In another forum I recently was asked, what exactly was the difference between Sutra and Tantra ? I wrote the following response. It seemed like a worthy question so I am reprinting my response here.
The word Sutra is Sanskrit and literally means a thread or line that holds things together. Sutta is the Pali translation of the Sanskrit word Sutra. Sanskrit originally meant “refined speech” and is the historical language the Indo-Aryan peoples. It was the primary liturgical Language of both Hinduism and Buddhism. That is to say all the original religious texts of both were written in Sanskrit. So in Buddhism, the sutra refers mostly to canonical scriptures, many of which are regarded as records of the oral teachings of Gautama Buddha. A Sutra is usually a scriptural narrative, especially a text traditionally regarded as a discourse of the Buddha.
Pali is a literary language of the Prakrit language family. When the canonical texts of Buddhism were written down in Sri Lanka in the first century BCE they were translated from Sanskrit to Pali. According to traditional Sri Lankan chronicles (such as the Dipavamsa), Buddhism was introduced into Sri Lanka in the 2nd century BCE by Venerable Mahinda, the son of the Indian Emperor Ashoka, during the reign of Sri Lanka's King Devanampiya Tissa. During this time, a sapling of the Bodhi Tree was brought to Sri Lanka and the first monasteries were established under the sponsorship of the Sri Lankan king.
When the Turkic Muslims invaded India they literally wiped Buddhism off the face of India. They burned the Buddhist texts in India, therefore the majority of remaining Buddhist scripture was preserved in what is called the Pali Cannon. Later Large volumes of Buddhist sutras were found in both Tibet and China. The Pali Cannon are the only texts recognized by Theravada Buddhism as canonical.
Tantra in Sanskrit meant loom; also specifically, the warp thread that dresses the loom and gives support to the fabric formed by the moving shuttle or, in a rug, the individual knots. Without it, there can be no cloth. It can also refer to the cord used for stringing beads to make a necklace, a rosary, mala. Tantric or more rarely, tantrik, is the adjectival form of tantra and it has come to mean continuous, or continuity in the sense of unbroken.
Tantrism refers to a specific approach or type of practice which has the connotation of an esoteric system in which exercises, practices and rituals are handed down directly from teacher to student by word of mouth, though often with the aid of teaching materials in the form of pamphlets and pictures. Such a manual can also be called a tantra. Any tantra is usually part of a system that was discovered, developed or established to explain, teach and initiate people into a radically different way of looking at, and acting in, the world. The esoteric, concealed, or secret part is often misunderstood as a reference to the intentional concealment of ancient practices.
The form of Tantric practice most familure to western students today is Vajrayana, a form brought to the west primarily by the Tibetans. Vajrayana Buddhism is also known as Tantric Buddhism, Tantrayāna, Mantrayāna, Secret Mantra, Esoteric Buddhism and the Diamond Vehicle. Be aware that there are also tantric forms of Hinduism. So in English today Tantras are defined as a scripture taught by the Buddha describing the Vajrayana practices.
According to Vajrayana scriptures Vajrayana refers to one of three routes to enlightenment, the other two being Hinayana and Mahayana. (Hinayana being a insulting term (smaller vehicle) they apply to Theravadin Buddhism). Sutra practice called Sūtrayāna, (Sanskrit) in the Indo-Tibetan three-fold classification of yanas, is the yana (mode of practice) that leads to the realization of emptiness. It consists of Hinayana and Mahayana. The other two yanas, according to this classification, are Tantrayana and Dzogchen, which together constitute Vajrayana. Of course the Vajrayana folks see themselves as more advanced since they employ methods they believe can lead to Buddha hood in a single lifetime of practice. Some of which are Deity yoga, Four complete purities and Guru yoga. These forms usually require an initiation called an empowerment ceremony.
Zen is considered a form of Mahayana, Sūtrayāna in this classification system.
Friday, December 31, 2010
Monday, December 20, 2010
Ceremony
This has been a month of ceremony at my Zendo. We had Shukke Tokudo Ceremony (ordination ceremony) and Zaike Tokudo Ceremony (discipleship ceremony) along with our usual weekly ceremonies. If there is one thing that all Buddhist seem to have in common it is their seeming love of rituals and ceremony.
Just so we are clear a ceremony is an event of ritual significance, performed on a special occasion. A ritual is a set of actions, performed mainly for their symbolic value. It may be prescribed by a religion or by the traditions of a community. The term usually excludes actions which are arbitrarily chosen by the performers.
As some of you know I practiced Vajrayana Buddhism before I came to practice Zen. With all respect and no insult to them my old Tibetan teachers loved ceremony and could put on a ritual at the drop of the preverbal hat. Until I actually joined a Zen group I had thought they would be real low on the ceremony meter.
