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The Parable of the Raft

3/22/2015

One of the most well-known of the Buddha’s parables is about the raft a man builds to get himself to the other shore of a wide river, a place “secure and without fears.” Once he reached the other shore, the question was whether he should take the raft with him or leave it. The Buddha said, “In the same way, monks, I have taught the Dhamma compared to a raft, for the purpose of crossing over, not for the purpose of holding onto. Understanding the Dhamma as taught compared to a raft, you should let go even of Dhammas, to say nothing of non-Dhammas.”

This language has been interpreted mainly in two ways. Some say that the Buddha was saying that once you get to the other shore, you have no need of the dharma any more and can discard it. Others say that what the Buddha was saying was part of the teaching of non-attachment. One shouldn’t become attached even to the Buddha’s teachings One shouldn’t define oneself in terms of the dharma.

These interpretations have been considered inconsistent; I would, however, disagree because I think something has been missed which joins them. When one reaches the other shore, when you perceive the emptiness of all five skandhas and thus are at one with all things, free of all feelings and perceptions, you are one with your unborn Buddha mind. And being one with your unborn Buddha mind, you are one with the dharma from direct knowledge, not teaching. Thus one can indeed discard and should let go of the dharma as teachings.

There is another aspect of the parable with I have not seen commented on. When the man reaches the other shore, he is ready to proceed with his journey, which by implication stretches out before him. A journey on which he will experience no fear.

Sometimes, the “other shore” is depicted as an island. Much like the Buddha’s comment that each bhikkhu should make of himself his island, himself and no other his refuge. But the Buddha I think meant the term “island” here not as a place isolated from the rest of the world but rather a place within which a bhikkhu takes refuge.

That this is the case is made clearer by a footnote to the translation that indicates that the Pali word translated as “island” also can be translated as “lamp.” So the Buddha was not just saying that the dharma was a space within which to take refuge, an “island,” but that it was a lamp to light the way forward on the journey after reaching the other shore.

So many people think of Buddhism and meditation as a way of shutting out the reality of the world, of separating oneself from it. But that is definitely not the case. Buddhism is a way of freeing oneself not from reality but from the suffering caused by our learned experiences, the perceptions our mind develops … which is not reality … so that we find a new, healthy way to relate to ourselves and the world around us. When we are able to experience things directly as they are, we can then walk through life free of fear, in peace, finding happiness in each moment.

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Protecting Yourself from the Elements

3/17/2015

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Our ego-minds come up with a whole host of feelings and perceptions to supposedly protect us, insecure as we are, from the world around us. Fear is certainly predominant, but anger, denial, and an us v them perspective are also examples. And then the ego-mind develops cravings based on those feelings and perceptions.

Yet while fear in prehistoric times was a primal reaction to danger and indeed a protector, in modern man it has morphed into a major source of suffering and an inhibitor of clear thinking and action. The same is true for all five skandhas. We must be clear that our feelings and perceptions do not in fact protect us from the world around us. On the contrary, they are like a straight-jacket that makes it impossible for us to do what is in our best interest.

Being aware of this, and having had direct proof that fear together with all the skandhas are just a product of the mind (see my post, “Proof of the Nature of Mind”), I have been going through a process lately, which I’ve described in other posts, of facing feelings and perceptions as they arise … or better put in my next meditation … and saying to them “Not me!”

As I peel off these layers of my psyche, I get closer to being free of my ego-mind and all five skandhas and thus closer to being one with my unborn Buddha mind. I take refuge only in my unborn Buddha mind; only it and the dharma will truly protect me from the world around me, by changing how I relate to myself and the world around me.

In describing a bhikkhu, the Buddha said, “He is content with robes to protect the body, with alms food to sustain the belly, so that wherever he goes he takes everything with him, just as whenever a winged bird flies it flies using its own wings.”

So too, when we have discarded all our feelings and perceptions and are one with our unborn Buddha mind, it is our robe, it is our food, and we are content to look to it to protect and sustain us. Wherever we go, like a bhikkhu, we never leave home because we carry our home with us. We are dependent for our happiness on nothing outside of ourselves.

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Not Me! Peeling Off the Layers of our Ego-Mind

3/14/2015

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In a recent post, I related how I sat with my insecurity, and having had direct proof that fear and all skandhas are just a product of my mind, faced insecurity and said, “Not me!” Since insecurity is the mother of fear, anger, and all the other destructive feelings and perceptions and their related needs that I developed over the years, I thought that by freeing myself from insecurity, all the other related feelings, perceptions and needs would subside and I would be free of them as well.

