Tag: Sutras

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355. What is ‘Form’?

The Heart Sutra is not a general statement about existence, it is a statement about the nature of our existence as Buddhist practitioners. It is not a philosophical treatise, it is a description of Zazen. That is why we chant it after we sit.

The most famous part of the Heart Sutra is “form is emptiness and emptiness is form.” Someone who doesn’t know about the Heart Sutra might think that ‘form’ means  the physical elements of the material world, things. But that is not what is meant. The Heart Sutra is named such because it is an abbreviation of the teachings on emptiness. ‘Form’ in this context is the first of the five Skandhas. The five Skandhas are a description of you. The form isn’t the form of things generally, it is your form.

That form – the word for form is ‘rupa’ – also appears as the fourth link (as namarupa – name and form) in the chain of dependent origination in early Buddhism. The idea is that the whole causal network of suffering is dependent upon a sequence of causes, each of which is dependent on the others. Break one and you break the chain of suffering. What form means in that context is our tendency to create durable, knowable entities out of the flow of experience. Once we do that, identifying, naming and reifying them, that creates desire, clinging and so on, other links of the chain.

The ‘form is emptiness’ statement is an abbreviation. If we unfold the Sutra, it would also be telling us that the other Skandhas are equally empty: sensation is empty, perception is empty, mental formations are empty and consciousness is empty. Adding these four makes it easier for us to understand what might be meant by ‘emptiness’. If we pay proper attention to our sensations for example, we see that each sensation, far from being something fixed, is energetic, fluctuating, changeable and relational. It is related to other sensations, to perception and consciousness and so on.

So it is easy for us to understand how the four Skandhas other than form are empty. But an understanding of that does not necessarily get us out of the primary dualism of self and world, which is the true origin of our suffering. It might well make us more embodied, and it might make us more integrated, but it doesn’t necessarily deal with that split. But regarding our form – my body- as empty (relational, interdependent) does directly attack that dualism, which is why it is particularly important, especially now, when there is a risk of meditation being swallowed up by the highly individualistic – and trivial – ideal of self improvement.

It seems to me that in our ordinary life, when we regard this body, it is as if we are seeing it in a mirror or, in some other way, picturing it. In Zazen we are not picturing it, at least not all the time. In breaking the mirror of the self, Zazen enables us to experience this body as interdependent, fluctuating, not separate. That is the foundation for us to start to see in a different way. Through an attention to this form, this body, the form of the world, likewise, can change.

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348. The Tally

The history of East Asian Buddhism is in large part the history of metaphors, such as the mirror and its images or the ocean and its waves. 

One of the lesser known metaphors used in Chinese Buddhism is the tally.

The tally originated in commercial transactions. The tally was something that was originally one piece, like a piece of decorated wood, which was then broken into two. One piece was given to one party in a commercial transaction, and one piece was given to the other. This piece could then be given to agents.

In a vast country like China, it was a very useful device to ensure that you were paying the right person or that you were delivering goods to the right person.

For our purposes, the metaphor is most apt in relation to the other use that the tally was put to, which was to do with military force. Chinese dynasties would generally be overthrown by generals in near or distant provinces, and so it was important for them to keep control of the military. A general would be given one half of a tally and the other half would be held by the Emperor or the Emperor’s representatives. When the Emperor wished the general’s army to be activated, the Court would send an emissary with the Emperor’s half of the tally to the general and the army could then move. The force embodied by the army could then take action. It was no longer stuck.

You can see how this can be applied to Buddhism. For example, when the student responds to the sutras it is as if two pieces fit together enabling both to move, and both to be transformed from the familiar position – a stuck position – to a dynamic position – a fluid position.

 So, it is not that the wisdom is there in the sutras and the student has to uncover it. Rather, the fitting together of the two creates a dynamic wisdom, now. Not forever, now. The wheel of dharma turns the wheel of dharma.

