Path to Heaven

Know that which has form to be unreal and the formless to be permanent.  Through this spiritual instruction, you will escape the possibility of rebirth.

--- Astavakra Samhita (trans. Swami Nityaswarupananda)

The scripture here gives us a key. Whatever has form is unreal. Finding the formless is the path to the real.

So what is form? Form is something that has qualities: colors, sounds, scents, tastes, or feeling. Physical objects have form.

Throughout history and cultures, sages have often directed our attention to formless things as pointers to the truth. In Taoism, there is much talk about water. In Christianity, there is light. Tibetan Buddhists often talk about space. 

In Hindu thought, the spectrum of existence is arranged from the absolute formless (nirguna Brahman) to absolute form or matter (prakriti). It is said that the formless gives rise to the form. This happens in a series of stages from the most subtle to the gross. The more subtle a thing is, the higher up on the spiritual hierarchy. Why? Because it is more like the highest.

The same goes for Taoism. The highest, the Tao, is without form. The lower end of creation is the 10,000 things. Creation goes from the Tao, to the one, to yin and yang, to the five elements, to all things. Returning to the Tao is ascending the ladder from form to formlessness.

In Christianity, the first thing that is created is light. Light on the first day, whereas the bodies of light (sun and moon) are created on the fourth day. The heaven and earth start out “formless”.

Accordingly, physical matter being mostly form is at the bottom. Thoughts are higher because they are less substantial. Awareness is higher because it even more formless than thought. Intuition is ranked higher than intellectual knowledge because it has less form.

Seen in this light, one can clearly see the pathway to return to the source.

The Brain and the Mind

The brain and the mind is an interesting subject and a great personal question for me.  The question is:  does physical brain create the mind?

Obviously, the brain and the mind are linked.  Damage to the brain can effect the functioning of the mind.  Meditation can impact the brain.  The materialist conclusion is that the brain produces the mind.  However, others have pointed out that correlation does not mean causation, as we have explored in the posts on dependent origination.  The most we can say is there is a correlation between the brain and the mind.

An intriguing, alternate suggestion is that the brain is a receptor for the mind.  Under this theory, the brain is essential to the full functioning of the mind, and damage to the brain can affect this functioning.  The analogy is between a radio and the music.  The radio does not create the music, it transmits it.  However, damage to the radio can impair transmission.  This theory can be traced back to William James, the famous pragmatist.

Ferdinand Schiller proposed that the purpose of the physical brain was to limit consciousness, to focus it on on the physical realm.  According to Schiller, "Matter is not that which produces consciousness, but that which limits it and confines its intensity within certain limits."  Simple and course machinery allows simple and course manifestations of consciousness, i.e. animals and insects. In this way, matter is like a circuit that conducts the energy of consciousness in a certain way.

This is very much in line with the concept of upadhi in Advaita.  Upadhi limits infinite consciousness.  This is a type of creation by limitation, and may at first sound counter-intuitive.  But consider water.  Water in its raw, pure form is too much for us to use.  We need to limit it, through dams or canals, or with hoses.  Then we can use it in a specific way.   

Of course, this is just something to ponder.

Dependent Origination Revisited

In an online discussion forum, some one wrote: 

So for you Buddhists, could you please fill in the blank:

Humanity is dependently originated from the Earth.
The Earth is dependently originated from the Universe.
The Universe is dependently originated from _______________________.

I took issue with the phrasing, and wrote:  

Humanity is dependently originated with the Universe.
The Earth is dependently originated with the Universe.
The Universe is dependently originated with earth and humanity.

When asked to explain, I wrote:

The simplest phrasing of dependent origination is:

When this is, that is.

From the arising of this comes the arising of that.

When this isn't, that isn't.

From the cessation of this comes the cessation of that.

Imasmiṃ sati, idaṃ hoti.

Imass’ uppādā, idaṃ uppajjati.

Imasmiṃ asati, idaṃ na hoti.

Imassa nirodhā, idhaṃ nirujjhati.

In simple terms:

When x arises, y arises.

When x does not arise, y does not arise.

What the Buddha is pointing to, in my opinion, is not that things cause one another, put that things arise together.  "Causation" is the tag we place between two events, x and y.   Now this is not a random arising, as you can see by the formulation: when there is no x, there is no y.  And when there is x, there is y.  Without this, the world would be random.   (One could say, this is because of the Tao!)