Not so easy! I became aware very quickly that while various feelings, perceptions, and needs might have begun their life as a result of insecurity, they had established a life of their own. They had become independent habit-energies that needed to be faced and dealt with one by one as they arose. So for example:

I had an incident where a craving for attention, for acknowledgment came to the fore. I had thought that I had let go of this quite some time ago. I had long ago accepted the fact that my books weren’t going to sell, that I was getting very little feedback from my blog, and that was ok. It was just the way things were. My purpose was to offer joy to others. If even one person bought one of my books and was helped or read my blog and was helped, then I had met my goal, and indeed I know that that was the case.

But recently someone I know wrote a book which found a publisher and was reviewed. My initial reaction to this news was not worthy of me. I was envious. And when I meditated the next morning it was clear to me that this event had acted as a catalyst to reawaken a craving for acknowledgement and attention. And so I sat with these cravings and said to them, “Not me!”

Then an incident occurred recently that brought out the satisfaction that I still feel at being right. I had been talking with a friend about something and thought I saw what the reality was and said that he and others hadn’t gotten it right. He called me on it, and it was deserved.

And so I sat with the satisfaction I get from being right. What was this all about? At first, I located this habit-energy in the experience during 19 years of schooling of being rewarding by being right, by getting good grades. That’s how you got a gold star. That’s how you were valued.

But as I continued to sit I was aware that that answer did not go deep enough. The reason why I craved to be rewarded and valued is that I craved respect. And I craved respect because as a child I did not feel loved by my father and I thought that I was not lovable or worthy of love. Gaining respect was my substitute for love, both from my father and from my peers.

I know now that these feelings were just a product of my mind. In truth I was always loved by my father and have always been valued by him and others. But even more importantly, I knew that what was important to me was offering joy, not being loved. And so I said to this craving, “Not me!”

Each of these examples … craving for acknowledgment and craving for respect … initially grew out of the deep insecurity I felt as a child. But through the years they had developed a life of their own. And so even though I had faced my insecurity and said “Not me!”, these feelings and perceptions persisted. They had to each be faced individually and declared, “Not me!”

Readers may find it strange and disappointing that after all my years of practice, after all my realizations, I am still dealing with aspects of my ego sneaking in and taking control because I was not aware at the moment.

One needs to remember that walking the path is for most of us a life-long process and that the ego-mind always remains part of us. Even someone like Pima Chodron admits to feelings of, for example, aggression still taking control at times. Only when one is fully enlightened are you fully free, aware 24/7. Then, as the Buddha said, "A Perfect One's feelings, perceptions, and thoughts are known to him as they arise, known to him as they are present, and known to him as they subside." So be gentle with yourself.

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Approaching the Other Shore

3/10/2015

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Recently I got into a stupid argument with a friend because I said he said something, and he said I hadn’t listened to him and was wrong. I wouldn’t back off defending myself, insisting my perspective was right, despite the fact that he was getting very agitated. It caused him and therefore me considerable stress. You had to be there!

When I meditated the next morning, this incident naturally came to the fore. Because I needed to be acknowledged as being right, I harmed someone, a good friend, even if it was temporary. And let’s just say this isn’t the first time this has happened. In my pre-Buddhist days, I always had to be right. Now I know better but on occasion, especially on minor matters where I am not as alert to my ego arising, this still happens.

While sitting, something I read recently in The Unborn: The Life and Teachings of Zen Master Bankei (1622-1693) came to mind. Because of partiality for themselves, people want things to move in their own way. get churned up over even unimportant things, become upset, contentious, and end up transforming their unborn Buddha mind into a fighting spirit, a hungry ghost. That is exactly what happened to me on this occasion.

My partiality, as Bankei calls it, was an expression of my pridefulness, which I know is the flip side of my insecurity. So I sat with the undeniable fact of my partiality, my pride, and my insecurity.

I had sat with these feelings at various points over the years, acknowledging that they were just a result of my learned experience, were just in my mind, caused me suffering and weren’t me. And so I chose to let them go, to let them subside. But my meditation experience never “took” when I was off the cushion.

Now, however, I recently had had direct proof that my feelings and perceptions were just a product of my mind (see my post, “Proof of the Nature of Mind”). And so just as I did with the feeling of fear, I said regarding each of these feelings, with a flick of my wrist and arm, “Not me!” Since that meditation about fear, I have felt a palpable inner calmness and fear has not even arisen, despite circumstance being rife with catalysts for the arising of fear.

As I continued to sit, I noticed that above the point at the end of the line that I was concentrating on, several inches of “open space” away, there was another point. I was somehow drawn to it. And as I concentrated on that point, the light area around it became brighter and almost pulsed.

I knew suddenly that this point was “the other shore.” I knew that after having had direct proof of the emptiness of the skandhas, and declaring “Not me!” as they arose, I was throwing off these burdens, enabling me to approach, get closer to, the other shore.

In the days after this meditation, I was aware of many instances where in the past I would have made a comment to express my thought, to differ with someone who was speaking, not because something important was at issue but just because I always have felt I had to comment, I had to say what I thought, point out an inaccuracy, and be acknowledged as being right. But now, I just allowed those thoughts to subside. And in the past few days they haven’t even arisen.

