Abandon Hope (February 2023, Part 2)

cont. from page 1

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It can be easily seen why there is no Yoga church. The dogma, ritual, and priestcraft so necessary to Christianity have no place in Yoga. There is only the teacher who passes on what they have realized, pointing the way to follow in their footsteps. Church religions are dual in nature — the worshipper and the worshipped, the clergy and the laity — while the science of union deals with one force (despite the fact that the samkhya philosophy usually associated with Yoga starts from a limited dual premise). Union is union; there are not two in such union.

Any sectarianism or denominational narrowness would be impossible in this three-tier Yoga religion. Anyone can be a yogi; anyone can attain union. In a sense, there have been yogis in every religion, very often looked down upon or persecuted as being roadblocks in the business of church religion — in other words, the martyrs of all faiths.

Practically all the great teachers I have met were beyond any sectarian feeling, often having no formal religion of their own. Mankind is their religion; all beings are themselves. This represents a high level of Yoga, implying fulfillment of the three steps, the moral, the outer-physical, and the inner leading to superconsciousness. One who has mastered these steps is on their way to being a god and is the greatest influence mankind can know. The saint is, by definition, good. The sage goes far beyond this and represents the top level in the three-stage development of Yoga.

There are many types of Buddhism in the world, each of which exists at several levels. The Buddha’s original enlightenment experience, which he sought to pass along, was far deeper than most want to go. (The average person is not searching for the Ultimate Truth of Being, but for a comfortable, secure life.) Accordingly, through his forty-nine-year ministry after his enlightenment, during which he set in motion his marvelously thorough teaching, the Buddha generally dealt with aspects of truth rather than the whole. This accommodation meant to bring along the members of the sangha (Buddhist community) bit by bit until they were ready to receive — and experience — the ultimate teaching. True Buddhist teaching is wonderfully complete. What is lacking is not in the teaching, but in the ability of followers to assimilate it.

The Buddhism we find today usually deviates greatly from the master’s teaching. The Buddhism of Japan has been mixed with Shinto and influenced by the characteristics of the Japanese people, which are almost diametrically opposed to those of Buddha’s own Indian followers. The Japanese and Chinese people do not have the metaphysical leanings of the Indian people, the genius that led to the Upanishads, the Bhagavad Gita, the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, and the six involved darshanas (or philosophical systems) of India. A Ramakrishna, a Yogi Vasistha, a Ramana Maharshi, or a poet-devotee such as Kabir would be unthinkable in Eastern Asia, where the devotional aspects do not have the appeal that we find in India.

On the other hand, the Chinese and Japanese have a hardworking practicality with great vitality, which made possible Taoism and Zen Buddhism, neither Indian in makeup. In Japan we have the largest sect, Jodo Shinshu, with its total dependence on “the other power,” a complete surrender to the Buddha of Infinite Light, who will take the true believer to the Western Paradise, where conditions for reaching Enlightenment will be more favorable than on this planet’s suffering premises. Jodo is a beautiful belief, and very effective, with its simple formula of constant repetition of “Hail to the Buddha of Infinite Light” (Namu Amida Butsu), spoken from a heart emptied of all but devotion.

Yet this is the direct opposite of the Buddhism taught by the Buddha. He said, “Work out your own salvation” and “Believe only your own experience.” “Be a lamp unto yourselves” meant no reliance on any other, no matter how exalted. This is not egocentric; in Buddhism there truly is no other.

The Buddhism we find in Taiwan, China, Japan, and Tibet differs greatly from the master’s teaching. Probably only Sri Lanka and Burma, with possibly a few other isolated places, still preserve the “pessimistic” search for nirvana (meaning “extinction,” but not in the ordinary sense) that was the basis of the Buddha’s Way.

Gautama Buddha pointed to three universals where beings are concerned: impermanence (anicca), suffering (dukkha), and no-soul no-entity (anatman). The first two are easy for anyone to understand, for no thinking person will deny impermanence and suffering, evidence of which is constantly around us. The anatman is more difficult to grasp. Without knowing the meaning of “dependent origination,” one cannot understand that all things — and individual beings — stand in relationship to each other. Buddhism expresses this as “That arising, this arises.” All is relative, even consciousness, and depends on conditions. This effectively does away with any “absolute.” In Buddhism there is no transcendental Buddha.

The anatman teaching is a truth that belies what we have learned in the other religions, theistically inclined, where we have been comforted in the thought that we had “an immortal soul,” which could be saved by “being good.” Buddhism does away with the idea of “divine grace,” dealing always in cause and effect. There is no result without something putting it into motion. In Buddhism, the idea of a Creator God would, of necessity, call for a previous cause to account for the deity. Consequently, in Buddhism, we must think of time as circular rather than extending from here to there, with beginning and end.