 Likewise, when we encounter our teacher. It is not that the teacher is going to put us right, or that the teacher has this wisdom which he can give us. It is this fitting together, so the whole miraculous world moves. 

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346. The Sutra of Perfect Enlightenment

The Sutra of Perfect Enlightenment was written in Tang Dynasty China, probably in the early 8th century, around the same time as The Platform Sutra, just prior to the formation of Baso’s Hongzhou School of Zen, which proved the most durable, going forward into the later Song Dynasty.

The Sutra was very popular in China and subsequently in Korea, but did not become widely known in Japan. Although, I think, it’s clear that Dogen was familiar with it, not least because the initial and dominant metaphor in the sutra – sky flowers – is one of the chapters of the Shobogenzo, which Dogen re-renders as the flowers of emptiness (Kuge). That chapter substantially repeats what is said in the sutra.

One of the reasons the sutra was so popular was because it gave a lot of practical instruction about meditation.

It essentially says that in meditation there are three ways to practise: Samatha, Samapatti and Dhyana. From those three approaches it generates 25 separate practices, using various combinations of these three.

So what are they?

Samatha we are familiar with. It is the wide range of practices focused on the necessity of undispersing, calming and gathering the mind. It is strongly associated with the idea that meditation cultivates tranquility, quietude, and serenity. The metaphor which the sutra uses for this aspect of meditation is the mirror. Just as a bright mirror will reflect everything truly without being caught up in it, and whose primary characteristic, brightness, is unaffected by the nature of the reflections, then likewise the meditator rests within the brightness of calm spacious awareness, unperturbed by any arising thoughts or emotions.

The second kind of practice, Samapatti, is described tersely as using illusion to overcome illusion. The meaning can be unpacked by reading the early part of the sutra, where the metaphor of sky flowers is explored. Sky flowers represent illusory ideas: self, separation from the world, permanence and so on. The mind of the practitioner which sees no-self, impermanence and non-duality is also a sky flower, because there is no ‘mind’ separate from everything else. That is what the sutra means by using one illusion to overcome another. One of the other metaphors used is two sticks being rubbed together to create a fire, which then consumes both. Another brilliant metaphor is of a person cutting off his own head; prior to the act there is a person intending to do something, but after he succeeds, there isn’t. Samapatti focuses on how we can, in the course of meditation, actively examine our tendency to separate, to continually create a “me”, to construct a familiar world of known objects and qualities, and so on. The metaphor that is used is that of a green and lively shoot bursting up through the earth. The aliveness, the activity of the green shoot bursts through the earth of ignorance, but doesn’t become separated from it, like the Lotus Flower.

The metaphor for Samatha is one of peacefulness and tranquility, that for Samapatti is very different, it is a vigorous and dynamic engagement.

The third – Dhyana – is where the separation between body, mind and world drops off or is forgotten about. In Dhyana we are just sitting, ‘One Piece Zen’, as Isso Fujita would say: body, mind and world all dropped off and gathered up in this One Piece. The metaphor for Dhyana is the ringing bell. The bell can ring because it is hollow, empty at its center. It is self-less. Yet, the ring of the bell of zazen rings out everywhere.

We can look at these three meditations as three different practices. We can also look at them as being three aspects, although not the only aspects, of our own practice. We are experiencing this One Piece Zen. At other times we are aware of the necessity of undispersing our mind. At other times we are aware of our habits of fabrication and construction. All of this can be explained in a way which is inclusive, and which broadens our practice, and stops it falling into easy formulation.

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339. The Five Eyes of Practice

In Zazen we practice with our eyes open, but we do not see in the usual way.

The Diamond Sutra says there are five eyes, five ways of seeing.

The first is the physical eye. You can understand that is the eye of our karma. We see a world which has been told to us by our parents, by our society, and by earlier versions of ourselves.