I guess my idea of how Zen was practiced was shaped by the Books and stories I had read. I saw Zen as shedding all paper and all standardized practice. You know what I mean, the Zen master who appears out of no where, says something both profound and confusing and then disappears over the hill in a cloud of dust.
So I was surprised when I found that they were generally speaking as fond of ceremony as the next school of Buddhism. Earlier this year I read a wonderful book called “Soto Zen In Medieval Japan” by William M. Bodiford. I am by the way, after reading several things written by him, beginning to believe Mr. Bodiford is the greatest Soto Zen scholar the English speaking world has ever produced, just so you know.
Historically speaking if Mr. Bodiford is correct ceremony and rituals were very much what Soto Zen was all about after the third generation of the Soto Zen School in Japan. Rituals for weddings and funerals paid the monks rent for centuries. Rich patrons paid monks to do blessing rituals for their relatives both living and dead. The monks would chant and pray for Granny two times a day and the grand children would fork over the land or the cash you needed.
In fact it appears that for many years teaching someone how all the rituals were performed was how the early Soto Zen Masters “made” Dharma heirs and transferred their lineage. Bodiford claims that one great master asserted knowing the rituals is the complete essence of Zen. That the ceremonies Dogen brought from China were the sum total of his gift to Buddhism. I don’t think anyone can doubt the importance Dogen placed on ceremony; however I really doubt that he himself believed that the ceremonies he taught were all there was to his Zen.
In Japan today Soto Zen still seems awash in ritual and ceremony. In the Temples and Monasteries It appears to me that the Zen monks of today’s Japan do as many ceremonies as anyone else in Buddhism.
In America I think explaining Buddhist ceremony especially to the kind of people Zen attracts is often a hard sell. Unlike Buddhist of the past most Americans who come to Zen today reject the idea that ceremonies are a valid form of magic that can have a real influence upon them in this world and the next. The most common stated reason I encountered early on was that performing and even watching and listing to a ritual gained you merit.
I have heard my teacher explain the meaning and significance of ceremony and for the life of me I just seemed to hear noise. This happens to me sometimes when explanations, true or not, just don’t make any sense to me. I mean no disrespect to him, it's just sometimes I just don't get it.
Of course there is the standard fall back position that ceremony and ritual in Buddhism are upaya, which is Sanskrit for "skillful means." If they are upaya that would of course imply that performing or watching them somehow is of a spiritual benefit to the practitioner on his way towards enlightenment, or a relaxing sit, whichever comes first?
Dogen said, “To carry yourself forward and experience myriad things is delusion. That myriad things come forth and experience themselves is awakening.” I suppose that treating the ritual or the ceremony the same way you treat kinhin (walking meditation) might make that verse apply to ceremony.
On the whole my experience with the ceremonies conducted this month was an enjoyable one. But I do have a concern to express here.
We seldom have a talk on how to experience a ceremony. I know I have heard it said to do a ceremony like you do zazen, but my real worry is that zazen is becoming a ceremony in and of itself. I see people grasping for the proper posture and sitting as ridge as a post, looking good and fearful of even scratching their nose, because we all know how the ceremony is performed, how it should look and what it should sound like.
So I really have no problem with ceremony in zen, its zazen as ceremony that worries me.
Just so we are clear a ceremony is an event of ritual significance, performed on a special occasion. A ritual is a set of actions, performed mainly for their symbolic value. It may be prescribed by a religion or by the traditions of a community. The term usually excludes actions which are arbitrarily chosen by the performers.
As some of you know I practiced Vajrayana Buddhism before I came to practice Zen. With all respect and no insult to them my old Tibetan teachers loved ceremony and could put on a ritual at the drop of the preverbal hat. Until I actually joined a Zen group I had thought they would be real low on the ceremony meter.
I guess my idea of how Zen was practiced was shaped by the Books and stories I had read. I saw Zen as shedding all paper and all standardized practice. You know what I mean, the Zen master who appears out of no where, says something both profound and confusing and then disappears over the hill in a cloud of dust.
So I was surprised when I found that they were generally speaking as fond of ceremony as the next school of Buddhism. Earlier this year I read a wonderful book called “Soto Zen In Medieval Japan” by William M. Bodiford. I am by the way, after reading several things written by him, beginning to believe Mr. Bodiford is the greatest Soto Zen scholar the English speaking world has ever produced, just so you know.
Historically speaking if Mr. Bodiford is correct ceremony and rituals were very much what Soto Zen was all about after the third generation of the Soto Zen School in Japan. Rituals for weddings and funerals paid the monks rent for centuries. Rich patrons paid monks to do blessing rituals for their relatives both living and dead. The monks would chant and pray for Granny two times a day and the grand children would fork over the land or the cash you needed.