Second, there are no solid objects.  Boundaries are fuzzy.  We cannot draw a clear line between one thing and another.  So to say the earth is one thing, and the universe is another doesn’t make sense.  The earth is a part of the universe, and there is no clear dividing line. 

So let’s take a seed and a tree.  The seed arises, and the tree arises.  Without the seed, there is no tree.  But the seed did not cause the tree, did it?  No, there was also the sunshine, the soil, the water, the nutrients.  You also need space, time, a universe for all this to take place in.  And there is no clear distinction between the tree, the soil, and the sunshine.  The sunshine becomes the tree. The tree is linked to the sun.   Further, at what point does the seed stop being a seed, and become a tree?  With the first tendril?  The first part of the tendril? 

Likewise, with all things. 

Instead of earth and universe, let’s use finger and hand.  The finger is a part of the hand.  But it is wrong to say the hand causes the finger.  But without the hand, there is no finger.  However, the hand can exist without the finger.  But let’s say we take away all the fingers, is there still a hand?  At what point does it not become a hand?  They depend on one another. 

No Thoughts or No Added Thoughts

There is a sense in the spiritual community that spiritual practice is opposed to thought.  In fact, some believe that the purpose of meditation is to eliminate thought.

Both Zen and Tao, perhaps drawing from the same source, cast a certain suspicion on thoughts.  Zen literature is full of masters telling their students to cut off thinking.  Some take this to mean that one should sit in a mental blankness.

James Swartz has pointed out the problem with this.  There are spaces between thoughts, natural spaces that occur without any sort of practice.  If the split moment of no thought between thoughts doesn't bring enlightenment, then why would we think that hours or no thought will bring enlightenment?

There is another way to approach no thought.  The warning against thinking doesn't mean we should cultivate a mental blank, but that we should not add thoughts onto what is already arising.  For example, if I am drinking a cup of coffee, I might be thinking about something else, like what I have to do today.  I might be thinking about whether I like the cup of coffee or not.  I might be thinking about the meaning of coffee generally.  In a sense, I am suffering when I do this, because I am running away from the moment.  The feel and taste of coffee is a mystery.  Once we try to capture it with words and phrases, it loses the mystery.

As we know from the opening of the Tao Te Ching, the Tao that can be named is not the enduring Tao.

The world presents itself as it is, in all of its wonderful glory.  We take this world, and then we add a layer of thoughts, concepts, and representations to it.  This is the descent into the word of form, the world of limitation, the world of suffering.

Yet to say that thinking itself is bad is taking thinking and adding another thought to it.  I would say, in the language of Zen, you are adding a head on top of your head.  Thought, like everything else, is a present forming mystery.  

So perhaps the Zen master's admonition to "cut off thinking" is not to stop the thinking process, but to stop the adding process, which is adding thoughts to things as they are. 

Original Sin, Original Ignorance

Buddhism is different from Christianity in how sin is defined.  In Christianity, sin is doing something wrong.  There is a rule, and you break that rule, it is a sin.  In fact, Christianity teaches that people are already born into sin, with original sin inherited from our parents.

Buddhism takes a different approach.  It teaches that we are born in ignorance.  We just don’t know.  When we do something wrong, it is because we are ignorant.  If we knew better, we wouldn’t have done it. 

Most crimes depend on us being ignorant of ourselves and of others.  Sin can be its own punishment.  If we are cold and cruel toward another, we become cold and cruel.  Our mind narrows, our emotions weaken, and we are worse off.  We are ignorant of others because we don’t consider their feelings, their inner states.  I don’t consider your suffering when I do something to you, because if I did, I wouldn’t be able to hurt you.

The path in Buddhism is to discover how our mind-bodies work, and what they are like.  Because the more we learn about ourselves, the more we learn about others.  Other people are just like us, only the content is different.  You and I both have thoughts, feelings, and bodily sensations; we are both aware and have hopes and dreams, loves and losses.  They are different thoughts and feelings, but essentially we are the same.  As I learn about my pain and suffering, and then I see you in pain and suffering, I can easily put myself in your place.  I’ve felt your suffering.  If I know myself well enough, I can project myself into your situation and know exactly how I would feel.

This is the birth of compassion.  This may be why in Buddhism, wisdom and compassion and developed at the same time. 

