Shobogenzo Ch20 (III) - Kokyo - The Clear Mirror

I've noticed that both sutras and zen writings contain a lot of exaggeration and hyperbole. The exaggeration and hyperbole sometimes hint at the possibility of something like 'super powers' that can result from enlightenment.

Here’s an example from Yuanwu, who I’ve been reading recently:

When the great Zen masters went into action, they were like dragons galloping and tigers charging: heaven and earth turned, and nothing could stop their revivifying people.

They penetrated directly through and made themselves completely unobstructed twenty-four hours a day, with their realization pervading in all directions, rolling up and rolling out, capturing and releasing.

I think Yuanwu is describing the actions of past Zen masters that had realized the clear mirror.

I can't say I've ever had much faith in the notion of ‘super powers’. But let's face it, we all at some time or another hope for a miracle solution that will rescue or redeem us from the obvious unfairness, indifference and banality that we witness and experience in life. 

In each case, we typically exert ourselves to assert self in opposition to what is. But by opposing reality we increase separation and increase the strength of the walls that separate us.

The irony in most of these efforts is that, beyond the basic needs for survival, each desire boils down to the same one: Not to be separate. But the habits engrained in us by society are the opposite of what’s necessary to produce the desired effect.

To realize the clear mirror is to accept the entirety of the universe as self. All of it. Even the things that make us uncomfortable, things that cause suffering, pain, sickness and death. We accept the discomfort, pain, the unjustness, our own 'guilt' and ineffectiveness. The daily struggles and boredom. 

A lot of what we learn as a function of sitting brings us closer to realizing the clear mirror. During zazen:

- We learn that mind percieves and processes experience. We learn that mind functions not only to generate thoughts and emotions but also is the source of awareness that is our experience of emptiness and all things. 

- We learn to watch our own minds and discover that mind contains the seeds for everything that is expressed in the universe. 

- We realize that everything in existence is from the same universal source.

- We learn to accept the things we can't change with equanimity. 

When we accept the entirety of the universe as self, the result is not ‘self’ in the typical sense, no-self or non-self. Self expands to include everything and everyone. 

What realization of the clear mirror results in is nothing that can be defined as personal success according the standards set forth by society. But I think it can result in a sort of 'super power', namely action motivated by an intuitive wisdom and compassion that is as untainted by views as I think a human being can get.

Shobogenzo Ch 20 (II) Kokyo - The Clear Mirror: Mirror Mirror...

"Mirror mirror on the wall
Who is the fairest of them all?"



So asks the Queen, Snow White's stepmother. When I first heard this fairy tale as a kid, I'm sure I identified with Snow White and not the stepmother. Because especially at that age we tend not to think of self as a potentially 'bad' person. But the real lesson in the fairy tale is found in the part about the stepmother.

The stepmother is looking for affirmation or verification of her sense of self by asking the mirror. It's a habitual way of being I think everyone falls prey to. In fact, society tries to train us to live this way from the time we're born. But to live the richest possible life, to live to our full potential whatever our dharma and karma is, using the mirror to affirm our sense of self is backwards. Many of the lessons in zen try to show us that. Beginning with the white wall in zazen.

The word 'fair' is an interesting one especially in this context. Fair can mean either beautiful or in accordance with merit, effort or significance. As long as we hold onto the view of a self separate from the rest of the world, life isn't always going to be fair.

We typically ask the mirror, which is the ten thousand things, to verify our sense of self. We tend to become frustrated, sad, angry and resentful when they don't affirm us. We react to defend our sense of self. With these reactions we build walls around self that prevent us from fully experiencing the beauty in the universe, the ten thousand things and even our selves.

Being a clear mirror is to be un-self conscious. Self becomes fluid and flexible reaching out and actting to verify and experience the beauty in all things. When we incorporate the clear mirror into our way of being, it's not like we don't become frustrated, sad, angry and/or resentful anymore, but the trigger of those emotions is different, the emotions don't arise in an effort to defend the sense of self. We remain open and experience things more fully. And we learn to respond, instead of react.