In fact it appears that for many years teaching someone how all the rituals were performed was how the early Soto Zen Masters “made” Dharma heirs and transferred their lineage. Bodiford claims that one great master asserted knowing the rituals is the complete essence of Zen. That the ceremonies Dogen brought from China were the sum total of his gift to Buddhism. I don’t think anyone can doubt the importance Dogen placed on ceremony; however I really doubt that he himself believed that the ceremonies he taught were all there was to his Zen.
In Japan today Soto Zen still seems awash in ritual and ceremony. In the Temples and Monasteries It appears to me that the Zen monks of today’s Japan do as many ceremonies as anyone else in Buddhism.
In America I think explaining Buddhist ceremony especially to the kind of people Zen attracts is often a hard sell. Unlike Buddhist of the past most Americans who come to Zen today reject the idea that ceremonies are a valid form of magic that can have a real influence upon them in this world and the next. The most common stated reason I encountered early on was that performing and even watching and listing to a ritual gained you merit.
I have heard my teacher explain the meaning and significance of ceremony and for the life of me I just seemed to hear noise. This happens to me sometimes when explanations, true or not, just don’t make any sense to me. I mean no disrespect to him, it's just sometimes I just don't get it.
Of course there is the standard fall back position that ceremony and ritual in Buddhism are upaya, which is Sanskrit for "skillful means." If they are upaya that would of course imply that performing or watching them somehow is of a spiritual benefit to the practitioner on his way towards enlightenment, or a relaxing sit, whichever comes first?
Dogen said, “To carry yourself forward and experience myriad things is delusion. That myriad things come forth and experience themselves is awakening.” I suppose that treating the ritual or the ceremony the same way you treat kinhin (walking meditation) might make that verse apply to ceremony.
On the whole my experience with the ceremonies conducted this month was an enjoyable one. But I do have a concern to express here.
We seldom have a talk on how to experience a ceremony. I know I have heard it said to do a ceremony like you do zazen, but my real worry is that zazen is becoming a ceremony in and of itself. I see people grasping for the proper posture and sitting as ridge as a post, looking good and fearful of even scratching their nose, because we all know how the ceremony is performed, how it should look and what it should sound like.
So I really have no problem with ceremony in zen, its zazen as ceremony that worries me.
Tuesday, December 14, 2010
Water
“The universe exists because of the karma of the beings who wish to live in it.” - HHDL
The glaciers feeding the Indus River are melting at an unprecedented rate due to global warming. The Indus provides a major agricultural irrigation source for both India and Pakistan. Both countries are putting extreme pressure on the river by over extraction of water for agriculture. If the Indus dry’s up this will not only decimate crops in both countries but will endanger freshwater fish populations which is also another important food source for both countries. Both India and Pakistan have nuclear weapons and a long history of animosity. This is just one possible scenario for the end of civilization, at least on the Indian sub content.
Of course the Indus is not the only major river system in danger of drying up. Among those rivers considered in immediate danger are the Yangtze, the Salween and the Ganges. In serious danger are also: Danube, that flows in Europe, African Nile and Rio Grande, flowing in South America.
In recent years, locally, we have seen Alabama and Georgia become entangled in a major legal battle over water. The two states endured a 4 year drought that had them at each others throats. In Australia their so called drought has lasted almost ten years. Mongolia’s recent five year drought has just ended. All across the world fresh water is being polluted and its sources destroyed through the stupidity of man.
Many people may doubt that our Karma created this world, but the time is fast approaching when no one can debate the sad fact that we are destroying it with our own hands. Of course what that really means is we are simply making this world uninhabitable for human beings. No matter what we do the planet will continue, it is only ours selves we are really destroying.
Water has always seemed magical to me. It flows; it rises as steam and clouds and falls as white silky snow or pouring rain. Water is a universal solvent that forms and sculpts rock like an artist’s unseen hand. Since our bodies are 98% Water you might even say we are water in walking form.
It was our beginning, when it leaves here so will we.
The glaciers feeding the Indus River are melting at an unprecedented rate due to global warming. The Indus provides a major agricultural irrigation source for both India and Pakistan. Both countries are putting extreme pressure on the river by over extraction of water for agriculture. If the Indus dry’s up this will not only decimate crops in both countries but will endanger freshwater fish populations which is also another important food source for both countries. Both India and Pakistan have nuclear weapons and a long history of animosity. This is just one possible scenario for the end of civilization, at least on the Indian sub content.