The second eye is the heavenly eye. This is seeing the world conceptually. When I look up at the sky for example, I see it within the context of the world and the universe that’s been taught to me. I can see the world conceptually in many ways: through physics, through economics, through history; any number of ways. 

The third eye is the prajna eye. This the ‘wisdom’ eye that sees the emptiness and the non-separation of all things.

The fourth is the dharma eye which, while seeing the emptiness of all things, uses compassion and skillful means to alleviate suffering—the eye of the Bodhisattva. 

The fifth eye is the Buddha eye. 

When we read about these five eyes, we think that they belong to five different kinds of beings. Or to the one being, in progressive stages of development.

I think we can equally look upon these ‘eyes’ as facets of practice. The Buddha eye is this non-dual awareness, this non-separation which contains the other four. 

Not just those other four eyes of course, but the countless eyes of Avalokiteshvara.  

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338. Seeing Bodhisattvas

When we finish Zazen, after we chant the Heart Sutra, we chant the four Bodhisattva vows.

The first is, “all living beings, I vow to save them”.

From this we might believe that a Bodhisattva is primarily concerned with doing, with saving all beings from suffering. Indeed, in Tibetan, the word for Bodhisattva literally means something like Enlightenment Hero. 

Hidden underneath that idea of compassionate doing is a more subtle idea concerned with seeing. 

In the normal way of things a person looks at another person and asks, “What is the value of that person to me?” The ordinary  person looks at an object and says, “What use is that object to me?”

In contrast,  the Bodhisattva will look at a person and say, “What is the value of that person?” The Bodhisattva will look at an object and say “What is the dignity and beauty of that object?”

In the literature Bodhisattvas are often occupying a heroic role. In the Vimalakirti Sutra for instance, at the start, in the scene setting, the Buddha is said to be preaching in the presence of 8,000 monks and 32,000 Bodhisattvas, all of  whom are recognized by the monks. 

These Bodhisattvas have heroic names. But if you look at the names closely,  they are names you would associate with the activity of practice. This is a way of seeing differently. Seeing in terms, not of personal utility, but in terms of a reciprocal relationship. Meaning-giving and love fill the world with Bodhisattvas. 

It isn’t that this person is a Bodhisattva who is going out to save all these other people. The change is primarily a change in how we see and hence, how we act. Dōgen for instance, humorously talks about the Broken Ladle Bodhisattva, and things like that. Everything is our teacher.

The Bodhisattva isn’t a being who sees themselves as a Bodhisattva. Rather, they are someone who sees other beings as bodhisattvas.

You yourself should ask whether you can see this or not. You yourself  are full of  Bodhisattvas: Enduring Through Doubt Bodhisattva, Loving Despite Everything Bodhisattva. And 32,000 others. And likewise the world.

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336. The Fabric of Buddhism

The literal meaning of the word sutra is thread. At its most basic, the reference is to the thread which kept the pages of the sutra together and in order.

The root of the word sutra means ‘to sew together.’ 

We can see an association with the ordination practice in which, prior to the ceremony, a person sews together disparate pieces of material to create their rakusu, or kesa. This garment, which always has the same form, is also unique. It is unique because it is sewn by this particular person, with all this person’s skills, clumsiness, mistakes, and so on. Originally, the monk’s robe was sewn together from pieces of discarded material, so the symbolism, in terms of interdependence, the rich dialogue between particularity and universality and everything having value, is very rich.

Zazen is sewing together body and mind; self and world; past and present; practitioners seen and unseen.

That possibly throws light on one of the peculiarities of the Mahayana sutras.

At the start, the Buddha is gathered with an assembly of monks. And almost always, there’s also a huge number of Bodhisattvas.

In the Vimalakirti Sutra, for instance, the Buddha is said to be preaching on Vulture Peak to 8,000 monks and 32,000 Bodhisattvas.

Who or what are these Bodhisattvas?

If we read the Lotus Sutra does Vulture Peak appear or not? Are we there, or not? 