The lesson in Snow White is this:

The Queen was being terribly unfair. But the person the Queen was the most unfair to was herself. While the Queen was suffering and worrying about her own beauty all the time, and probably how people would judge based on appearance, even when circumstances were treating her well, she was missing out on the real beauty in life.

Image from: Weirdwebbed. 

Shobogenzo Ch20 (I) Kokyo - The Eternal Mirror

I'm starting this one with a joke...

How many buddhas does it take to change a lightbulb?



Here's at least one possible answer:

All the buddhas in the three times and ten directions aren't enough. That's why the void is typically thought of as dark.

 ...And some Zen masters might consider it a good lesson to just keep shooting out the lights.

 ...I also could've said all the buddhas in the three times and ten directions are too contented with things as they are.

Typically that's not how life works though. And I don't think life worked that way for Śākymuni Buddha or Dogen either. When we're not on the zafu we're confronted by the ten thousand things and we react to them with aversion and attachment depending on some yet to be discovered and published mathematical function of our dharma and karma.

Our reactions as we encounter the ten thousand things are the eternal mirror and are a reflection of self. Our minds react to the ten thousand things because we think of ourselves as separate from them. As long as mind defines itself in terms of self and separation, our mind reacts rather than responds creating unnecessary psychological suffering and stress for ourselves and those around us.

It's obvious that we can't always change the aspects of reality that we're unhappy with. But most of us spend a lot of energy worrying about and getting stressed out by the big things we'd like to change. A lot of us react by substituting consumer placebos to help us feel better about ourselves. And a lot of us procrastinate on the smaller things that can make reality a nicer place to be. Things like changing a lightbulb.

Luckily it's usually pretty straightforward to change a lightbulb. Admittedly training our minds to allow us to change lightbulbs without a fuss might be more difficult.

An extra offering in the spirit of Zen tradition:

Reflections: The Five Eyes and Dogen's True Dharma Eye Treasury

I've been wanting to tell folks about a discovery that caused a bit more of the Shobogenzo fall into place for me. I intended to write about it as soon as I got back from this fall's Genzo-e on Komyō, Radiant Brightness, but work and the holidays have kept me from writing.

At the Genzo-e Okumura mentioned the Five Eyes. Because the Shobogenzo is called "The True Dharma Eye Treasury" when I got back I pulled up what I could about the Five Eyes. Here's a summary.

The Five Eyes* are:


The human eye - our physical eye, which, while better than the eye of a barnacle, only sees a limited range of light in the electromagnetic spectrum. This means a lot more comes and goes in the world than we perceive. We can't completely know reality because our perceptions are limited. Then again, the question arises, how much do we need to know? Most of us survive okay for the typical duration of a human life span.

The divine or heavenly eye - the divine eye is an eye with the obstructions removed. Because the divine eye is free of limitations it can see anything and everything. The divine eye can be experienced during sitting. In addition, because telescopes, microscopes and a variety of scientific instrumentation give humans the power to perceive beyond the normal limits of the physical eye, it has been suggested these instruments can confer the divine eye. [Note: scientific instrumentation only enhances perceptions of a single 'channel'. And the sight conferred by scientific instrumentation typically doesn't get integrated into experience. So intellectual understanding of another dimension or perspective doesn't necessarily imply we have fully incorporated that dimension or perspective into our lives. The points that I'm trying to make are that (a) the average scientist doesn't experience what can be experienced during sitting and (b) in science and beyond sitting, intellectual understanding falls substantially short of experiential understanding and integration.]


The wisdom eye - the eye that sees the empty nature of phenomena and form. [For example see my 'Mind Cannot Be Grasped' posts on Shobogenzo Chapters 18 & 19.] Experiencing the bliss of emptiness during sitting and recognizing the empty nature of phenomena is freeing, because a person is no longer reflexively driven by the fears and stresses arising from the unsatisfactory aspects of life that are a natural byproduct of living.


The dharma eye - the eye of the Bodhisattva. The dharma eye is the manifestation of emptiness in form or as close to emptiness in form as it's possible to get outside of sitting. The dharma eye arises, at least in part, from the realization that the experience of emptiness during sitting and the motivation for practice and enlightenment arise out of phenomena and form. To go one step further, emptiness however blissful is also phenomenological and, therefore, empty. With this realization it seems obvious that each dharma is reality for the person experiencing it, even though each dharma is a construct of delusion. I can't see how recognition of this basic truth could fail to be accompanied by unconditional compassion.

