The Problem with Karma: Notes from the Conflict in Sri Lanka

By Amarnath Amarasingham

Over the past month, there has been some speculation among members of the global Tamil community on whether Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa visited Texas to obtain cancer treatment in secret. The story in itself is not particularly interesting, but it does have relevance for the post-conflict situation in Sri Lanka. Many reacted to the news not with sadness, but with a sense that cosmic justice was being meted out. Some argued that Rajapaksa, responsible for mass human rights violations during the final months of the Sri Lankan civil war, was now getting his just desserts. Although many nationalist Tamils profess to be atheist or secular, the reaction to the news was always framed in Hindu and Buddhist notions of karma, popularly defined in the West as "what goes around comes around."
For Sinhala soldiers as well, the notion of karma was ever-present throughout the war with the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), which came to a bloody conclusion in May 2009. As Daniel Kent's recent research makes clear, Buddhist monks blessed Sri Lankan soldiers before they went out for training, preached at their funerals, and counseled soldiers and their families about the conduct of war and its justification.

For many years, scholarship on Buddhism, and Eastern religious traditions generally, was often guided by a crude assumption that Western religions held a monopoly on violence, while the East was largely peaceable. Over the last several years, research into conflict in Buddhist societies has forced scholars to rethink our assumptions. According to Kent's research in Sri Lanka, for example, there is real debate within the Sri Lankan army about notions of karma and intention in the killing of enemy soldiers. While there are many different aspects to the discussion, I focus here on one important question: whether religion, particularly discussions of karma and intention, restrict genuine reconciliation between Sinhala and Tamil communities in post-conflict Sri Lanka. I rely heavily on Kent's research on the Sri Lankan army, but much of what follows can likely be applied to the Tamil community as well.

Karma may complicate moves toward reconciliation in Sri Lanka, firstly, by assigning causal explanations to events that are largely inexplicable. Kent recalls interviewing a Sri Lankan Corporal, named Specs, at Panagoda army camp near Colombo, who told the story of narrowly escaping a blast from an improvised explosive device. His friend, who was not so lucky, was blinded and had both of his hands blown off. For Specs, his survival is explained with reference to karma. "That sort of thing must occur as the result of merit," he says, "one becomes disabled like this because of some sort of negative karma, but one's life is saved because one has done some sort of merit. That is what we think. It must be that. It is the way of karma." Not only do karmic explanations bring a spiritual rationalization to bear on worldly events, but these justifications often tend to be self-serving. In other words: I survived because I am good.

Perhaps more important for our present purposes is the way in which karma is linked with intention. Kent interviewed one monk, the Venerable Pilassi Vimaladhajja, who pointed out that negative karma does not accrue when an enemy is killed. "Vimaladhajja is not giving soldiers a blank check to kill whomever they wish while fighting the enemy," writes Kent, "He stresses that if a soldier has the intention to kill, a negative karma occurs. If a soldier's intention is to fight the enemy in order to protect the country and religion, however, their actions do not produce negative consequences." As Kent observes, those who hold this belief look at killing as secondary with the primary intention being the protection of the country.

As with the example above, however, it is assumed that karma, as a cosmic force, is supremely capable of discovering one's underlying intentions. Depending on how the soldier's life subsequently turns out, his ideas of karma and intention may have to be re-evaluated. As one soldier told Kent: "Honestly it is possible to rape and pillage during war without being caught. However, if you do that, nothing will ever go right for you ... there was one incident when we were in Trinco ... the Tamils had cultivated a field and left it. Our guys went and harvested the rice. They harvested the rice, sold it and took the money ... there were 21 guys who did that. All 21 of them were killed on the same day at the same time."

Such faith that karma will mete out punishment with mathematical certainty may work against the potential for remorse, regret or reconciliation. The very fact that some soldiers are still alive and living a life of health, wealth and happiness, is, with profound circular logic, seen as evidence of just conduct during war. This, in essence, is the problem with karma. 

Confession & Summary

As a product of my education—that is, as a snob, an elitist, a neo-Darwinian, and a skeptic—I naturally suppose it to be insuperably difficult for the educated class in the West to embrace any form of religious orthodoxy. I am well aware that to think so is an error on the face of it. Consider the case of the biologist Kenneth Miller, who describes himself, sincerely if incomprehensibly, as an orthodox Darwinist and an orthodox Catholic. Yet the idea that I seem to be stuck with, namely, that doctrinal conformity is practically impossible for a post-Enlightenment person, is not groundless, and may yet prove to have some validity as a generalization. Over the course of my life I have watched Catholic doctrine and practice crystallize and dissolve, again and again, upon the background of the pre-Vatican II Church into which I was baptized. I have studied the historical ebb and flow of the religious visions, enthusiasms, and awakenings that produced, among other things, the more than 250 ostensibly Christian denominations represented in the armed forces of the United States. My own rather shaky edifice of belief is the result of nearly continuous demolition and rebuilding. So let me begin by declaring that while I can imagine the benefits of orthodoxy, I have little feeling for it in the way of either sympathy or nostalgia. Thus I am surprised, again and again, when a one of my contemporaries mounts a defense of Buddhist orthodoxy. When faced with a choice between a philosophically suspect Buddhist doctrine and an explanation consonant with the findings of the sciences, I choose the latter every time.

Given the exuberance and fecundity of religious philosophy in India, the Buddha showed remarkable restraint when it came to ontological speculation, let alone commitment. On the contrary, he seems to have done his utmost to discourage the proliferation of theoretical constructions. From the time of his immediate successors, beginning with the Abhidhammists, attempts have been made to fill in the gaps in his teaching and to address those questions which he declined to answer. Ever since, there has been an alternation between those among his disciples who would capture the Dharma like a truffle in aspic, and those, like Nagarjuna, who would return to a wide-open prospect. Then, too, the geographical journey of the Buddha-Dharma brought it into contact with native religious elements which not only refused to be subordinated, but threatened to overshadow even fundamental doctrines. The history of Buddhism is a history of orthodoxy-busting.