The Buddha is usually referred to as the “Compassionate Buddha,” and so he concentrated on pointing out the way to end suffering. This suffering is not merely the “pain” in the pleasure-pain syndrome. The Buddha said that in the long run, pleasure, too, is suffering. Suffering really means the pain of being separated from our true identity. Individualism, which we prize so much, is the best example of this separation.

So, he taught the “Four Noble Truths,” which had to do with the origin of suffering and the way to follow the road to the extinction of suffering. The Buddha had no theories and no speculative philosophy. From his great enlightenment he taught the steps to end suffering in an entirely pragmatic manner, ending it not only for this lifetime but for all time to come.

Impermanence, suffering, and no-soul no-entity are interrelated. In our own everyday lives, our inability to accept impermanence — because things are going well now, we assume they always will, and because our young love is beautiful, we feel they will always be — brings suffering. And our identification with an “I” when truly there is no abiding “I” also makes for immeasurable suffering.

The purpose of this chapter, however, is not to get into the Four Noble Truths the Buddha taught, or his Eightfold Path, but to point out why, like Yoga, Buddhism is a three-tiered religion that goes two steps beyond most religions. The Buddha was not interested in teaching his followers how to be good and go to heaven. He admitted there are many heavens but said life there is also impermanent and eventually one will fall to earth again “like a spent arrow,” having made no progress toward a permanent and abiding salvation.

The three steps of Buddhism might be called: 1) sila (conduct-morality), 2) dhyana-samadhi (meditation carried to the deepest level), and 3) prajna (the practice of wisdom). The first, so wonderfully stated in the Buddha’s dynamic Dhammapada, is the moral teaching of all religions. He spoke with great care and thoroughness, using constant repetition to drive home the necessity of proper conduct, mental and physical, as the prerequisite for traveling the road to enlightenment — much as in Raja Yoga.

The Buddha told his followers not to dispute, nor make uncomfortable, those who were not ready to understand. And he said it was useless to discuss Buddhism at any length with one who was not himself meditating. The intellect simply cannot handle the realization. One must actually experience it in the body-mind continuum we refer to as “ourselves.” As the Chinese say, “You cannot appease your hunger by reading a menu.” Only those meditating and practicing the way can advance along the path of dhyana (meditation) to samadhi, the constant truth-awareness that Zen adepts refer to as “24-hour Zen.” This second step takes us, without the physical disciplines that are a preliminary to it in Yoga, to the same level Patanjali described as the culmination of Raja Yoga. In Buddhism there is yet another step, perhaps unique in the history of religious teaching.

This is the practice of prajna (wisdom). The great Sixth Patriarch of Zen, Huineng, was untutored and illiterate throughout his life, yet all subsequent Zen schools descend directly from him. Before he even shaved his head to become a monk, he had demonstrated the function of prajna wisdom very clearly. When he had been a simple woodcutter, he one day heard a recitation of the Diamond Sutra, a Buddhist scripture, and upon hearing the single line, “The mind (hsin in Chinese, meaning heart-mind-spirit) that abides no-where,” he realized enlightenment. This is a perfect example of the prajna wisdom shining forth by its own light (Zen uses the expression, “Show me your face before you were born.”) — not blocked by conceptual thinking, sentiment, or illusion.

I don’t want to go into a discussion of the Alaya Vijnana, the Eighth Consciousness (the great storehouse), but it is a shining example of the mirror brightness manifesting far beyond the power of any individual intellect. There have been many occasions in Zen history when a carelessly thrown tile striking bamboo, or the sudden sound of the bottom dropping out of a water cask, have brought this shining wisdom to the surface and enabled the monk (or layman) to experience the most profound enlightenment.

We are told of the three weeks of ecstasy experienced by Shakyamuni (the Buddha) himself when, after emerging from four levels of meditation, he saw the morning star and experienced his complete enlightenment. Here we have the prajna wisdom unblocked, shining forth by its own light and cognized as bliss. All Yoga and Buddhist masters have stressed that bliss is man’s essential nature.

The third step, the manifesting of the prajna function — which Huineng stressed was as important as the practice of dhyana-samadhi, the second step — is unique in Buddhism. When there is unconditioned reflex action and reaction, and when we speak, sleep, eat, and eliminate spontaneously, without hang-up, we are demonstrating the way of “the true man of no title,” as Zen Master Rinzai called him. This is prajna wisdom, and the functioning of it is the beginning of true life. Perhaps this is the meaning of the incident where the Buddha held up a flower, and only Mahakasyapa in the great assembly understood the meaning of the gesture. The others were lost in the object, the flower, and so the victims of reasoning. Only great Kasyapa realized “that” which held up the flower. This was the functioning of the prajna wisdom.

In spiritual practice it depends on how far we want to go. If we are concerned with simple theological salvation, most any religion will give it to us, along with a measure of contentment. But if we truly want to experience ultimates, I believe we will have to tread one of the paths of Yoga or the way of Buddhism to reach where we are going. This is not for the timid or the weak.