The buddha eye - the buddha-eye integrates the sight provided by the previous four eyes at their most advanced functioning. I plan on writing more about my thoughts on the buddha eye in a separate post. (Hopefully in the near, rather than distant, future.)

Anyway...

I suspect many of you already know about the Five Eyes. For me, learning about the Five Eyes was a bit of a Doh! insight. To me it implies that Dogen wrote the Shobogenzo not only to instill compassion, but also as guidebook for people motivated by compassion -- even though Dogen, like me lately, seems to have realized that actions based on compassion are based on views and judgements and, therefore, that actions based on compassion have the potential to do as much harm as good -- a topic that admittedly continues to perplex me... But I have about three quarters more of the Shobogenzo to go.



 *A more in depth intellectual but fun description of the Five Eyes can be found at: http://www.baus.org/baus/library/5eyese.html

Reflections: Ceremony of Aid

Today my Sangha performed a Ceremony of Aid. This ceremony usually includes two repetitions of Heart of Perfect Wisdom and five repetitions of Ten-Verse Kannon Sutra. During the Ten-Verse Kannon Sutra prostrations are made during the second, third, and fourth repetitions. We honor that within each of us that is eternally joyous, selfless, pure and free from the defilements that are part of our inheritance being the imperfect human beings that we are. This is followed by what sometimes seems like innumerable repetitions of the Disaster-Preventing Dharani during which people approach the altar to make offerings of incense and donations and, then, the Ceremony of Aid Dedication which for informative reasons I've placed at the top: 

Ceremony of Aid Dedication:

Today we have offered incense, candles, fruit, grain and tea, chanted sutra and dharani.

Whatever merit comes to us through these offerings

We now turn over to those suffering from hunger and want.

May your hunger be satisfied!

May your suffering cease!

May all beings attain Buddhahood!

Ten directions, three worlds,
All Buddhas, Bodhisattva-mahasattvas
Maha Prajna Paramita.

Heart of Perfect Wisdom

(Prajña Paramita Hridaya)

The Bodhisattva of Compassion

from the depths of prajña wisdom

saw the emptiness of all five skandhas

and sundered the bonds that cause all suffering.

Know then :

Form here is only emptiness ;

emptiness only form.

Form is no other than emptiness ;

emptiness no other than form.

Feeling, thought, and choice—

consciousness itself—

are the same as this.

Dharmas here are empty ;

all are the primal void.

None are born or die,

nor are they stained or pure,

nor do they wax or wane.

So in emptiness no form,

no feeling, thought, or choice,

nor is there consciousness.

No eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, mind,

no color, sound, smell, taste, touch,

or what the mind takes hold of,

nor even act of sensing.

No ignorance or end of it,

nor all that comes of ignorance :

No withering, no death, no end of them.

Nor is there pain, or cause of pain,

or cease in pain,

or noble path to lead from pain ;

not even wisdom to attain :

Attainment too is emptiness.

So know that the Bodhisattva,

holding to nothing whatever,

but dwelling in prajña wisdom,

is freed of delusive hindrance,

rid of the fear bred by it,

and reaches clearest nirvana.

All buddhas of past and present,

buddhas of future time,

through faith in prajña wisdom,

come to full enlightenment.

Know then the great dharani,

the radiant, peerless mantra,

the supreme, unfailing mantra,

the Prajña Paramita,

whose words allay all pain.

This is highest wisdom,

true beyond all doubt ;

know and proclaim its truth :

Gate, gate

paragate

parasamgate

bodhi, svaha!

Ten-Verse Kannon Sutra

(Emmei Jikku Kannon Gyo):

Kanzeon !

Praise to Buddha !

All are one with Buddha ;

all awake to Buddha.

Buddha, Dharma, Sangha—

eternal, joyous, selfless, pure.

Through the day Kanzeon—

through the night Kanzeon.