Of course the Indus is not the only major river system in danger of drying up. Among those rivers considered in immediate danger are the Yangtze, the Salween and the Ganges. In serious danger are also: Danube, that flows in Europe, African Nile and Rio Grande, flowing in South America.
In recent years, locally, we have seen Alabama and Georgia become entangled in a major legal battle over water. The two states endured a 4 year drought that had them at each others throats. In Australia their so called drought has lasted almost ten years. Mongolia’s recent five year drought has just ended. All across the world fresh water is being polluted and its sources destroyed through the stupidity of man.
Many people may doubt that our Karma created this world, but the time is fast approaching when no one can debate the sad fact that we are destroying it with our own hands. Of course what that really means is we are simply making this world uninhabitable for human beings. No matter what we do the planet will continue, it is only ours selves we are really destroying.
Water has always seemed magical to me. It flows; it rises as steam and clouds and falls as white silky snow or pouring rain. Water is a universal solvent that forms and sculpts rock like an artist’s unseen hand. Since our bodies are 98% Water you might even say we are water in walking form.
It was our beginning, when it leaves here so will we.
Thursday, December 2, 2010
Saturday, November 27, 2010
I desire!
The things we desire are never what we have. Therefore desire resides in the past and the moves the mind into the future. You desired something in the past and sought to obtain it, or you felt aversion to something and sought to avoid it. You desire to “get” something in the future or to avoid something in the future and this drives you into the future like a hungry ghost never being able to satisfy your hunger. So desire has no end, except in the now. What would we be like if we truly desired nothing, truly wished to avoid nothing?
To truly sit in the now, to maintain the now can end desire or at least reduce it considerably. How real would we seem if we wanted nothing? If I become less and less real in the now is that an observation of emptiness? If I could sit exactly in the now would I simply disappear? Or would that be an observation of emptiness, would that be the ultimate “I”.
In most schools of Buddhism they define a person as an “I” or ego that arises from or is imputed from the five aggregates:
1. The aggregate of Form
2. The aggregate of Consciousness
3. Feeling
4. The aggregate of perception or discrimination.
5. The aggregate of mental formation or volition.
It is the function or simply the activity if you wish of the “person” to perform actions and experience their results. This is then is the nature of our existence and it is also a very good description of the process we call Karma. But my true face is not found in these aggregates, it is empty.
Walls, rivers and great distance all act as obstructions to my body, but what obstructs my mind are the constant delusions these aggregates create. The most destructive of these delusions are the constant desires that drive it along like an ox before the wipe. My experience has been the more I hate, love, want and desire the greater my sense of myself, the more real I seem and the more I suffer. The “I” takes this constant stream of wants, wish’s and desires, it feeds upon this unending activity of desire and aversion.
So what wisdom, when my mother was always asking me to sit still, to stop my constant fidgeting and squirming, but I think it is the constant fidgeting of our minds that we most stop by resting it in the now.
I think it would be fair to say that our true function is to experience emptiness, then we can all go home.
To truly sit in the now, to maintain the now can end desire or at least reduce it considerably. How real would we seem if we wanted nothing? If I become less and less real in the now is that an observation of emptiness? If I could sit exactly in the now would I simply disappear? Or would that be an observation of emptiness, would that be the ultimate “I”.
In most schools of Buddhism they define a person as an “I” or ego that arises from or is imputed from the five aggregates:
1. The aggregate of Form
2. The aggregate of Consciousness
3. Feeling
4. The aggregate of perception or discrimination.
5. The aggregate of mental formation or volition.
It is the function or simply the activity if you wish of the “person” to perform actions and experience their results. This is then is the nature of our existence and it is also a very good description of the process we call Karma. But my true face is not found in these aggregates, it is empty.
Walls, rivers and great distance all act as obstructions to my body, but what obstructs my mind are the constant delusions these aggregates create. The most destructive of these delusions are the constant desires that drive it along like an ox before the wipe. My experience has been the more I hate, love, want and desire the greater my sense of myself, the more real I seem and the more I suffer. The “I” takes this constant stream of wants, wish’s and desires, it feeds upon this unending activity of desire and aversion.
So what wisdom, when my mother was always asking me to sit still, to stop my constant fidgeting and squirming, but I think it is the constant fidgeting of our minds that we most stop by resting it in the now.
I think it would be fair to say that our true function is to experience emptiness, then we can all go home.
Wednesday, November 10, 2010
Don't Mind if I do!