Huston Smith complains that the story of life as told by scientists is dull, incomplete, uninspiring if not actually depressing, and lacking in the happy ending he seems to think life demands. Perhaps we are reading different books. Anyhow, there is a reason why Professor Smith gets upset whenever E. O. Wilson or anyone else suggests that science is, or ought to be, the base line against which all opinion is measured. What really bothers Smith, I think, is that, whether you find the stories told by scientists uplifting or demoralizing, more or less satisfactory than the stories told by the religious scriptures, only the stories of science are subjected to a continuous process of re-evaluation and adjudication. Only the stories of science are routinely scrutinized, analyzed, and tested against observable data. In short, they are the only stories upon which there is any real possibility for agreement.

The conceptual,schema of karma and rebirth fails to deliver useful information. It is based on no confirmable evidence, has no predictive value (as might be expected of a "theory" that is compatible with any imaginable set of circumstances), generates no testable hypotheses, and cannot to date be plugged into the body of modern science. The many troubles with the karma complex boil down to the following kinds:

   ·As ostensible fact, it has no evidential support.

   · As theory, it is (1) conceptually incoherent, (2) almost certainly absurd, (3) lacking in explanatory power and (4) incompatible with existing theory.

   · As a sound basis and a source of motivation for moral striving, it is inadequate precisely because it is not what it claims to be, namely, the true picture of a just universe.

In order for the karma-rebirth-samsāra complex) to make a serious claim upon our attention, it must be (1) a collection of facts about the world (events or processes) explicable under the terms of our best theoretical understanding, and/or (2) a theoretical schema capable of enriching our understanding of the facts. As it happens, the karma complex is commonly presented as both fact and theory. However, it is easily shown that the karma complex cannot fill the bill in either category.

To the extent that talk about karma, rebirth and samsara is put forth as a kind of conceptual knowledge, it is subject to the same kinds of analytic scrutiny as other such claims. To the extent that it purports to comprise or encompass fact, it falls under the rubric of science and is subject to the criteria of scientific method. The same is true of any such statement 

The Problem of Evidence

We ought not pass on from this topic without mentioning the scientific study of reincarnation so-called. The attempt to demonstrate the plausibility of rebirth “scientifically” can be summarized as scant anecdotal evidence amounting, in a very few instances, to a weak prima facie case that upon examination quickly collapses. In answer to the standard question, “How do you account for so-and-so’s vision, memory, ability, information?” I refer readers to the standard reply, that on a case-by-case basis it is in practice always possible to find a more plausible alternative hypothesis. Countless books and articles have been written about the inadequacy of the “proofs” of reincarnation. I will not recapitulate their contents here.

I will, however pause long enough to draw your attention to one interesting feature of the problem facing advocates of karma-theory whenever they try to explain an individual’s apparently impossible knowledge. The central nervous system of the human being is a powerful, convincing and occasionally deceptive generator of extraordinary and even impossible events. We have abundant evidence of compelling and yet utterly subjective “experiences.” The data are derived from the study of dreams, drug-induced states, advanced visualization techniques, schizophrenia, and sensory deprivation.

For most people, most of the time, it is possible to distinguish dreaming from waking life. It is even possible for the insane to sometimes discriminate hallucinated objects, voices and persons from those that are physically present, as the mathematician John Nash taught himself to do. It is unclear, to say the least, what criteria might be used to distinguish experiences of the astral plane from, let us say, spontaneously arisen visions due to prolonged fasting and dancing, or excessive intense concentration, or the unwitting ingestion of hallucinogenic bread mold. How, for that matter, are we to judge whether an unconfirmed verbal report is based on recollection of a past life, demonic possession, or acts of imagination? If most of us vastly prefer the latter explanation, it is because it requires far less in the way of groundless speculation and dovetails better with what we know to be relatively certain about the world.

Personhood & Renewed Existence

Absolute individuality and immutable personhood are incompatible with the Buddhist worldview. Acceptance of the core concept of pratitya-samutpada would seem to force the Buddhist to repudiate the notion of a permanent identity. Anything that might constitute the Self can be ruled out on account of its transience and contingency. The thesis of interdependence subverts both subjective and objective knowledge of the Self by positing the dependent arising of sensory phenomena in the former case, and suggesting an ontology of co-emergence in the latter.

What, then, of the ordinary sense of self or personhood?

It is argued that, by virtue of the right sort of causal connections, a person, Jones, at the age of ten is not the same (in the strict sense) as Jones at the age of 50, nor is he different. The relation of neither-sameness-nor-difference (or both-the-same-and-different) is also said to obtain between Smith at the time of his death and his causally related, afterlife successor, Bialistok. A third person, Allweather, has never had the same sort of relation with Jones or Bialistok that the various ephemeral versions of Jones have with each other or that Jones is alleged to have with his identity-successor, Bialistok. Jones and Allweather are different persons. Moreover, all the temporally successive versions of Smith are different from all the successive versions of Allweather, all the causally dependent predecessors of Smith (i. e., his “past lives”) are different from the causally dependent predecessors of Allweather, and the same relation of difference will be true for future versions of Smith and Allweather.[1]

Leaving aside for the moment the matter of how to account for causal relations across lifespans, let us ask what is it about Jones and Allweather that makes them different persons The most obvious difference between them is the two particular bodies associated with the names Bevan Jones and Thaddeus Allweather. Identical twins, no matter how much alike, are regarded as separate persons. A living clone of Bevan Jones would doubtless be considered another person for both quotidian and legal purposes. And although bodily form by itself cannot comprise personhood—a brain-dead body on mechanical life support has ceased, I think, to be a person except perhaps in a restricted legal sense—there is strong reason to suppose bodily form to be a sine qua non of conventional identity. Try joining a health club without one.

I hasten to add that we are speaking here of socially acknowledged bodies, bodies with names, “personalities.” Animate, particular, recognized bodies are all we need for a perfectly serviceable concept of personhood, the long tradition of dualism notwithstanding. In any case, so long as there is a body or bodies present there is no problem in grasping both “complete difference” between persons and the relation of neither-same-nor-different between different stages or versions of the same person. The trouble starts when the conversation turns to causal continuity (of any sort) in the absence of bodies.

If we begin with the idea, or vision, of interdependent origination, we will come to see that the many stages, phases, moments of a life (the activity of being a person) are causally continuous, share a common context and bear a family resemblance to their spatial and temporal neighbors rather than a strict identity. We will notice also that we do not have the same kind of direct access to the experiences of others, or to “our own” putative past lives. In no ordinary sense can Mr. P of this life be said to be the same as Ms. Q of the next, whatever “next” may mean. If I have a speculative turn of mind it may occur to me that there will come a time when the future person(s) who are causally dependent upon my actions will bear so little resemblance to me that it would strain the concept of personhood to the breaking point were either of us to claim a shared identity even in the very loose, Buddhistic sense.