When the Chinese determined upon a word for sutra they used, on the face of it, an identical word, thread. But in their genius ‘thread’ has a particular context. It’s the thread of the loom. Or rather, one of the threads: the vertical, or the horizontal.

The Chinese mechanical loom is a metaphor for constant activity; the full dynamic functioning of the universe. If the thread of the sutra is, as it were, one line of the fabric to be weaved, the vertical say, what is the horizontal line? What or who is woven with it to constantly produce the miraculous fabric of Buddhism?

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334. Skilful Means

The Heart Sutra is a – probably Chinese – attempt to condense and to get to the heart of the prajnaparamita sutras; a vast body of literature that started to be composed in India around the first century BC.

In these sutras, there’s a repetitive emphasis on three elements: prajna ( intuitive wisdom), compassion and skillful means. ‘Prajna’ (wisdom) is the ability to see the emptiness, the boundlessness and the lack of separation of all things. ‘Compassion’ is the feeling with all beings. 

The temptation, when we hear these three terms, is to think that they’re attributes of the person. This ‘person’ acquires the capacity to see emptiness and, seeing emptiness, this ‘person’ then develops compassion in their heart and then this ‘person’ acts towards other beings in the most efficaciously compassionate way using skillful means. 

However, to think of these three qualities as qualities of the individual is to fall into exactly the same kind of spiritual narcissism that plagues meditation today. 

Prajna doesn’t mean me seeing the emptiness of all other things. It means seeing the emptiness of all things, including this ‘person’. The wall of identity which surrounds this person and separates them from other beings is dismantled.

With those walls absent, what is there but fellow feeling? 

And skillful means, because it’s not a personal quality; because it’s a universal quality, can be seen as one facet of this infinitely faceted diamond of all beings; each facet expressing the whole diamond.

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333. The Mahayana Sutras

How do we account for the fantastical and novel structure and content  of many of the Mahayana sutras: the Lotus Sutra, the Nirvana Sutra, the Flower Garland Sutra?

These sutras are dramatically different from the Pali sutras,  which are simple in comparison. Usually, they just record what the Buddha said to a specific person who came to him with a specific problem or enquiry. The sutra is simply a record of what the teacher said. 

In contrast, we read the Lotus Sutra or the Nirvana Sutra and we’re looking around amidst all the imagery and stories, trying to find the teaching.

What’s going on? 

Nagarjuna’s decisive move in the MMK, near the beginnings of Mahayana, was to make the development of a systematic body of doctrine or of a systematic framework impossible. 

That left Mahayana with a number of options.

First  the essential emptiness of everything could just be reiterated. That’s what you see in the Diamond sutra. Over time, this gets rather sterile, which is probably why the schools most directly continuing Nagarjuna’s teachings didn’t prosper in China.

The second is that the teaching can go off in unusual and new directions which changes both the nature of language and the nature of teaching. 

In the Pali sutras, the language is simply faithfully recording what the Buddha said.

In the Mahayana sutras by contrast, the language is expressive and performative, so the teaching isn’t, as it were, set out in the sutra. The sutra is like a teacher who will change you. The language goes from being descriptive to being performative. 

It’s like somebody seizing your head so it’s pointing in a different direction. 

Viewed this way, you can see the direct connection between these sutras and the koan stories.

Mahayana is accordingly not something new, but a return, in a new way, to the Buddha’s original intention, which is not to promulgate a consistent body of doctrine, but to attend to and change the person in front of him, like a doctor would.

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326. Bodhidharma’s ‘Wall Contemplation’

In Zen legend, Bodhidharma arrived in China from India, had his encounter with the Emperor and then went to Shaolin temple where he sat facing a wall for nine years. There’s pictures of this everywhere, showing Bodhidharma with dramatically bulging eyes.

When we sit facing the wall, we’re evoking that. 