True Self and No Self

Anyone familiar with the spiritual writings of India will notice two distinct lines of thought.  There is the Vedanta line, which says that there is a true, unchanging, permanent self.  Then there is the Buddhist camp, which says there is in fact no self.  I once asked Shinzen Young, a meditation teacher, and his answer was they had the same experience, but half the holy seers called it the true self and half called it the no self. 

The key to fully understanding this mystery lies in long practice, and a close look at the teachings of Buddhism and Vedanta.  Here is an excerpt from Huang Po, which is part of his brilliant summation of Buddha nature:

All the Buddhas and all sentient beings are nothing but the One Mind, beside which nothing exists. This Mind, which is without beginning, is unborn and indestructible. It is not green nor yellow, and has neither form nor appearance. It does not belong to the categories of things which exist or do not exist, nor can it be thought of in terms of new or old. It is neither long nor short, big nor small, for it transcends all limits, measures, names, traces and comparisons. It is that which you see before you - begin to reason about it and you at once fall into error. It is like the boundless void which cannot be fathomed or measured. The One Mind alone is the Buddha, and there is no distinction between the Buddha and sentient things, but that sentient beings are attached to forms and so seek externally for Buddhahood.  

Now compare this excerpt from a modern Vedanta teacher, Ananda Wood:

Each Advaita prakriya (method) goes through this reflective and dissolving process, including
the witness and the consciousness prakriyas that we have been discussing. The witness prakriya is like ‘using a thorn to get rid of a thorn’. The ‘witness’ concept is like a big thorn, used to remove the little thorn of petty ego. The big thorn must come out as well, to achieve its purpose. But the same applies to the concept of ‘consciousness’ and to any other idea. ‘Consciousness’is also a big thorn, even bigger than the ‘witness’. It is not just the witness concept that must get utterly dissolved, in order to reach truth. So must the idea of consciousness – appearing in any form, signified by any name, intuited through any quality. In truth itself, not the slightest trace of ideation can remain.

Vedanta teaches that there are two types of Brahman, or ultimate reality: saguna Brahman and nirguna Brahman.  Sa- means with and nir- means without.  The gunas are the fundamental threads of reality--- sattva, rajas, and tamas.  Saguna means with attributes, and nirguna means without attributes.  Nirguna Brahman is real Brahman, and in Vedanta, Atman, or the individual soul, is Brahman.  So the true self, or atman, is nirguna Brahman, or Brahman without attributes.  Compare this to Huang Po’s one mind which is without form.

Now this is a fine intellectual theory, how can it help our practice? 

All the wise seers of India agree that the end of suffering, or happiness, is not found in the world of names or forms, or material objects.  Discovering this is the first Noble Truth: there is suffering.  In the experience of spiritual seekers, this often comes as a great disappointment or dark night of the soul.  As Huang Po says, ordinary people seek externally (in the world of objects and things, including mental objects and things) for Buddha.  

Any object is impermanent, unsatisfying, and not self.  This means that anything we can see, hear, feel, taste, smell, think about or feel is an object and will not provide us with what we are looking for.  This includes any and all states of mind, no matter how profound: bliss, feelings of oneness, feelings of peace and contentment, these are all objects (thoughts/feelings) that cannot last or provide lasting happiness.  Knowing this, we can immediately avoid many traps that seekers fall in, the largest trap being the idea that we can achieve a certain experience or mind state that will solve all our problems. 

Nowhere to Dwell

I've been thinking and meditating lately on the concept of anatta, or no self.  This seems counter-intuitive to Westerners like me, unless you seriously consider it.

Let's say I'm angry.  Alright, where is the anger exactly?  There it is, it is a hot sensation in my body, my vision is clear and focused, and my thoughts are repeating what made me angry to begin with.  But more properly, isn't it the body and the mind that are angry, where "I" am actually watching it all?

Simply put, there is nowhere to hang anything on.  There is no hook to hang labels such as "angry", "human," or even "Buddhist."

Let's say I'm holding a golden lion in my palm.  I reach my arm out to you so you can see it.  There is the lion, it is on my palm.  We can try to say it is like this, the palm is the self and the lion is whatever we want to attach to it.  But let's examine this more closely.  The lion is on the palm, the palm is on the arm.  The arm is on the body.  The body is on the ground.

All this hangs is in consciousness.  But consciousness, if you look closely, has no name or form.  It is not red or blue, it doesn't make any sounds, it is not sweet or sour.  Where is there then to hang any labels, or an idea of self?