In making sense of how the person functions in the absence of a Self, the conceptual schema of the five skandhas is most helpful. I will have more to say about it in future posts.

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[1] Tibetan tradition admits the possibility that concurrent versions of Jones and Allweather could have a common karmic ancestor as, for instance, is claimed for certain great treasure-finders of the Nyingma tradition. Among the Dharma-heirs of Guru Rinpoche, for instance, some are believed to have inherited the person, as well as the mind-treasures, of their illustrious, neither-same-nor-different predecessor. To allow such an option, however, further darkens the already murky theoretical waters. I would contend that our concept of personhood simply can’t accommodate a splitting of self into more than one future causally continuous me, him or her.

Ancient Indian Cosmology & Other Baggage

Once a month we meet to talk about our readings of selected Pali texts. Last Thursday the topic was How to Get Ahead on the Wheel of Life. The discussion was wide-ranging, as befits the subject. The Buddha’s vision of a just universe opens up vast panoramas of space, time, and imagination. It is a springboard for Big Ideas and ample nourishment for loving kindness and compassion.

At the same time, samasāra in the fullness of the traditional description is bound to provoke a measure of skepticism. That all of us are not prepared to embrace a worldview that includes multiple levels of heaven and hell was evident in the way some members of the community spoke of “cultural stuff”—meaning Buddhist cosmology—as if nothing could be more obvious than that the belief in gods, heavens, hells, and rebirth in various unseen realms of existence was extraneous to the main thrust of the Awakened One’s teachings. Perhaps he’d offered them as a sop to popular superstition, or because he was afraid his words wouldn’t be heeded if he left them out. We can’t be sure.

But even if we can convince ourselves that samsāra is merely an ad-on to the authentic core of the Buddha’s teachings, a cluster of assertions about the world that the Awakened One employed with the aim of selling his product, although he didn’t really believe in them, we are still left with the problem what to do with them. It is claimed that distress over the prospect of samsāra is the moral lynchpin of Buddha-Dharma. In that case, are the various realms of existence to be understood as metaphor for psychological conditions or states of consciousness within the span of this life?

I am still looking for the line that clearly demarcates what is relevant or true in the Buddha’s Dharma from what is not. Indeed, I do not always know what to take seriously and what not amidst the colossal treasury of our own “cultural stuff.” Should I invest in scientific method, for instance, rationality, free enterprise, multiculturalism, democracy, the Bible, tolerance of lifestyle differences, nationalism, twelve-step programs, gun control?

Many of us well-educated, “middle class” Westerners have been marinated since childhood in a broth comprising equal parts of naturalism, social Darwinism, rugged individualism, and a strong dose of advertising intended to maintain covetousness at a fever pitch. We have ravaged the planet, we are drowning in possessions, and we show precious little interest in letting up. We are therefore predisposed to disregard moral blandishments that rub us the wrong way or cause us inconvenience. It is my guess that we do not find much to like in a crucial message of Buddha-Dharma, namely, that the world is a flood of dis-ease that must be crossed in order to attain a liberation that is, to put it charitably, not very sexy.

A Closer Look at the Traditional View of Karma

The argument presented in the last post is roughly analogous to the theist’s claim that without belief in an afterlife and a just God, there is no solid foundation for morality, and it suffers from the same weaknesses as that claim. For all its flaws, the argument, in one form or another, is called upon to justify the oft-heard assertion that karma is the bedrock of Buddhist and Hindu ethics, a proposition that is open to challenge on more than one front, and the even more dubious claim that without the doctrines of karma, rebirth and samsara to support it, the whole edifice of Buddhism would collapse. I do not subscribe to that point of view. On the contrary, I am inclined to suppose the body of the Buddha-Dharma could survive the excision of karma theory, together with much of the cosmology, and yet live to a ripe old age.

To restate in brief the moral component of karma theory: underlying the various conceptual schemata associated with the doctrines of karma and rebirth is the assumption that the universe itself, or the totality of natural laws according to which it carries on, is fundamentally just. It is maintained that the fairness alleged to be built into the impersonal working of cosmic forces is necessary in order to arouse and sustain moral striving. Furthermore, it is claimed that, unless it were certain that every person received reward and punishment for every morally significant act, there would be no reason to be good or to strive for moral improvement. There are difficulties with this position, to put it mildly. Here are three to think about. (1) The fact of universal moral justice has yet to be demonstrated. On the contrary, a child can see that life is not fair. (2) The assertion, that moral sensitivity and ethical living cannot occur in the absence of faith in unproven religious teachings, is demonstrably false. We all know non-religious people who are good. (3) There is abundant evidence that carrot-and-stick morality often fails to get the desired result. That is just the beginning of the difficulties with these doctrines.

In the article for which I provide a link below, the author discusses some of the real-life consequences of holding to certain of the teachings about karma and result.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/amarnath-amarasingam/the-problem-with-karma-no_b_831093.html

Karma As Moral Bedrock

The conceptual framework of karma, rebirth and samsara is best viewed as an empirical hypothesis and/or explanatory schema embedded in a moral argument. Crudely put, the argument goes something like this:

1.      Belief in the fair disposition of human affairs is a necessary component of the moral life. In the case that the world is unjust (or persons do not believe that the world is just, that is, if they think bad things happen to good people for no morally relevant reason), then people are less likely to be good.

2.      Apart from the actuality of universal retribution there is no compelling motivation for doing good rather than bad deeds.

3.      All the pleasant and unpleasant feelings that seem to result from apparently random and morally neutral causes and conditions, and from events initiated here and now, are in fact the consequences of past morally charged actions in this life or a previous life. Undeserved joys and sorrows, otherwise inexplicable, are really deferred rewards and punishments.

4.      The assignment of just deserts for past actions (a. k. a. punishment and reward) occurs through an impersonal causal process alluded to in various canonical and traditional sources.

5.      Moral indifference, despair, and outrage are based upon a misapprehension, for it is certain that (a) the fortunate and unfortunate circumstances and events of this life are the consequences of past deeds and (b) the good deeds of this life will cause a more auspicious rebirth in future lives, and the bad deeds will bring about renewed existence in one of the painful realms.