The Chinese phrase which is rendered as, ‘wall contemplation’, is ‘pi-kuan’. Classical Chinese is notoriously terse. The expression means simply something like, ‘wall gazing’. It doesn’t say who’s doing the gazing – if it’s a person gazing at a wall or if it’s the wall gazing, or something else. The phrase is original to Bodhidharma.

Because of the pictorial representation, we think, without inquiring further, that the phrase simply means that Bodhidharma practised zazen facing the wall. Except, that isn’t really an explanation at all.

Given that the wall is plainly not the object of meditation, the phrase, I think, only makes sense when we interpret it as meaning that when we are sitting, we are like a wall gazing onto the world.

What does that suggest? Firstly, that the wall, like a tree, or a mountain, is rooted in the being of all things. It’s non-dual. Secondly, that the wall doesn’t differentiate. So the wall will see all beings, in all states, with the same ‘gaze’. 

In that sense, the wall is like a stone mirror. If we look at it in that way, then we can see a connection between this idea of wall gazing and the Alaya consciousness that we encounter in Yogacara. Bodhidharma was known for bequeathing to his successor the Lankavatara sutra, which is a Yogacara sutra.

The phrase is evocative and open-ended. We should approach it as we should approach all the teachings; not as a ‘puzzle’ to be solved and then never returned to, but like a person. For all the sutras, for all the teachings, it is like we’re encountering a person, who is not exhausted by definition and classification but who, from moment to moment, offers the opportunity of a living exchange about practice, which can change us, and change them.

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324. Visual Imagery In Mahayana Buddhism

When we read many of the Mahayana sutras, The Lotus Sutra for example, or the extraordinary Flower Garland Sutra, what immediately strikes us is the incredible array of fantastical imagery. We’re quite bemused by it. Often we read through the sutra rather impatiently, trying to get past all this visual stuff and get to the point. 

We’re a bit like a primitive anatomist, who, when opening up a body, sees all this gunk; all this myofascial goo, and discards it, because he thinks the real business of anatomy is the organs, not this weird connective tissue. 

The sumptuous visual quality is even more striking when compared with the Pali sutras, which are mostly very practical. Somebody comes to the Buddha, asks him a question, the Buddha inquires about his particular circumstances and then gives his response. 

The emphasis on the visual in Mahayana seems to start with the origin of Mahayana itself:  the prajnaparamita sutras. It’s important to note that the start of their composition occurred around the same time as the start of the Abhidharma literature. 

For the first few hundred years after the Buddha’s death, the sutras were just transmitted orally. They have the pattern that you’d expect of an oral transmission: there’s a lot of repetition and formulas to enable the sutra to be remembered more easily.

Then there’s a change: the sutras are written down. Once they are, it’s much easier to compare them; to try and fit them together into a coherent philosophical system. This is what the Abhidharma literature attempts to do, and it’s what Nagarjuna attacks.

But alongside that, in opposition, is the prajnaparamita literature. Instead of a philosophical structure, there is this mass of visual imagery and repetition. 

It’s hard for us to make sense of this because for us, in our culture, with its predominance of writing, we associate ‘vision’ (seeing)  with the mind and we probably associate ‘hearing’ with intuition. To make sense of this emphasis on the visual in Mahayana, we need to understand that the assumptions in classical India were exactly the opposite. 

Because of the initial preservation of the sutras by recitation – by hearing – hearing was associated with the intellect and by extension, when we’re hearing arguments – the Abhidharma scholars  trying to make all these sutras into a coherent system – we’re doing so, as it were, with our ears. By contrast, ‘vision’ (sight) is associated with immediacy, with receptivity, with a kind of wholeness coming all at once without the mediation of the intellect. If we can understand that, then we can see what is going on with the emphasis on the visual in the Mahayana sutras.

What we need to be careful of is not to think of this as making fantastical claims about the nature of reality (reality corresponding with these extraordinary visions) but rather as a poetic description of the ways in which different beings can see; see in that intuitive and complete and arrived sense.