"After arriving in China, Dogen traveled and practiced in several monasteries with different teachers before finding Ru Jing, or Tendo Nyojo, who was to be his main teacher. According to Dogen’s diary, one morning when Ru Jing was circumambulating the Zendo, doing the morning greeting at the beginning of zazen, he found a monk dozing. Dogen heard Ru Jing scolding the dozing monk, "The practice of zazen is the dropping away of body and mind. What do you expect to accomplish by dozing?" When Dogen heard this, he had a realization and went to Ru Jing’s room and offered incense and bowed. When Ru Jing asked why he was doing this, Dogen said, "Body and mind have been dropped, that is why I have come!" Ru Jing approved saying, "Body and mind have been dropped; you have dropped body and mind!"
In traditional Buddhist philosophy the mind of a sentient being is not a product of biological processes, but something primordial which has always existed outside of time itself. The basic Buddhist view point as described by the Buddhist philosopher Nagarjuna is that Mind and Body are two distinct and completely different kinds of phenomena and therefore given the nature of cause and effect the physical body can not be the cause of the mind. In other words he flatly rejected the idea that mind is caused by physical processes in the brain.
Nagarjuna did acknowledge that the physical brain was an instrument through which information was received and that it was also the instrument through which actions were generated and cognition of physical events were perceived. Generally speaking upon death what Buddhist philosophers call 'The Very Subtle Mind' Continues on after the death of the body. Having previously had countless previous lives, depending upon its state of development, this very subtle mind may proceed to experience the physical world through countless future lives.
This physical/mental duality is not confined to eastern philosophy. In modern philosophy of mind, this dualism is defined as a set of views about the relationship between mind and matter, which begins with the claim that mental phenomena are, in some respects, non-physical. Plato and Aristotle and certainly Descartes and Spinoza are perfect examples of this very same dualism in western philosophy.
It has been almost universal that since man became sentient he has rejected the idea that sentience is nothing more than a by product of physical interactions. The effort by both philosophers and scientists to reconcile this duality has been ongoing for centuries simply because the observable interconnected nature of the physical brain and the phenomena we call a mind can neither be ignored nor easly and rationally explained.
The basic recognition of the above paradox is called Substance Dualism. This so called Substance dualism is a type of dualism most notably proposed by Descartes, which states that there are two fundamental kinds of substance: mental and material. According to his philosophy, which is specifically called Cartesian dualism, the mental does not have extension in space, and the material cannot think. This is the position of virtually all theology including Buddhism. Of course some people have claimed that this is only true of humans and for some reason excludes all other thinking and feeling creatures. But there is nothing native to substance dualism that would require such a distinction and Buddhism dose not make that distinction.
In theology the mind and or the soul, depending upon the belief system, claims that mind or souls occupy an independent "realm" of existence distinct from that of the physical world. This is a version of reality that is routinely rejected by modern materialists and many scientists. Rejecting the obvious evidence of the mind and mental phenomena itself, they attest that there simply is no evidence to support this position. In this view mind is no more than condensation on the brain and is in fact a figment of the imagination we don’t really have.
Recently professor David chambers, a philosopher at the Australian National University, aka Distinguished Professor of Philosophy and Director of the Centre for Consciousness, developed a thought experiment inspired by the movie “The Matrix” in which substance dualism could be true: Consider a computer simulation in which the bodies of the creatures are controlled by their minds and the minds remain strictly external to the simulation. The creatures can do all the science they want in the world, but they will never be able to figure out where their minds are, for they do not exist in their observable universe. This is a case of substance dualism with respect to computer simulation.
One modern explanation of the mind/body problem is called “property Dualism”.
“By Property Dualism the brain possesses at least two types of properties, physical and mental. From this it follows that all conscious experiences are properties of the underlying substance which manifests itself physically as the brain. Furthermore, in this line of thinking consciousness is itself a property. This is absurd, however, because if this is true then I (and you) am (are) a property (ies).” OOPS! Once again we are simply condensation on a brain.
The simple truth is science and materialism would require that either the electro chemical processes of the brain 'create' or 'give rise to' the mind; or is it that the electrochemical processes are the mind?”
In short Consciousness is either generated by brain activity, or, is brain activity.
The only way many modern materialist have been able to justify their claims is through the theory of Emergent Properties. This so called Emergence is a well developed philosophical term of art. A variety of theorists have appropriated it for their purposes ever since George Henry Lewes gave it a philosophical sense in his 1875 Problems of Life and Mind. We might roughly characterize the shared meaning thus: emergent entities (properties or substances) ‘arise’ out of more fundamental entities and yet are ‘novel’ or ‘irreducible’ with respect to them.
So many modern materialists, notably John Rogers Searle an American philosopher and currently the Slusser Professor of Philosophy at the University of California, Berkeley and Buddhist philosopher, Stephen Batchelor now claim that consciousness is simply an emergent property of the physical process of the brain.