6.      Belief in the certainty of retribution is sufficient to coerce good moral behavior.

The factual claims about moral causation (4. and 5. above) serve as premises for the final moral claim regarding the inhibitory power of karmic retribution. The argument is intended as an antidote to the moral doubt and indecision that can follow hard upon the discovery that life is not fair. By insisting that human existence, and the whole universe along with it, is truly just despite appearances to the contrary, the Buddhist teacher hopes to support positive moral traits and pre-empt antinomian tendencies.

It should be noted that the whole of the argument depends for its force upon the further premises that (1) although the justice is delivered on a cosmic scale, justice in itself does not make life worth living because (2) in the end or, more accurately, “along the beginningless and endless way,” even the most pleasurable existence will be marred by impermanence and pain and therefore, (3) the clear choice is to put an end to life, now and forever.

Samsāra

In our progress through the Early Buddhism component of the Buddhist Studies curriculum we have come to the inevitable encounter with the complex of ideas that form a cluster around the central conception of action-result (P. kamma-vipaka). In the weeks to come we will be examining various concepts drawn from the suttas of the Pali canon, and discussing them in light of later developments in Buddhistic thinking, the Zen tradition in particular, and our personal experience. This is the first in a series of postings about karma, renewed existence, and samsāra.

The vision of samsāra—the repeated renewal of personal existence as shaped by the results of past and present acts—has a simple underlying message, to wit, life does not end when you die. On the contrary, it goes on and on, endlessly, unless you abandon life altogether. Buddhist tradition has invested heavily in a literary tradition intended to convince us that for eons in the past we have been wandering among the realms of existence and will continue to do so for an unimaginable span of time to come, unless we adopt the Buddha’s eight-point program for putting an end to pain, not just in this body but in all possible future bodies. The overarching task is to get out of life and stay out, and the alternative is virtually endless dukkha.

It is at least arguable that, if you can manage to believe in a cosmology that offers the prospect of indefinitely long-term suffering, you have a powerful motive for striving to extricate yourself from the conditions that condemn you to an unpleasant eternity. If you can’t adopt that particular conceptual scheme, then the matter of whether or not you achieve awakening is likely to seem much less pressing, for we will all die sooner or later, and then our troubles will be over.

Most Western students of Buddhism and Zen are inclined to accept karma and samsāra as part of the package without giving them much thought. As it is typically presented—“what goes around comes around”—karma seems little more than an exotic variant of the idea of cause-and-effect. Thinking in causal terms is both commonplace and necessary. Kant believed that causal reasoning was part of human nature, and its evolutionary advantages are obvious. Upon reflection, however, the conceptual schema of karma, rebirth, and samsāra turns out to be very much more complex, and to require very much more in the way of support, than the physics of “every action has an equal and opposite reaction.”

As we shall see, belief in karma and renewed existence is rather more difficult than it might appear to be at first glance. Can the notions of morally-charged action and conditionally-renewed existence do the heavy lifting required to produce a plausible continuity of the non-self across many lifetimes? Do we, fascinated by and absorbed in the world as we are, really need or want to look beyond it?

The Great Being, Mahāsattva

Bodhisattva Mahāsattva, Great Awakening Beings, make their appearance around the beginning of the Common Era. In painting and sculpture they are depicted as clad not in the patchwork robes of the monk—Ksitigarbha Bodhisattva is the exception—but in princely raiment, adorned with coronets, bangles and necklaces. They are sometimes shown in the posture of royal ease. Such bodhisattvas are not merely beings who aspire to awaken, boon companions in the process of self-transformation, and background figures in the scenes of Lord Buddha’s discourses. They are adepts and teachers in their own right, capable of instructing and assisting ordinary people. The social matrix from which they emerge is different from that of the Buddha’s day. Their courtly appearance marks the transition from republican to feudal forms of political organization, which change itself is mirrored in the ascendancy of the role of the authoritarian guru as contrasted with the relatively egalitarian relations within the early monastic community. In Buddhist art and literature of the Mahayana, the Great Beings rise to a status nearly equal to that of the Buddha. In certain forms of popular worship they surpass it. Bodhisattvas also appear as the central figures in scriptures such as the Prajnāpāramitāhrdāya, the Vimalakirtinirdesa, and the Avatamsaka.

Unlike the Buddha, who escapes from the round of birth and death, and attains an indescribable mode of being, the Mahāsattva, although possessed of liberating knowledge and conduct, remains in the world to help all who suffer in the six realms. The wide-ranging activity and multiple roles of the Mahāsattvas bespeak a conception of liberation that is compatible with embodied human existence. Worldly enlightenment also harmonizes well with the doctrine of a fundamental, inherent Buddhahood that extends even to the inanimate, and the increasingly “ecological” interpretation of interdependent causal-conditionality (pratītya-samutpāda.)

“The Buddha said to Drdhamati, “It is a Samādhi called the Concentration of Heroic Progress (surangama samādhi). Bodhisattvas who have obtained this samādhi can, since you ask about it, manifest Parinirvāna, but without definitively ceasing to be.’”

--Śūrangama Samādhi Sutra

That hallowing of the world also accords with the tantric goal of banishing the very notion of impurity. To borrow the words attributed to the sage, Bodhidharma, “In heaven and earth, nothing holy,” which is just to say, “Everything is holy.” Thus, an inconceivably great multitude of Awakening Beings is said to permeate the universe (or multiverse). That vision of enlightenment’s plenitude is also an expression of the fundamental luminosity and self-transcendence of everything in nature. For followers of the Way, the Mahāsattvas are the focus of aspiration and the embodiment of the awakened life as it is seen to work in the world at all times and in all places.

Zazen & Memory

The primary task in zazen is to disable certain associative and specifically mnemonic functions. The intimate connection between memory and consciousness is the reason why the forerunner and Daoist counterpart of “just sitting,” called “sitting in oblivion” (Chinese “zuowang”) is sometimes (rightly) translated as “sitting in forgetfulness.” Not-knowing is precisely the inability to recall, and unknowing is the essence of zazen. In zazen we intentionally (or at lest willingly) disable the neural mechanisms that perform the numerous, mostly involuntary associative operations that make the texture of our ordinary mental life so rich and varied. To use a simile from the world of digital computation, the practitioner of “just sitting” gradually reduces the extent of the massive parallel processing that enables her to use multiple screens and multiple windows within a screen, and to compare the contents of innumerable open folders almost simultaneously. The closing of those programs greatly reduces the amount of mental activity while at the same time taking computing power away from the functions of higher-order awareness.