This moment arises from Mind ;

this moment itself is Mind.

Shosai Myokichijo Darani

(Disaster-Preventing Dharani):

No mo san man da

moto nan

oha ra chi koto sha

sono nan to ji to

en

gya gya

gya ki gya ki

un nun

shifu ra shifu ra

hara shifu ra hara shifu ra

chishu sa chishu sa

chishu ri chishu ri

sowa ja sowa ja

sen chi gya

shiri ei so mo ko.

Although the Disaster-Preventing Dharani is chanted without translation its power said to depend more on its sounds. Here is one translation of questionable accuracy I copied from About.com. Buddhism:

The incomparable Buddha-power that banishes suffering. Om! The Buddha of reality, wisdom, Nirvana! Light! Light! Great light! With no categories, this mysterious power saves all beings; suffering goes, happiness comes, Swaha!

Link to the Rochester Zen Center's Site where folks can find both a pdf version of the Chant Book and the Chants themselves in mp3 format.  

Reflections: Mind Cannot be Grasped (IV) and Why Dogen Went to China

The phrase 'Mind Cannot be Grasped', the title of Shobogenzo Chapters 18 and 19, is from the Diamond Sutra. An implication of the Diamond Sutra I'm still processing is that, in any given moment, the best way to keep the Four Vows, including 'Beings are numberless, I vow to save them' is to be in the moment without projecting a self onto the moment and simply responding to each moment as it arises. And I can see how living each moment by dropping off our expectations for the moment allows the energies of Indra's net to pass through us in a manner that causes the least obstruction and suffering for ourselves and others.

But 'Buddha mind', 'true self' or 'no-self' is unself-conscious. As I understand it 'Buddha mind' is pure awareness and perception prior to thinking, interpretation or judgement. Even the mind detecting Buddha mind when it arises, or the attempt to attain or maintain Buddha mind, is self-conscious and isn't Buddha mind.

In addition, the unself-conscious state is not acting selfless. To act selfless, in the conventional sense, a person would have to have a sense of self too.

Living as a hermit monk in the mountains of China doesn't guarantee Buddha mind either. And once we're born we have a place as a node in Indra's net and I think non-action or removing oneself to a mountain monastery also sends ripples through the energy field that can't be predicted as much as we might hope, even though it might grant some peace of mind. My own experience going to Antaiji and the reactions of some friends and family are an example from my own experience.



Here's why I'm still processing:

For awhile now I've had the feeling that being a bodhisattva and being a buddha aren't necessarily the same thing.

While I may be projecting myself onto the Shobogenzo, my understanding is that a similiar conviction is what motivated Dogen to go to China. 'Buddha mind' or unself-conscious no-self can't be the whole story. If it were the whole story then practice, the precepts, and the eight-fold path would be pointless for the enlightened being.

The bodhisattva, seeing Indra's net, can't leave the world and its suffering. This realization appears to me to be the motivation for practice based on enlightenment. Practice, following the precepts and the eight-fold path from an enlightened perspective, ie with an understanding of Indra's net and the causes of suffering is the direction that guides us forward in time. From this perspective I can see why Dogen felt such a reverence for the Buddha-dharma and practice.

I have to admit, to some extent, the Diamond Sutra has felt like I've been handed Kryptonite because dropping off expectations for the moment and present moment awareness is actually something I've been naturally good at and has been a source of peace and strength for me. I've become self-conscious about what came easily for me in ignorance. Was Dogen similarly plagued? I have no way of knowing. But here is my working strategy for the moment: Trusting in practice is my direction. And zazen gives us practice in dropping off thinking mind and returning to the ground that is emptiness and awareness of 'Now'.

Not coming or going, the pure awareness and perception that is Buddha mind is always present. The entity that is 'me' only has to get out of the way. I think that trusting in practice is a good way to allow that to happen.


*****************************************

Haiku for these Chapters:

Mind with no abode —
Buddha throughout the three times
And ten directions.

Constantly the mind
Comes, goes, living and dying —
Constantly the earth.

Reflections: Mind Cannot Be Grasped (III) - A Gatha

Buddha mind is just connecting. Connecting with what is present.