Recently I reread something I had forgotten in The Life of the Buddha. The Buddha said, speaking to Ananda, “Each of you should make himself his island, himself and no other his refuge. Each of you should make the Dhamma his island, the Dhamma and no other his refuge. [Since the unborn Buddha mind is in each of us, so too is the dharma, so these two comments are not inconsistent.] … Put away covetousness and grief for the world. Abide contemplating feelings as feelings, consciousness as consciousness, fully aware, mindful.”

That is what the other shore is. That is what I have been doing, at last, in recent days.

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Being - Not Being

3/5/2015

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We are taught that all things are impermanent. That all things … be they products of the mind or real … rise and fall. It is one of the central facts of life, of nature.

When I was meditating yesterday, again on the rug with the faint lines radiating out from the cushion, and focused on a point at the end of one of those lines, towards the end of my meditation I had another “experience.” Above the point was a thicker section of the line surrounded by a lighter area. Suddenly, that whole section was surrounded by light, like a flame. At first the solid area appeared like a dark block of ice. Then it turned into a bush. Finally it turned into a man.

I was very confused. What I was “seeing” was an example of something not being consumed by fire, symbolically existing for eternity. Yet this was opposed to the teaching and fact that all things are impermanent.

After the meditation, I thought about this seeming contradiction. Was it one, or did it just seem to be? I continued to be confused.

Then I remembered a line from the poem, “Affirming Faith in Mind,” which says, “in essence nothing goes or stays.” That certainly appears the opposite of the concept of impermanence and fit the image I had had,

I tried to analogize, but nothing really worked. I thought that saying nothing goes or stays is similar to the common saying, “Dust to dust, ashes to ashes.” But on reflection that isn’t analogous at all. In a different context, Einstein said that energy does not disappear. It may disappear from one body, but then it appears in another, with the total amount of energy in a system being unchanging. But that really isn’t analogous either.

I tried thinking of other examples of this within my sphere of knowledge, but the examples all fell short. They were far more limited than what I perceived. This is not something that I was able to put into words through the power of mind. I just knew it was, that it was true.

So, what I realize I perceived during my meditation was that whether it’s a person, a thought, or a rock, when it ceases to be according to the capacity of our five senses … all things do rise and fall … the essence or energy of that person, thought, or rock remains in the ether. Everything is in this state of neither being nor not being. More than that I cannot say.

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Proof of the Nature of Mind - Fear, Ego, and Buddha Mind

3/2/2015

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The nature of mind is an essential thing to understand in walking the path, whether it’s the Buddha mind, which is our true self (see my post, “The Misleading Teaching of No Self”), or the ego-mind, which is who we typically think we are and seems to be all-controlling. In this post, I will discuss the nature of mind as it has been revealed to me in a series of recent meditations, specifically regarding fear, ego-mind, and Buddha mind.

Fear: Fear is one of the most controlling feelings that we have. It can physically incapacitate us. Psychologically, it can tie us in knots. What was once a primal reaction to danger, a protector, has in man become a major source of suffering.and an inhibitor of clear thinking and action.

To help free ourselves from fear, we are taught that fear is a product of the mind and empty of intrinsic existence. And we learn from the Buddha that because fear and the other skandhas cause suffering, they are not us, they are not ours, and they are not our selves, because our selves would not cause us such suffering. These lessons are all helpful in our efforts to disengage ourselves from fear and the other skandhas, and yet fear is so deeply embedded in us that it typically remains strong and carries us off with some regularity into its negative world-perspective, even after years of meditation practice. I would include myself in this company.

One morning recently, I woke up and fear sank its claws into me with my first thought and would not let go until, as a defensive measure, I started singing a song in my mind and the fear disappeared. When I sat down to meditate, fear was on top of me again. But as I focused on my breathing, the sounds around me, and the point in front of me, and became present, the fear disappeared again.

I realized then that I had just been given proof that fear is just a product of the mind. If fear had an existence independent of the mind, I would still have felt fear when singing the song or when I concentrated and was present. But since I couldn’t experience both fear and another mind-activity, such as singing or being present, at the same time, and since the mind cannot be in two places at the same time, it follows that fear must be just a product of the mind. (Many people think that the mind can be in two places at the same time, but really what happens is that the mind switches back and forth between subjects instantaneously, so the break isn’t noticed.)

Compare this with the experience of physical pain. Whether I’m singing a song or meditating and present, if I experience physical pain, I will feel it. Such pain is real, it is not a product of the mind.

Ego-Mind: We know that the ego-mind is very powerful. We are aware that when we are in the grip of fear or other feelings and perceptions, we are lost. Our Buddha mind is not accessible. The Buddha said that a man who conquers his ego is stronger than a man who has conquered numerous armies. We are left with the sense that the ego-mind and the Buddha-mind are two separate things doing battle with each other, with the ego-mind in most of us being stronger than our Buddha mind..