As I previously said the definition of emergence given in the Dictionary of Philosophy of Mind is:
“Emergence - Properties of a complex physical system are emergent just in case they are neither (i) properties had by any parts of the system taken in isolation nor (ii) resultant of a mere summation of properties of parts of the system.”
“Thus a boat which drifts northwestwards in response to a southerly wind and a current flowing from the east is not exhibiting emergent behavior, whereas the products of chemical reactions could be considered emergent.”
See: Dictionary of Philosophy of Mind.
There is however one major problem with this theory.
"The notion of reduction is intimately tied to the ease of understanding one level in terms of another. Emergent properties are usually properties that are more easily understood in their own right than in terms of properties at a lower level. This suggests an important observation:
Emergence is a psychological property.
It is not a metaphysical absolute. Properties are classed as "emergent" based at least in part on (1) the interestingness to a given observer of the high-level property at hand; and (2) the difficulty of an observer's deducing the high-level property from low-level properties"
See: David Chalmers “notes on emergence”
“So we can dismiss all claims that consciousness, mind and awareness are emergent properties of matter or brains, because we need the presence of a mind for emergent properties and phenomena to appear in the first place. The subjective activity of the mind of the observer, together with the 'objective' procedures and the structures upon which they operate, is an irreducible component of emergent phenomena.” So we find that the emergence theory is impossible because it requires a mind to preexist mind. Not even a quantum theorist could accept this, wait maybe he could at that.
It is of course beyond the will power of most modern thinkers to say to themselves maybe we simply don’t have enough information to solve the mind/body paradox at this time.
But being Zen I will investigate this problem on the meditation cushion. I think that deep in the writings of Master Dogen this question may have been answered. So I will simply doubt that any present theory on the issue is “True”. I will wait for mind and body to drop away, as Master Dogen has suggested I do, and then I may become aware of the truth.
In traditional Buddhist philosophy the mind of a sentient being is not a product of biological processes, but something primordial which has always existed outside of time itself. The basic Buddhist view point as described by the Buddhist philosopher Nagarjuna is that Mind and Body are two distinct and completely different kinds of phenomena and therefore given the nature of cause and effect the physical body can not be the cause of the mind. In other words he flatly rejected the idea that mind is caused by physical processes in the brain.
Nagarjuna did acknowledge that the physical brain was an instrument through which information was received and that it was also the instrument through which actions were generated and cognition of physical events were perceived. Generally speaking upon death what Buddhist philosophers call 'The Very Subtle Mind' Continues on after the death of the body. Having previously had countless previous lives, depending upon its state of development, this very subtle mind may proceed to experience the physical world through countless future lives.
This physical/mental duality is not confined to eastern philosophy. In modern philosophy of mind, this dualism is defined as a set of views about the relationship between mind and matter, which begins with the claim that mental phenomena are, in some respects, non-physical. Plato and Aristotle and certainly Descartes and Spinoza are perfect examples of this very same dualism in western philosophy.
It has been almost universal that since man became sentient he has rejected the idea that sentience is nothing more than a by product of physical interactions. The effort by both philosophers and scientists to reconcile this duality has been ongoing for centuries simply because the observable interconnected nature of the physical brain and the phenomena we call a mind can neither be ignored nor easly and rationally explained.
The basic recognition of the above paradox is called Substance Dualism. This so called Substance dualism is a type of dualism most notably proposed by Descartes, which states that there are two fundamental kinds of substance: mental and material. According to his philosophy, which is specifically called Cartesian dualism, the mental does not have extension in space, and the material cannot think. This is the position of virtually all theology including Buddhism. Of course some people have claimed that this is only true of humans and for some reason excludes all other thinking and feeling creatures. But there is nothing native to substance dualism that would require such a distinction and Buddhism dose not make that distinction.
In theology the mind and or the soul, depending upon the belief system, claims that mind or souls occupy an independent "realm" of existence distinct from that of the physical world. This is a version of reality that is routinely rejected by modern materialists and many scientists. Rejecting the obvious evidence of the mind and mental phenomena itself, they attest that there simply is no evidence to support this position. In this view mind is no more than condensation on the brain and is in fact a figment of the imagination we don’t really have.
Recently professor David chambers, a philosopher at the Australian National University, aka Distinguished Professor of Philosophy and Director of the Centre for Consciousness, developed a thought experiment inspired by the movie “The Matrix” in which substance dualism could be true: Consider a computer simulation in which the bodies of the creatures are controlled by their minds and the minds remain strictly external to the simulation. The creatures can do all the science they want in the world, but they will never be able to figure out where their minds are, for they do not exist in their observable universe. This is a case of substance dualism with respect to computer simulation.
One modern explanation of the mind/body problem is called “property Dualism”.
