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142. The five skandhas

Dogen said that the five skandhas (form, sensation, perception, mental formation, consciousness) are five pieces of Prajna; before thinking.

It is easier to see with the first two.

With the first skandha, when we sit, we don’t think, I am a man, I am a woman, this is a wall and suchlike, we just sit, right in the middle of our raw experience.

Likewise with sensation. We just feel what is there. We don’t label it.

With perception and mental formation, it’s a little harder to see Dogen’s point, but it’s very important that we do.

We just need to see the incessant urge to understand this flood of experience. This constant ‘What is this?’

It is as if we are in a room with a storyteller. The point is not to get caught up in the stories, nor to speculate if they’re true, nor to get annoyed because they’re not, but just to see the aliveness of the storyteller and, seeing this, the aliveness of everything.

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141. Quietening the mind

Sometimes we think of zen meditation practice as developing equanimity. Quietening the mind.

But which mind? Certainly not the personal mind.

What is obvious when we start sitting is the incessant talking itself into existence, which the personal mind seems to engage in endlessly. Like an apprehended fraudster. Talking himself in. Talking himself out.

So if our aim is to have equanimity, it would be foolish to expect this mind to be silent, to drop away, and leave equanimity pristine behind it..

So what do we do?

This personal, karmic mind is occurring within the greater body-mind.

Do our thoughts extend to our felt bodily experience or not?

This bodymind is already sitting within vast space. Do our thoughts extend above our head or behind or in front of us?

Of course not. There is no boundary to this space. It extends everywhere, and holds everything. Practice like this.

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Kusen

140. Buddha is momentary

My first teacher said it was impossible to break the mirror of the self with the head.

It’s true. Not because the mirror is unbreakable, but because the attempt to break it is still the activity of the self. And it’s not necessary.

Self is momentary. Buddha is momentary. We wobble between this moment of Buddha and this moment of self. But one does not obstruct the other.

He is me but I am not him.

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Kusen

139. Shikantaza

Master Dogen described our practice of shikantaza as dropping off body and mind.

The Japanese which is rendered as ‘dropping off’ has two aspects. One is intentional, as we might drop off an article of clothing. The other is natural, like leaves falling in Autumn.

Dropping off mind, means dropping off that dualism between mind and world, and which is often prominent, although unacknowledged, in meditation.

So we don’t think, “I must make my mind clear, my thoughts are an encumbrance to that”. But rather, thoughts are just one more thing going on within unbroken experience, where there is not inner and outer, me and not-me.

And likewise dropping off body, we don’t think “My body is experiencing these sensations and emotions”, but rather, there is just this experiencing, which includes everything.

We can drop off Mind, in the sense that we can relocate the mind within the body, but we need to drop off both, otherwise the dualism remains.

So dropping off body and mind is, as it were, sitting within the body of the world. It is not to do with individual gain, or individual effort, and so it is the gateway to peace and joy.

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Kusen

138. What is emptiness

Each time we sit, we chant the Heart Sutra: Form is Emptiness, Emptiness is Form. But what do we mean by Emptiness?

The meaning has changed over time. In the original teachings, the word simply meant absence. If the room was empty of elephants, that just meant there were no elephants there. The concept wasn’t central, because anatta – No Self – was emphasised. The person was ’empty’ of a self.

In due course, in the Mahayana, all things were seen as being empty of a ‘self’ – an immutable essence – and hence the world was empty: interdependent, dynamic, connected, whole.

But the original meaning of absence, voidness, vacuity has always lingered.

So when the Chinese started using the term, they equated it with Suchness. They said that it meant empty of delusion. And Dogen said it was prajna – before thinking. Hence Emptiness is that felt inexpressible wholeness which is there prior to thinking, which is always there, before the mind tries to amputate a self from the body of the world.

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137. The metaphor of the mirror in zen

In Chinese Buddhism the image of a mirror is very frequent, both to describe practice and to describe enlightenment.

It is quite difficult for us to understand, because when we think of a mirror we think of two: the image in the mirror and the owner of that image.

