Gateway To Eastern Philosophy & Religion (November 2014)

From the book Gateway to Eastern Philosophy & Religion, excerpted and reprinted with permission from Good Karma Publishing, and available on www.gkpub.com.

~ Hua-Yen ~

I’m just going to quote and skip around because there’s so much material from China. Hua-Yen (Kegon in Japanese) is a Buddhist philosophy, and I think it’s the deepest philosophy I’ve ever come across. The following illustrates the essence of Hua-Yen philosophy. “When one is absorbed by all, one penetrates into all. When all is absorbed by one, one penetrates into one. When one is absorbed by one, one penetrates into one. When all is absorbed by all, all penetrates into all.” Hua-Yen is the Buddhist philosophy of totality.

One time the daughter of the Empress asked one the great teachers of Hua-Yen to enlighten her. So he placed a candle in the center of the table, he placed mirrors under the candle, on top of the candle, and around the candle. It took him several days to set this up on all sides. There were ten directions. Here was the candle in the center, and the candle was reflected in every mirror. But also reflected in every mirror was every other mirror reflecting every other mirror with a candle to eternity. It’s mind boggling, isn’t it? You couldn’t say, “This mirror has the reflection of the candle, but this mirror has the reflection of this mirror, and so forth.” It is said that the Empress’s daughter was enlightened by that demonstration. I told that story to a graduate philosophy class at the University of Southern California, and the man in charge didn’t understand it at all. He said to the class after hearing the example, questioning the concept of enlightenment, “Well, is anybody enlightened?”

There is another story that illustrates Hua-Yen philosophy. If you take away a statue of a gilded lion, there is no lion. But if you take away the lion, the gold doesn’t have any form, and it can’t appear. The gold has to appear in some form. And that form (of the gilded lion) is only possible if it is made up of gold. This is a good example of creation, with essence and function.

Do you get the point? He’s actually talking about the absolute and the relative. The absolute can only exist if it manifests in the relative, the relative can only exist if it is, in essence, the absolute. I hate to spell it out like that because it spoils it. That’s a very famous example, and I think it’s wonderful. A clay statue basically is clay. It is a statue. But if you take away the statue, how can you see the clay? But if you take away the clay, how can you see the statue? This is totality. Hua-Yen.

∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞

~ Confucius ~

Confucius also spoke of Jen, human heartedness. Confucius said the most important thing is human heartedness. He believed in the power of inner sincerity. Here is a quotation from Confucius, “The life of the moral man is plain and yet it is not unattractive. It is simple and yet full of grace. It is easy and yet methodical. He knows that the accomplishment of great things consists in doing small things well, and that great effects are produced by small causes. He knows the evidence and reality of what cannot be perceived by the senses.”

Is there anything in Confucius’ statement you could quarrel with? Do you know anybody who has spoken more truth than Confucius? The life of the moral man is plain and yet it is not unattractive. He’s saying that great things are produced by doing small things. If you do small things well, great things are done. He also knows the evidence and reality of what cannot be perceived by the senses. This is understandable. I hear sound waves from the radio but I can’t see them. To a primitive person, the sounds coming from the radio would be magic, wouldn’t they?

There are many stories of how Confucius went to Lao-tzu to talk to him. Lao-tzu lived at the same time as Confucius. In fact, we don’t even know if there was a Lao-tzu because Lao-tzu has to do with a Master, almost a cumulative Master. Lao-tzu said, “He who wants to spring, first must crouch. Push down to break attachment and lift. If something is heavy, don’t try to lift it, push down on it. He who stands on tip toe weakens himself.”

Chuang-tzu is to Lao-tzu what Plato is to Socrates. Chuang-tzu said, “The wise man considers both sides of the question without partiality, sees them both in the light of Tao. This is called following two courses at once. Can a man cling only to heaven and not to earth? They are correlative. To know one is to know the other. To refuse one, is to refuse both.” Can you only live in oneness? You have to live in this world, too. Chuang-tzu went on, “Can a man cling to the positive without any negative? If he claims to do so, he is either a rogue or a mad man.” Chuang-tzu also said, “Where the fountains of passion lie deep, the heavenly springs are soon dry.” One of Chuang-tzu’s most famous statements is the following, “Only the true man can have true knowledge.” My Indian teacher once was asked, “Can you reach enlightenment through devotion?” He said, “You’ve got it backwards. Only the enlightened man is capable of devotion.” Lao-tzu said, “To realize that knowledge is ignorance; this is a noble insight. To regard our ignorance as knowledge, this is mental disease.” So some of us are diseased. There are so many stories along this line.

The essence of Chinese life is Ching Chi Shen. In the I Ching, Ching is essence. Ching is also male semen. There is something very deep in that connection. Essence is the same thing that creates life, the semen. Chi, as you know, compares to Universal Energy or Divine Energy. Shen is spirit. In Ching Chi Shen we have Essence, Energy, Spirit. Both T’ai Chi Chih and T’ai Chi Chuan unite the individual Chi with Universal energy.

∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞

~ Zen ~

A Zen Master was asked, “Is the enlightened man subject to the law of causality?” There’ve been many, many answers to that. [Paul] Reps, in good Zen fashion, answered it, not by saying “He is or isn’t,” but by saying: “The enlightened man is One with the law of causality.”

One great Zen teacher had a monastery and gave talks on weekends. More and more people came for the talks. He grew disgusted with this. Zen isn’t done through talk. So he closed up the monastery and went to live under a bridge in Kyoto, which he shared with the other beggars there. Finally, someone showed him how to collect rice, which had been thrown away, and make it into rice vinegar. That way he’d eat each day because of the small amount of money he made. He deliberately lived this life under the bridge. It gets cold in Kyoto. There, instead of talking to people, he spent his time working on the spirit body. This is a Zen teacher, not a Taoist teacher.

One of his disciples found him under the bridge and said, “Master, let me come and live with you.” The Master replied, “You couldn’t live this life.” “Let me try,” asked the disciple. “O.K.,” said the Master, “If you can get through one day, I’ll take you back as a disciple.” That night one of the beggars died. The next morning the Master said, “Well, we won’t have to go begging today. We can eat his food, the food he had collected.” The disciple couldn’t take this, and the Master said, “Get out of here.”

∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞

~ Maha-Bharata ~

The name of India was Bharata. Mahabharata, “Great India” is a collection of poems. The Bhagavad Gita is one small part in the Mahabharata. What is common to all the writings in Mahabharata? The essence of Indian spirituality and philosophy is Tat Tvam Asi, “That thou art.” This philosophy is the reason that the Indians greet you with their palms together in front of their heart. This greeting is called the pronam and means, “I greet the all-seeing One in you,” “Namaste.” Theoretically, “I see the divinity in you, which is the same as in me; after all, we’re both Brahman.” Tat Tvam Asi is the essence of Indian spirituality. The “Neti-neti” I spoke of, “Not this, not that” is the search for the Real. This is the viveka, discrimination, eliminating that which is not Real.