Connecting without expectation. Connecting without expectation for the moment.

Connecting without trying to project a self onto the moment, be it past self, present self, future self, or Buddha self.

Connecting with now.




Reminds me of Dogen :

Driving ourselves to practice and experience the myriad dharmas is delusion.

When the myriad dharmas actively practice and experience ourselves, that is the state of realization.

Reflections: Mind Cannot Be Grasped (II) — Mind like the Sky

The mind likes to make and tell stories. But what I've begun to sense as I've gotten further into the Shobogenzo is that the thoughts and stories that underlie behavior and mind-state from moment to moment, including the story of a permanent self, are like clouds drifting through the sky — the sky of awareness.

The more I sit the more it seems like it's not the story of 'self' or any other story that's permanent, rather it's this awareness, or our awareness of this, that we sometimes tap into while sitting that's the constant presence. We are this awareness more than any specific story. Moreover, I think our ability to be content and happy depends on our ability to be present within this awareness.

Nonetheless making and telling stories is one of the functions of the brain. The brain takes what it perceives in each sensory system and tries to organize the different types of information into a unified picture that serves as the basis for a plan of action. Some of stories are necessary for our survival. The extent to which that's true, however, appears to me to be only a fraction of what our mind would like us to believe.

I get the sense that the more tightly we grasp onto or after stories, the more separation we create and this separation leads to suffering. Stories are typically self-centered and limited by our tendency to selectively attend to those bits of reality that, according to our stories, are most important to us. The resulting disconnect between the stories and reality creates an almost continual sense of dissatisfaction with things as they are. That sense of dissatisfaction functions a bit like a negative feedback loop that provides the motivation or drive for corrective adjustments (or the setting of goals) that aim to bring things in line — in line with our stories about self.

It not that 'self' doesn't exist. We have bodies and minds to prove it. And it's not that stories should be, or even can be, eliminated. I think our stories are part of what makes the experience of being human beautiful. Rather with zazen I think it's possible to relax our tendency to grasp as we begin to trust the constancy of awareness. The sense that I get is that trusting in awareness allows 'self' to be more flexible by being more present and in tune with our immediate reality. Trusting in awareness allows us to see more of the whole sky.

I admit I still have my stories. Right now, all things considered, my trust in this awareness feels like the most important one.

Reflections: Mind Cannot Be Grasped (I)

In any given moment the extent to which we are able to let go of our expectations for that moment determines our ability to access peace, contentment, freedom and happiness in that moment.

It's not that we shouldn't have thoughts, goals, dreams and hopes for the future, it's the nature of the mind to create them. Society capitalizes on that tendency. It's also not that conditions and circumstances should be denied if they are less than perfect or that we shouldn't make an effort to improve conditions and circumstances if we can. But it is my current sense that the gate to contentment and happiness can only ever be found in the present, in the here and now, irrespective of conditions and circumstances.

In each moment we have a choice of whether we are going to attribute the presence or, more usually, absence of contentment and happiness during the specific moment to external conditions and circumstances beyond our momentary control or whether we are willing to take responsibility for our own state of mind by relaxing our expectations for the moment and allowing ourselves to be.

Zazen is a good way to learn how to drop off expectations for the moment and take responsibility for our state of mind. There is no good sitting or bad sitting. Zazen is just sitting, sitting without expectation of how zazen should be and, in fact, can be... when we let go of our expectations during any given round of zazen.

A Poem: For September

September skies and a mist hanging over the grass tug me back towards the lost and lonely, though that isn't exactly the truth.

Something in me knows the time will soon come to wave goodbye one by one to all things summer, reposition the clothes in the closet, all the while recognizing I have not divested myself of enough.

The small losses are a sonar against which I ping.

I count my blessings only to trade them. I count my blessings to give them away.

Prayer flags flap in the blue skies of higher altitudes and I ask what are the essential fictions?

After all these years solitude is a well-worn jacket I stuff my fists into. My favorite. The first one hanging ready on the peg.

I will set out my boots for a serious waterproofing.

It's a bit of a contradiction, but the crisp air of September departures encourages my presence as the one who remains.