The success of Dōgen’s way is due to the clever misdirection of his instructions for zazen, and his insistence that dhyāna-samādhi is ever-present and self-realizing. We are relieved of responsibility for our own liberation and, therefore, the process of unlearning, de-centration, and dissociation is able to unfold gradually and naturally, mostly outside of awareness.

Bhāvanā & "Practice"

Bhāvanā is an Indic term that was adopted by the early Buddhists to designate the broad range of somato-psychic exercises commonly known as meditation. The word can be translated as “development” or “cultivation.” The field of self-investigation and mental therapeutics, taken as a whole, is more accurately described as a balance of cultivation and neglect. The following analogy may be helpful: just as the prudent farmer cultivates some of his fields and lets others lie fallow, certain faculties of mind can be strengthened or intensified, while others are allowed to rest. Here is another analogy: the flow of a river can be reduced by damming and irrigation; or, the digging of a canal can divert the river into a different course. In like manner the faculties of attention, etc., are diverted from the usual everyday tasks such as planning, and set to performing well-defined exercises intended to foster specific qualities and attributes.

Just as bhāvanā entails voluntary control over certain mental faculties, its successful practice also requires the intentional loss of control under particular circumstances. The ability to make adjustments in focus and tension, to know when to hold the faculties steady and when to back off, improves with experience. Some exercises will require more mindfulness and “concentration,” some less, and some almost none at all.

Dōgen’s zazen is an interesting case because, although it is demonstrably a practice that gets results of various kinds, we are taught that it is, in the words of the Fukanzazengi, “not a dhyāna of training.” We are encouraged to read that passage as suggesting that there is no learning curve in the course of doing zazen and no skill to be acquired over time. In fact at least two kinds of learning occur as we sit for months and years and decades. First, whilst we strive to approximate what we are told was the Buddha’s posture, we are developing mindfulness of the body-image and the bodily sensations associated with it. Once the method of correct sitting has been mastered and drops below the threshold of awareness, we cultivate the art of non-resistance—that is, letting go, letting in, and letting be—without which we cannot “merely sit.” Dōgen’s insistence upon non-action (“Just don’t do it!”) was an expedient aimed at preventing the arising of egotism. By sticking to the line that “zazen does itself,” teachers in the Dōgen lineage aim to undermine the trainee’s tendency to take credit for progress in meditation and improvement in the quality of life, and to pre-empt yet another layer of self-conscious reflection.

A handwritten sign was left outside the door of the zendo recently. It read

     

How can we learn (!) to sit without any idea? As a New York cabbie answered when asked how to get to Carnegie Hall, “Practice!”

Conceptions of Awakening & the Path

During the 12 centuries of Buddhism’s evolution, approaches to mental cultivation have been shaped by changing ideas about the ultimate goal of training and the path(s) by which it can be attained, if any. The various traditions of Buddhistic teaching provide the following alternative views of the process at a minimum:

1. Enlightenment/awakening is gradual and progressive, attained in conjunction with the development of the necessary causes and conditions, namely, the accumulation of merit through moral reform, mental development through the practice of dhyāna (contemplative absorption), and the accumulation of wisdom (prajñā) through analysis of past events and direct insight (vipaśyanā) into the nature of experience. (Early Buddhism)

2. Enlightenment is sudden, total, and of obscure causation. (Zen)

3. Enlightenment is innate, a primordial given, and therefore unattainable yet, nonetheless, to be realized by various means. (Mahāyāna)

4. Enlightenment is a concept, dependent upon its opposite (ignorance), therefore empty. As such, it is to be let go, along with its opposite, lest we become prisoners of our desire for it. (Madhyamaka)

5. Although empty and provisional, the ideas of enlightenment and ignorance are convenient ways of characterizing fundamental energies that are essential to the activity of consciousness and life throughout the universe. (Mantrayāna, or Esoteric Buddhism) On that view, although we are accustomed to thinking of the pair as polar opposites, and the journey from ignorance towards enlightenment as movement along a continuum by finely shaded degrees, that analogy is conditioned by our habitual goal orientation and, therefore, not so much false as incomplete. We will come to see ignorance and enlightenment as qualitative and contingent features of a continually changing experiential field that is fundamentally self-liberating and subject to pulsations, oscillations, and waves, of which ignorance and enlightenment are the primary perceptual nodes.

Amazing Disgrace

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When not just one contemporary Buddhist Master but a baker’s dozen (pun intended) have been accused of various kinds of financial, sexual, and social misconduct, we collectively turn our eyes upon them and cannot look away even as the lurid details continue to emerge. Accounts of the alleged events are at once horrifying and fascinating. The outmoded theological term “disgrace” comes to mind. We are rapt, in part because of the feelings that the stories evoke—simple curiosity, indignation, protectiveness, and titillation. Add to the mix of feelings a sense of moral dread at the dawning realization that we are not what we thought ourselves to be, and you have the makings of serious interest. Perhaps because I am the son and grandson of journalists, I cannot but view the unfolding story as a writer’s dream come true. I mention this not in a spirit of cynicism, but because of what it says about our fascination with such matters as these in an age dominated by mass communications. It is our own Zen supermarket tabloid headliner.

Like most people who have pondered the continuing revelations, I am of the opinion that fraud, theft, and predation are not good things. Where they can be proven, the bad actors should be pointed out, the behavior stopped and punished. Perpetrators, victims, and members of their communities should seek justice and healing. That having been said, I am yet disturbed by the alternation of the commentary between the accusatory and the apologetic. It is as if I’d fallen asleep aboard a bus bound for the Zen monastery only to awaken at a church camp abuzz with gossip. The ceaseless discussion of the latest scandals and the frantic efforts to guard against future scandals have taken on a Protestant odor and an air of panic that is unseemly in followers of the Way. As I am not inclined to promote any sect of Japanese Buddhism, and because my capacity for institutional loyalty is set in the neighborhood of zero, I am less than wild about the prospects of a Zen Licensing Board. Ms. Shireson and her cadre of would-be bureaucrats seem determined to make Wayfaring as safe as a game of canasta. We practitioners, corralled by our self-absorption, oscillate between moral outrage and frissons of prurient interest. This unpleasant business is our own private reality show, in which we are both players and audience. In the background one hears murmurings of ethical guidelines, committees, and boards of review, of professional standards and training—bodhisattvas reduced to so many potential shysters and quacks—as if we have not had the benefit of such things all along. Mazi, Huangbo, and Linji would laugh themselves sick to hear of it. If the tenets of Buddha-Dharma, the precepts, and the monastic code are not enough to keep our boys and girls from going wild, then perhaps it is time to admit that as a society we are not yet mature enough to undertake the project of self liberation without adult supervision.