“By Property Dualism the brain possesses at least two types of properties, physical and mental. From this it follows that all conscious experiences are properties of the underlying substance which manifests itself physically as the brain. Furthermore, in this line of thinking consciousness is itself a property. This is absurd, however, because if this is true then I (and you) am (are) a property (ies).” OOPS! Once again we are simply condensation on a brain.
The simple truth is science and materialism would require that either the electro chemical processes of the brain 'create' or 'give rise to' the mind; or is it that the electrochemical processes are the mind?”
In short Consciousness is either generated by brain activity, or, is brain activity.
The only way many modern materialist have been able to justify their claims is through the theory of Emergent Properties. This so called Emergence is a well developed philosophical term of art. A variety of theorists have appropriated it for their purposes ever since George Henry Lewes gave it a philosophical sense in his 1875 Problems of Life and Mind. We might roughly characterize the shared meaning thus: emergent entities (properties or substances) ‘arise’ out of more fundamental entities and yet are ‘novel’ or ‘irreducible’ with respect to them.
So many modern materialists, notably John Rogers Searle an American philosopher and currently the Slusser Professor of Philosophy at the University of California, Berkeley and Buddhist philosopher, Stephen Batchelor now claim that consciousness is simply an emergent property of the physical process of the brain.
As I previously said the definition of emergence given in the Dictionary of Philosophy of Mind is:
“Emergence - Properties of a complex physical system are emergent just in case they are neither (i) properties had by any parts of the system taken in isolation nor (ii) resultant of a mere summation of properties of parts of the system.”
“Thus a boat which drifts northwestwards in response to a southerly wind and a current flowing from the east is not exhibiting emergent behavior, whereas the products of chemical reactions could be considered emergent.”
See: Dictionary of Philosophy of Mind.
There is however one major problem with this theory.
"The notion of reduction is intimately tied to the ease of understanding one level in terms of another. Emergent properties are usually properties that are more easily understood in their own right than in terms of properties at a lower level. This suggests an important observation:
Emergence is a psychological property.
It is not a metaphysical absolute. Properties are classed as "emergent" based at least in part on (1) the interestingness to a given observer of the high-level property at hand; and (2) the difficulty of an observer's deducing the high-level property from low-level properties"
See: David Chalmers “notes on emergence”
“So we can dismiss all claims that consciousness, mind and awareness are emergent properties of matter or brains, because we need the presence of a mind for emergent properties and phenomena to appear in the first place. The subjective activity of the mind of the observer, together with the 'objective' procedures and the structures upon which they operate, is an irreducible component of emergent phenomena.” So we find that the emergence theory is impossible because it requires a mind to preexist mind. Not even a quantum theorist could accept this, wait maybe he could at that.
It is of course beyond the will power of most modern thinkers to say to themselves maybe we simply don’t have enough information to solve the mind/body paradox at this time.
But being Zen I will investigate this problem on the meditation cushion. I think that deep in the writings of Master Dogen this question may have been answered. So I will simply doubt that any present theory on the issue is “True”. I will wait for mind and body to drop away, as Master Dogen has suggested I do, and then I may become aware of the truth.
Tuesday, November 9, 2010
Getting Old and Sitting
In Fukanzazeng (Rules of Zazen) Master Dogen says:
“In meditating you should have a quiet room. Eat and drink in moderation. Forsake myriad relations-abstain from everything. Do not think of good and evil. Do not think of right and wrong. Stop the function of mind, of will, of consciousness. Keep from meaning memory, perception, and insight. Do not strive to become the Buddha. Do not cling to sitting or lying down.”
…………………………………………………
“This cross-legged sitting is not step by step meditation. It is merely comfortable teaching. It is the training and enlightenment of thorough wisdom. The Koan will appear in daily life. You are completely free - like the dragon that has water or the tiger that depends on the mountain. You must realize that the Right Law naturally appears, and your mind will be free from sinking and distraction. When you stand from zazen, shake your body and arise calmly. Do not move violently. That which transcends the commoner and the sage - dying while sitting and standing is obtained through the help of this power: this I have seen. Also the supreme function (lifting the finger, using the needle, hitting the wooden gong) and enlightenment signs (raising the hossu, striking with the fist; hitting with the staff; shouting): are not understood- by discrimination. You cannot understand training and enlightenment well by supernatural power. It is a condition (sitting, standing, and sleeping) beyond voice and visible things. It is the true beyond discriminatory views. So don't argue about the wise and foolish. If you can only train hard, this is true enlightenment. Training and enlightenment are by nature undefiled. Living by Zen is not separated from daily life.”