The whole point of the metaphor however is that there is not two: there is just the mirror.

In the mirror, what appears to be separate is really just part of the whole image.

So each individual thing is there and not there.

Similarly, and perhaps unlike the thing itself, we can look on the image with equanimity.

Understanding all this, we are inclined to see the mirror as being a description of how the universe is. But actually, it’s a description of how the practitioner is. It’s a description of practice.

The reflection is the whole body: the masks of the present moment reconnected with the faces of the past, the tendrils of thought dipping deep into bodily sensation. The mirror is infinitely angled: from the past to the present, from the mind to the body, from this body to all bodies, from the storm to the lingering debris; all directions.

We can’t see it with the eyes.

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Kusen

Book of Serenity, Case 48

The case:

Vimalakirti asked Manjusri

‘What is a Bodhisattva’s method of entering non duality?’

Manjusri said, “according to my mind, in all things, no speech, no explanation, no direction and no representation. Leaving behind all questions and answers. This is the method of entering non duality.”

Then Manjusri asked Vimalakirti – ‘What is the Bodhisattva’s method of entry into non duality?’

Vimalakirti was silent.

There are three senses of Satori, Enlightenment, and this koan deals with the first. It is sometimes called Practice/Realisation, or Practice/Verification.

Both are an abbreviation of a longer phrase, which means hearing, accepting, practicing, verifying. So: we hear the Buddha’s teachings on non duality, we accept these teachings, we practice, and through practice those teachings are verified as true.

The story is a representation of the mind and sincere practice of Vimilakirti, although there appears to be two people. But Manjusri of course is not a person, but is the Bodhisattva of Wisdom.

And the two questions are subtly different.

Vimalakirti asks ‘What is the Bodhisattva’s method of entering non duality?’
So this refers to the teaching stage. Which is why Manjusri answers.

But Manjusri’s question, ‘What is the Bodhisattva’s method of entry into non duality?’ is the practice stage. Which is why it is met with silence.

So neither answer is the right answer, but the story portrays a progression from teaching to practice.

The teachings are the door that we have to go through, but we have to let go of the handle to experience the vast room.

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Kusen

136. All Existence is Buddha Nature

At our retreat in November we talked about the Mu Koan. You may recall in that Koan story a monk asked Joshu, “Does a dog have Buddha Nature?”

Joshu says, “Mu (No).”

The basis for the monk’s question is a passage in the Nirvana Sutra where it says that ‘all living beings without exception have Buddha Nature’.

Joshu’s reply was not denying Buddha Nature. He was denying the ‘have,’ that is, that it is a property of the individual.

It is a very common idea in Buddhism that buried within us, like a jewel in mud, is compassion, wisdom, enlightenment and so on; and if our karmic mind would just shut up, these qualities would manifest.

This is a catastrophically mistaken view of practice. It ensures that we continue to suffer.

Master Dogen re-wrote the passage in the Nirvana Sutra, re-rendering it as ‘all existence is Buddha Nature’. Not denying Buddha Nature, but locating it somewhere other than the self.

That being so, the activity of the karmic mind is not a barrier, is not an obstacle. And so our practice does not need to be a continual exercise in disappointment.

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Kusen

135. The Blue Mountains Are Constantly Walking

The 93 generations since the Buddha, are like a real person walking through time. All the individual positions are unbalanced, all the individual teachers are unbalanced, and in their imbalance, they are fully expressing themselves.

Because this is so, the whole is a dynamic balance. That being so, we should not be like our teacher, we should be like our selves; balancing our teacher with our fully expressed imbalance.

And so, forward. And so, backward.

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Kusen

134. An Empty House

Sekiso said that Enlightenment is like a thief breaking into an empty house.

Many people talk about practice as the cultivation of something: wisdom say, or compassion.

Is the thief trying to find the gold, or trying to find the light switch? Either way, he’s a thief.

We need to understand that practice is not the cultivation of compassion. It’s not the cultivation of anything.

It is compassion.