“But,” someone will be asking, “How could we let such things happen?” Up to now it has been possible for us to imagine that to embrace Buddhism and/or Zen invests us with a higher ethical standard than that of the general public, a safety mechanism built into the practice that protects us from what is worst in ourselves. If we ever believed that, we were deceived. But my aim here is neither to chastise nor to engage in a sociological critique that might let us off the hook. There has already been a great deal of that sort of thing. What interests me is what these scandals say and don’t say about our understanding and practice of Zen and Buddhism.

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There is widespread agreement that the conduct under discussion here violates contemporary ethical standards and is not to be tolerated. Public examination of the unfolding events has focused on such topics as male sexuality, relations of power between student and teacher, Allzumenschlichkeit, professional boundaries and the like. The social, psychotherapeutic, and ecclesiastical consequences are being addressed in various ways. Yet relatively little has been said about the implications of those events for Buddhism and Zen, as religion and as contemplative practice, except to note that the occurrence of such improprieties puts them in a bad light. I am quite certain, however, that there is more to it than that, that we have opened the proverbial Can of Worms.

In its narrowest compass the undeniable misconduct of our teachers draws our attention to the supposed connection between moral rectitude and spiritual accomplishments. That alone ought to be enough to stimulate a re-evaluation of traditional views of Buddha-Dharma. In its wider application it raises a cluster of difficult questions about our beliefs and practices as individuals and communities. We might begin with the most obvious of these, and ask, “Isn’t enlightenment supposed to immunize the Zen Master against the kind of temptations that are likely to arise in a situation so rife with opportunities for abuse? And if it doesn’t, why doesn’t it?” It is widely supposed that a connection obtains between moral perfection and awakening, such that without the former the latter is impossible.

The basic idea is simple enough. If the efficient working of your mental faculties is impaired by shame, remorse, fear of punishment, or any other manifestation of bad conscience, you will not be able to attain contemplative equipoise (Samādhi.) Without a calm mind it is next to impossible to acquire liberating insight. Or so the story goes. It is an hypothesis that has a certain plausibility in the context of a society whose members share a clearly defined and well supported moral code. Within a traditional framework of customs and laws, the vast majority of people can be expected to exhibit more or less similar emotional responses to knowledge of personal guilt. In the absence of such a culture we cannot assume that education in normative standards is sufficiently uniform or thoroughgoing to inculcate a universal ethical standard. I offer our current situation as prima facie evidence of moral confusion and weakness.

The ancient values of Western Civilization that form the basis of our moral life—in theory at least—were never quite so monolithic as we are sometimes led to think. Our so-called Judeo-Christian heritage is a hotch-potch of ancient Jewish mythology, mystery religions, Hellenic philosophy, and Roman law. Moreover, “traditional Western values” have been under attack from several directions since the late Middle Ages at least. The individualism of the Renaissance, the ideology of commerce with its emphasis on self-interest, and the skepticism of science have contributed to the undermining of our sense of moral certainty. Psychology, philosophy and biology have made destabilizing forays into the realm of ethics. Increases in rates of literacy and higher education, modern methods of communication, the international migration of large numbers of people, and a global expansion of trade have placed us cheek-by-jowl with a host of competing systems of religion and political economy, each with its peculiar cultural bias. I dare to say that never have a people inhabited a more varied moral landscape or stood on shakier moral ground.

In any case, monastic tradition has long considered moral sensitivity (P. hiri) and a sense of moral peril (P. ottappa) crucial to the attainment of higher knowledge. As with so many of the Buddha’s teachings, the notion can be expressed in terms of contingent causation, as in the following passage from the Vinaya (V.164):

“[We practice] lifestyle rules for the sake of restraint; restraint for the sake of non-remorse; non-remorse for the sake of gladness; gladness for the sake of delight; delight for the sake of tranquility; tranquility for the sake of ease; ease for the sake of Samādhi; Samādhi for the sake of the knowledge and vision of the way things are; that knowledge for the sake of distaste; distaste for the sake of dispassion; dispassion for the sake of liberation; liberation for the sake of the knowledge and vision of liberation; that knowledge and vision for the sake of complete extinction (nibānna) through non-clinging. Just for that reason do we engage in talk, counsel, support, and listening, namely, liberation of the heart through non-clinging.”

Although some readers might experience puzzlement over the order or details of the sequence, the general idea seems clear enough. Good behavior is conducive to a calm mind, a calm mind is conducive to liberating knowledge, and liberating knowledge brings about non-clinging. The end of clinging puts an end to the activity of the nidānas, the so-called “links in the chain” of dependent origination. From that point onward, one is forever free not only of ignorance, craving and clinging, but of sensory stimulation, consciousness, and life itself. Game over.

Traditionalist will insist that moral purification is the sine qua non of both awakening and the cessation of renewed existence. On account of that relation, belief in karma serves as the bedrock of Buddhist ethics and the indispensable precursor of moral striving. Of course, that is not the only way of looking at the matter. As we shall see, there are Buddhists who deny the connection. For example, in the following passage from the writings of Genju, author of the blog, 108zenbooks.com, no link between the two is assumed:

“Professional and personal ethics are a means of addressing the outcome of being terribly human. And importantly, without the latter, the former is toothless. That is, being a Zen teacher (or psychologist) no more makes us upright than sacrificing birds on an altar. Standing up is the only practice that does, and each time we do so we create a community of uprightness and from that emerges a model of ethical living. Simply put, actions among people in a community are operationalized as acceptable or not; it doesn’t arise out of a naïve belief that our inherent goodness is sufficient for moral action to occur.”

A bit social-sciency, but you get the idea. Now, if you have been reading the Pali Canon, you will have noticed that a good deal of what the Buddha has to say to householders has to do with the moral dimension of action and its consequences in this life and lives to come. That is a dimension of conduct that is largely missing from the current discussion of the Rogue Roshis, about which more in a future post.