__________________________________________________
“Buddha’s in this world and in that and the patriarchs in India and China equally preserved the Buddha seal and spread the true style of Zen. All actions and things are penetrated with pure zazen. The means of training are various, but do pure zazen. Don't travel futilely to other dusty lands, forsaking your own sitting place. If you mistake the first step, you will stumble immediately. You have already obtained the vital functions of man's body. Don't waste time in vain. You can hold the essence of Buddhism. Is it good to enjoy the fleeting world? The body is transient like dew on the grass-life is swift like a flash of lightning. The body passes quickly, and life is gone in a moment.”
Dogen wrote these words when he was 28 years old and in the prime of his life. He had just returned from China and he was just starting his life’s work. Four years later at the age of 32 he wrote Bendowa, In which he comments:
“All the Buddhas and patriarchs who transmitted Buddhism considered sitting and practicing self-joyous meditation the true way of enlightenment. The enlightened ones in both the East and West followed this style. This is because the masters and their disciples correctly transmitted this superior method from person to person and received the uncorrupted truth.”
Again:
“It is a condition (sitting, standing, and sleeping) beyond voice and visible things.”
“It is a condition (sitting, standing, and sleeping) beyond voice and visible things.”
“It is a condition (sitting, standing, and sleeping) beyond voice and visible things.
Wake up, stands up, walk --- lay down, sleep,
“This cross-legged sitting is not step by step meditation. It is merely comfortable teaching. It is the training and enlightenment of thorough wisdom. The Koan will appear in daily life. You are completely free - like the dragon that has water or the tiger that depends on the mountain.”
Maybe - there is zazen that is all of this and more, maybe even when we can no longer sit, we can walk to enlightenment-- or stand our way there.. it is after all the "merely confortable teaching"
“In meditating you should have a quiet room. Eat and drink in moderation. Forsake myriad relations-abstain from everything. Do not think of good and evil. Do not think of right and wrong. Stop the function of mind, of will, of consciousness. Keep from meaning memory, perception, and insight. Do not strive to become the Buddha. Do not cling to sitting or lying down.”
…………………………………………………
“This cross-legged sitting is not step by step meditation. It is merely comfortable teaching. It is the training and enlightenment of thorough wisdom. The Koan will appear in daily life. You are completely free - like the dragon that has water or the tiger that depends on the mountain. You must realize that the Right Law naturally appears, and your mind will be free from sinking and distraction. When you stand from zazen, shake your body and arise calmly. Do not move violently. That which transcends the commoner and the sage - dying while sitting and standing is obtained through the help of this power: this I have seen. Also the supreme function (lifting the finger, using the needle, hitting the wooden gong) and enlightenment signs (raising the hossu, striking with the fist; hitting with the staff; shouting): are not understood- by discrimination. You cannot understand training and enlightenment well by supernatural power. It is a condition (sitting, standing, and sleeping) beyond voice and visible things. It is the true beyond discriminatory views. So don't argue about the wise and foolish. If you can only train hard, this is true enlightenment. Training and enlightenment are by nature undefiled. Living by Zen is not separated from daily life.”
__________________________________________________
“Buddha’s in this world and in that and the patriarchs in India and China equally preserved the Buddha seal and spread the true style of Zen. All actions and things are penetrated with pure zazen. The means of training are various, but do pure zazen. Don't travel futilely to other dusty lands, forsaking your own sitting place. If you mistake the first step, you will stumble immediately. You have already obtained the vital functions of man's body. Don't waste time in vain. You can hold the essence of Buddhism. Is it good to enjoy the fleeting world? The body is transient like dew on the grass-life is swift like a flash of lightning. The body passes quickly, and life is gone in a moment.”
Dogen wrote these words when he was 28 years old and in the prime of his life. He had just returned from China and he was just starting his life’s work. Four years later at the age of 32 he wrote Bendowa, In which he comments:
“All the Buddhas and patriarchs who transmitted Buddhism considered sitting and practicing self-joyous meditation the true way of enlightenment. The enlightened ones in both the East and West followed this style. This is because the masters and their disciples correctly transmitted this superior method from person to person and received the uncorrupted truth.”
Again:
“It is a condition (sitting, standing, and sleeping) beyond voice and visible things.”
“It is a condition (sitting, standing, and sleeping) beyond voice and visible things.”
“It is a condition (sitting, standing, and sleeping) beyond voice and visible things.
Wake up, stands up, walk --- lay down, sleep,
“This cross-legged sitting is not step by step meditation. It is merely comfortable teaching. It is the training and enlightenment of thorough wisdom. The Koan will appear in daily life. You are completely free - like the dragon that has water or the tiger that depends on the mountain.”
Maybe - there is zazen that is all of this and more, maybe even when we can no longer sit, we can walk to enlightenment-- or stand our way there.. it is after all the "merely confortable teaching"
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