Tag: Kusen

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Kusen

44. The Buddha’s Three Bodies

Emptiness isn’t conceptual; it’s descriptive. It is experience unencumbered by you. It is felt, not thought.

If the feeling dimension is missed, practice can become very arid.

It was for this reason that, alongside the articulation of Emptiness, the Mahayana School developed the doctrine of the Three Bodies of the Buddha. Theravadan Buuddhism had two – the actual body of the historical Buddha [Nirmanakaya] and the Dharmakaya, the Truth Body, which is always there and which is identified with Reality. We picture reality sometimes as the myriad things, sometimes as the body of the Buddha.

Mahayana introduced the Bliss Body [Sambogakaya] which, I think, makes explicit the feeling dimension of Emptiness, and the feeling dimension of reality, of all things.

In the same way, the Pure Land sutras give descriptions of the Pure Land which are magical and enchanting – wish fulfilling trees, jewelled birds, and so on. Obviously, we aren’t meant to take this literally, but the descriptions evoke our feelings – delight, gratitude, grace.

This feeling and felt world is itself the body of the Buddha. The world itself has liberative force.

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Kusen

45. Wholeness

My teacher Michael Luetchford said that people imagine that Wholeness is taking two distinct things–mind and body, say, or self and world–and fusing them together by dint of a stupendous spiritual effort.

Which is idiotic. The core insight of Buddhism is dependent origination; in Dogen’s terms, Full Dynamic Functioning. Taken seriously, it is the diamond which cuts through all delusions: self, separateness, grasping and rejecting, time as the container of things and the narrative space of the self; everything.

But it’s no good as an idea. We have to feel it.

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Kusen

43. Rice Cakes

What is the relationship between language and practice?

“A picture of a rice cake does not satisfy hunger” was a common expression in the China of Dogen’s time, and was taken to mean that language was an impediment to realisation. Hence the tendency of the koan stories to frustrate the student, to push him towards silence.

Certainly, we can see how language can easily become a shell, covering the great ocean of being, hiding the depth, beauty and precariousness of our lives.

But language can break its shell, and liberate: itself, ourselves.

So for Dogen, the expression [which, mindlessly repeated, is part of the shell] is a statement of the absolute value of everything: the rice cake exists absolutely. It is not there simply to assuage hunger. Further, because of this, ‘picture,’ ‘satisfy,’ and ‘hunger’ are like pillars, holding up the unfathomable present.

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Kusen

41. Stone Birds

Our metaphors become like stone birds.

A familiar one is the image of serene reflection: the moon reflected in water. The moon [enlightenment] is clearly reflected in the still water [the tranquil mind]. Someone tries to convey a feeling-state through an image, and then the image becomes an aspiration: something to gain, something to lose.

And all of this is to practice, and to judge practice, from the perspective of the self. But that isn’t our practice.

If the water is enlivened, it doesn’t break the moon. If the sky is suddenly aflock with birds, it doesn’t shatter the light

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Kusen

42. The Five Skandhas

We practice from the perspective of the Buddha, not the Self.

At the start of the Heart Sutra, there is an exchange between Śāriputra, one of the buddha’s historical disciples, renowned for his wisdom, and Avalokiteśvara, the Bodhisattva of Compassion. Significantly, it is Avalokiteśvara rather than Śāriputra who, whilst sitting in zazen, realises that the five Skandhas are empty, and hence all suffering is relieved. You could say all suffering is relieved because Avalokitesvara, the five Skandhas and Emptiness are all synonymous.

Were Śāriputra, from the position of the self, to perceive the emptiness of the five Skandhas, suffering would not be relieved. The whole world would become suffering.

So, the suggestion is not that in zazen we see Emptiness, but rather that the five Skandhas see the Emptiness of the five Skandhas. And suffering falls away.

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Kusen

40. The Four Dharma Seals

The Four Dharma Seals are suffering, impermanence, no-self and nirvana.

The second and third are the crucible of our lives. If we think of the self as real, fixed, permanent, then the unavoidable truth of impermanence will cause us to suffer. We are always one step closer to falling.

If we see the insubstantiality of the self, that is the liberation of all beings. Impermanence can then be seen as the dynamic functioning of interconnectedness, and we can live at peace with all sentient beings, undarkening the world by no longer throwing the dust of the self over it.

We have a choice. We either fall down or stand up. And, of course, we do both.

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Kusen

39. The Life of Each Thing

Our aim isn’t to eradicate delusion, but to actualise space.

Within vast space, each thing can have its own life.

Although it is natural to wish that our demons were gone, only demons can kill demons.

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Kusen

38. Compassionate Mind

Compassionate Mind is essential for practice.

The noise in our head is like a small child. If we follow the noise, it will never grow up. If we hate or ignore the noise, we cut out our own heart. We need to hold the noise in vast, compassionate space; vast compassionate awareness.

It is this space which allows it, and all beings, to live.

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Kusen

37. Total Exertion

Non-Buddhists conceive of the Universe as things within space. And in the space between things there is room for judgement, room for manipulation.

For Dogen, the realm of nonduality is the realm of intimacy. It is not that there is no differentiation, but there is no gap, no void.

And within that intimacy, each dharma totally occupies its own space. One dharma does not obstruct another, just as one moment does not obstruct another. The total exertion of one dharma–the exemplar of exertion being zazen–is the total exertion of all dharmas, because there is no separation.

The total exertion of one dharma makes real the whole Universe.

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Kusen

36. Awareness

In zazen, we cultivate unadorned awareness. We simply allow our experience, without making any judgement.

This awareness operates at a number of levels. Most obviously, we are aware of our ego sustaining chatter. Then we are aware of our strategies to avoid our experience–distraction, fatigue, agitation, and so on.

And deeper still, we are aware of our habitual attitudes towards our experience while sitting: anxiety, frustration, hopelessness, resignation and so on, and this habitual attitude mirrors our attitude to our life generally, and so what is unconscious becomes conscious.

Awareness is like a deepening ocean. As it becomes deeper, it becomes clearer. And so, everything is illuminated.