To Gain or Not to Gain

I am a student of Zen who not infrequently transgresses the boundaries of Zen orthodoxy. For instance, I sometimes think that I am getting somewhere, either in the practice or in the understanding of the practice. That is a clear violation of the rule that one ought not harbor “gaining ideas.” The desire to get something out of my practice is a crime for which I am happy to assume guilt. Do I want to make progress? I do. Do I want to improve my understanding of the process? I do. And why shouldn’t I? The more I learn about what is happening when I sit on the zafu, the better I will be able to explain zazen to others. It helps, of course, that zazen is fascinating in itself.

The notion that students of Zen can practice without motivation of any kind is a non-starter. Whether one is willing to admit it or not, most of us expect to feel better as a result of sitting for a while, as well we should. If Zen is Buddhism, then we are promised relief from suffering. As Katherine Thanas famously said of the commitment to daily sitting, “Try it. It will change your life.” Realization of complete, unsurpassable awakening may be the ultimate, but it is the gradual acquisition of mental acuity and tranquility that keeps us coming back to the zendo. Those who sit for months and years without noting any benefit will quit unless someone shows them how to make their zazen get results.

But results are just what we are told not to expect. Zen is “useless,” “good for nothing,” and so on. Dōgen Zenji himself tells us that “zazen is not shōzen,” meaning that the phrase “sitting in dhyāna” is not to be taken to indicate a kind of training that leads to a goal. Let me confess straightaway that I do not believe him. That kind of advice, whether it comes from Dōgen or a contemporary master, is intended to help us to reduce our expectations, to cease projecting ourselves into imagined futures, and to focus on the sitting itself. In other words, it is an expedient device. As such, it useful for certain people under certain circumstances and should not be thought of as dogma.

The more interesting part of this inquiry is our answer to a question that is bound to arise once we allow ourselves to enjoy the fruits of  Zen practice without guilt, namely, “If zazen is not useless—if it is really the sort of activity that has a method and a learning curve—then what is it and how is it related to the central Buddhist practice of establishing mindfulness?” I will attempt to answer this question from several viewpoints in future posts.

Nothing Happens Next

One of the earliest of Zen-themed cartoons is still one of the funniest and most poignant. It was drawn by Gahan Wilson in the 1970s. It shows the wizened Master and his disciple sitting side by side on their cushions. The pupil looks somewhat bewildered, and the Master is obviously responding to his question. The caption reads, “Nothing happens next. This is it.” Thirty years after I first read those words—in the New Yorker, or was it Playboy?—they still make me smile.

The humor of the student’s situation springs from the disjunction between his expectations and the reality of his situation. We can guess, for instance, that the disciple has been told merely to sit up straight and still. He is perplexed because he is expecting further instructions. He is expecting to be given more to do.

Moreover, he probably supposes that, when he begins to “meditate,” things will be different. Something will happen in the way of transformation for the better. Instead, he finds himself smack dab in the middle of his ordinary experience, with nothing to distract him but his thoughts. For many of us, when we are sitting still voluntarily for the first time, we become suddenly aware of the sheer volume and intensity of “inner” events, and it seems to us as if we are going mad. Or else we are gripped by an almost irresistible urge to flee, and our restlessness provokes the defensive reaction of profound boredom. “Surely,” we think, “they can’t expect us to just sit here like this, with no objective and nothing to occupy us!” We wonder why anyone would waste her time in such a way. Our situation begins to look like a kind of joke in itself.

Something always happens next, of course, but it is not necessarily what we want. Beginners are vexed because, so long as we follow the simple rules of zazen, we can’t control what happens next. We can’t even control our own thoughts! That is the first, terrible lesson.

Getting Started

I have committed to do zazen regularly. On the pretext of “just sitting,” I have undertaken to investigate a complex of processes that together produce what we call awareness, perception, mind, and the self. Or, perhaps, it would be more accurate to say that the organism looks into its own workings. In any case, the field is vast—it is the whole sensory world, after all—and at any given moment I can be aware of just a small portion of it.

At first glance it would seem that I am in just the position of one of the blind men in the famous parable about the elephant, perfectly situated to draw the wrong conclusions. However, when that story is told it is seldom mentioned that even a blind man, with sufficient persistence, can form a rough idea of what an elephant is like, provided he is willing to come at it from lots of different angles, maintain prolonged contact, and think about what he has experienced.

There is another sense in which the analogy is misleading. Not only do I have all my senses and a fair measure of curiosity, I am able to adjust the focus and scope of awareness in a number of ways. For instance, the shifting of attention from one sensory realm to another, which happens spontaneously thousands of times every day, is something that I can do deliberately, too. I can also limit my attention to hearing alone, or sight, and I can process the information so obtained in various ways. I can home in on a particular bodily sensation and remain attentive to that small patch of sense-data as it changes. Then I can compare that experience with past events. In other words, any vantage point—any given space-time location—can yield multiple views.

Although the mindscape is virtually without boundaries, I am not much bothered by the question of where to begin. If the unknown authors of the Avatamsaka are right, and the universe (or multiverse) is holographic, then it will not be hard for me to navigate this topologically challenging landscape. Starting with whatever happens to be in front of me, I need only allow one thing to open into the next naturally. Sooner or later I will find myself back where I started.

Zazen (3): A Somatic Approach to Right Mindfulness

It is sometimes said that zazen does itself[1]. The aim of such statements is twofold. First, they call attention to our tendency to arrogate all things to ourselves and to take credit where no credit is due. Second, they reinforce the dogma that zazen is not a skill that can be taught, learned or used in any way. Such admonitions are frequently coupled with statements intended to discourage goal orientation and striving for results. We are also told to apply ourselves to sitting with diligence and effort, to practice with the single-mindedness and energy we would muster if our heads were on fire. In effect we are enjoined to do, with utmost vigor, what cannot be done and, if it could be done, would not yield any result. What to make of this absurdity?

According to the traditions of mainstream Buddhism, mental clarity, acuity, and stability can be cultivated in a step-by-step manner that leads to awakening. The methods of establishing mindfulness and clear comprehension (satipatthāna-yonisomanasikāra) are characterized by schedules, indicators of progress, and scrupulous attention to detail in the manner of performance. Awakening is accomplished in stages.

On the face of it, there does not seem to be any comparable process in the life of the student of Dōgen’s Zen, which more closely resembles the Daoist traditions of Mind Fasting and Sitting in Oblivion. Kobun Chino has spoken of zazen as something into which the trainee vanishes. Nevertheless, experience suggests that the two “activities” have more in common than might meet the eye at a casual glance.

The instructions for zazen are simple. We are told merely to monitor posture to see whether or not the body is relaxed, upright, balanced and stable. All other sensations—thoughts, feelings, judgments, memories, etc.—are to be cast adrift. Attention is not so much focused as gently pressed into service in a rudimentary way. The beauty of this method is that we do not have to learn anything new. Everyone knows how to do what is required. We have been learning it since infancy. We already know how to find our various body parts, how to project the mental map upon the relatively amorphous mass of tactile sensations. But we don’t ever have to think about it. We just have to remember to check in once in a while.

Both zazen and the four primary methods of satipatthāna entail the harnessing of mindfulness and other mental faculties. Zazen differs from satipatthāna mainly in being less deliberate. With attention to posture as the sole task, mindfulness of the body develops naturally. There is no need to master the intricacies of technique. There are no elaborate protocols, no noting, no analysis.

In order to check our posture, we make use of a spectrum of bodily sensation—pressure, texture, muscular tension, and the propriocepts that convey a sense of balance and the body’s orientation in space. We do that in a way that does not require that we acknowledge each and every sensory event, though we are barely aware of them. In this kind of first-order awareness—a mere sensory presence—there is no imposition of higher-order interpretations. Zazen is therefore sensual in the most basic meaning of the word. As we acquire the habit of checking our posture many times a day, for weeks and months and years, we acquire a global, minimally-conscious awareness of the body’s sensory presence, its disposition in space, and the many subtle events occurring within that sensory-imaginal space.

Of course, we are bound to notice things because, although in zazen there is no other job than to look in on posture from time to time, we are evolved to be very good at noticing things. And so we will learn, for instance, that the bodily sensations associated with breathing in are not the same as those associated with breathing out, and we will learn a great deal else besides. We come to know a lot without necessarily knowing that we know.

To summarize: in Dōgen’s zazen, mindfulness of the body and feelings is acquired gently, without the extra layers of self-consciousness that build up in the course of constantly acquiring new skills, as is the case when training in the Four Methods of Setting Up Mindfulness. It is not just that zazen gets you out of your head. This way of “meditation” also has a notable advantage over satipatthāna, namely, that it is much less likely to reinforce the illusion of agency. I will have more to say about the phenomenon of self-attribution in a future post.

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[1] According to a story that circulates among students of  Shunryu Suzuki, a student came to him and announced that she had at last really begun to do zazen. “No!” replied the Roshi, “You must never say that. Zazen does zazen!” Is that sort of talk meaningful? Is it helpful?

Two Odd, One Even

sitting buddhas

walking buddhas

not yet buddhas

ever buddhas

not one not two

summer autumn

winter spring

coming going

never moving

myriad buddhas

foolish beings

being buddhas

just this once

in no time at all

Sitting & Walking for Others

We had completed the Initiation Walk and had just reached the high point of Pine Mountain Road between Oat Hill Road and the Bolinas-Fairfax Road. Arrayed before us were Mt. Tamalpais, Tiburon, and much of the East Bay. At the very center of the landscape, its details obscured by haze but easily identifiable, lay the prison at San Quentin.

Just two weeks before, in the course of a pilgrimage from Pema Ösel Ling to Land of Medicine Buddha, I had spoken to members of the Santa Cruz Zen Center about nourishing the intention to walk for others. I told a story about how my friend Rick Field, when he was struggling with cancer and nearing the end of his life, said to me, “I don’t have the strength to make the pilgrimage, but that’s okay. You can walk for me.” It was suddenly obvious to me that walking should never, could never be a solitary activity.

I am thinking about that moment now, and of the men locked up behind the walls of the prison at San Quentin. And I am wondering what kind of bonds there may be between me and them. When I agreed to walk for Rick, what kind of pact did I make with him? Did I make it with him alone or, through him, with all beings, human and non-human? It is my conviction that whenever I walk in consciousness of others, am I merely giving physical expression to a relationship that began billions of years ago in the fierce fires of a star.

Although I am not sure that we know what merit is, much less how it can be transferred from one person to another, I will go on reciting the dedication of merit with the resolve that my living will serve, one way or another, the true needs of those people I have not met, will never meet.. In our intention and attention there is much of unquestionable value that can touch many lives in ways we cannot forsee. 

The Who of Me, the person I am becoming, was formed in relation to others and evolves in relation to others. Although I am an organism distinct from others and from my surroundings, my boundaries are permeable. I am an open system, able to let in nourishment and expel waste. Like other organisms, I am also food; I eat others and am eaten by them. Every time I breathe in and out, some part of the world enters into this body and some part of this body goes out into the world. Through my sensory organs and nervous system I am constantly welcoming and giving hospitality to the environment even as I provide an environment for other beings. My body is host to a teeming multitude of living things. I and the world collaborate to produce this life, even this consciousness, such as it is. In our chemistry, biology, social-interpersonal relations, and sensory awareness—even in the highest-order abstract thinking—you and I are interdependent and globally connected. What could be more foolish than to believe we are separate?

All the same, we suffer because we are deeply in thrall to the illusion of independence. We have been so thoroughly schooled in the ideology of separateness and competition that it takes the concerted use of all our faculties to free ourselves from the illusion. One way of overcoming our education is to enter into the great mandala of nature and surrender ourselves to it through intellectual, imaginative, and contemplative activity. It is the path of transforming social emotions. It is the practice of just sitting. It is the rite of mantra, mudra, and visualization. It is the way of pilgrimage and mountain practice.

Perhaps we can never be sure that, by means of this work, we have done anything that directly results in benefit to the prisoners, the physically disabled, the work-obsessed, and those trapped in the maze of cultural delusion and ruinous ambition. They do not even know that we are thinking of them (though we might be able to do something about that; and think of what a contemplative hiking program for ex-offenders might be like). The limitations of our knowledge cannot diminish the strength of our connection. To practice with and for others is not only the fulfillment of vows, it is a celebration of a reality. It is our life and death and rebirth together.