But a further step from the proof that fear is just a product of the mind is that the ego-mind and Buddha mind are both part of one mind. As the ego-mind is just a collection of all our feelings and perceptions, such as fear, it is thus, like fear, a product of our mind. And the fact that you can’t both experience fear and sing a song or be present at the same time is thus proof that there is only one mind, not two.

What happens is that from the moment of our birth, we are bombarded with learned experiences that are received by the brain and begin to form synapses, the connections in the brain. Over time, as these learned experiences repeat and build on each other, the synapses grow stronger. They become our ego-mind, our habit-energy, our way of looking at ourselves and the world around us.

On the other hand, the unborn Buddha mind we are born with almost atrophies after birth because it is not watered; the brain typically receives no experiences or learning which creates the synapses that form Buddha mind patterns of behavior, or reaction to things. That is the reason why our ego-mind is so much stronger typically than our Buddha mind.

We often think of the ego as some disembodied spirit that makes us do things. But that is not the case. It is instead a rather clear-cut physiological phenomenon, resulting from our learned experiences, that gives what we call the ego-mind its strength

Buddha Mind: Zen Master Bankei (1622-1693) taught that we all have the unborn Buddha mind at birth and thus are all enlightened at birth. What happens is that we become unenlightened as experience and thoughts turn our Buddha mind into the ego-mind, as explained above.

But as our Buddhist practice deepens, and we water the seeds of our Buddha mind more, synapses start forming that strengthen our unborn Buddha mind. Thus, for example, when we first sit on our cushion and just try to concentrate, let alone meditate, after a few moments we are usually bombarded by thoughts from our ego-mind; our attempts to concentrate and meditate are destroyed. Our ability to concentrate on our breath, sounds, and the visual point before us are very weak.

After years of practice, however, we hopefully reach a point where we can sit, concentrating, in the present moment, for long periods of time without any interruption from our ego-mind. And if a thought does arise, we don’t engage it and it quickly subsides as we return to our concentration.

In his teaching, Bankei provides us with “proof” of the unborn Buddha mind’s existence. Unfortunately, I don’t think that his proof holds water given modern knowledge. Bankei claimed that the fact that even though one is concentrating on someone, such as listening to him, one can hear and identify things that occur outside the temple, he says without thought, is proof that the unborn Buddha mind exists. But what we know from modern research is that what happens in such an instance is that the mind is momentarily deflected from its concentration to identify the sound from learned experience.

However, in line with what I’ve been presenting in this post, we have other proof of the existence of the unborn Buddha mind. Two examples.

Even before we’ve had any exposure to Buddhism we have experiences that prove our unborn Buddha mind. For example, once when I was a young person, I was with a group of friends when we saw a beggar on the street (a rather unusual sight at that time). Instead of reacting with fear and revulsion as the others did and turning away from that person, I spontaneously felt compassion for and opened my heart to that person. I know now that this was my unborn Buddha mind in action. We all have had such experiences.

We have such spontaneous reaction not because we have been trained to do this, far from it. Most people we have observed react in such situations with fear or revulsion (although I doubt if my parents would have, so perhaps my unborn Buddha mind was nurtured). What society teaches us instead to do is to write checks to charity or perhaps even give money to the beggar. These actions are actions of the ego, of our learned experience of what is expected of us, of what we need to do to feel good or look good in the eyes of others.

The other proof is our ability to strengthen our unborn Buddha mind. If we didn’t have the kernel of our unborn Buddha mind within us at birth, there would be nothing to strengthen. No amount of practice could introduce a new habit-energy to displace the ego-mind. Nothing short of shock therapy or a lobotomy could displace the ego-mind.

Now having this understanding, as with other teaching, is all well and good. But how will these proofs further free me or others from suffering and help find peace and happiness?

As a result of my having personally experienced proof that fear is just a product of my mind, I was able to regard fear and say, with a flick of my wrist and arm, “Not me!” … just as my teacher, the monk Huyen Te, did. And fear has at least so far not arisen again.

Similarly, with personal proof now that the five skandhas and thus the ego are also just a product of my mind, I have said regarding them as well, “Not me!” I cannot say though that I feel quite free of my ego at this point. I don’t know that I have rid myself of what the Buddha called, “the conceit of ‘I am.’” However, I do feel that the power of the ego has greatly diminished and as my practice continues I have faith that it will become ever weaker.

The proof that indeed the unborn Buddha mind is within me has reinforced my resolve to water the seeds that strengthen it, that create and enhance the synapses in my brain that lead to Buddha mind patterns of behavior and reactions to things … the Noble Eightfold Path. Walking the path, until one is fully enlightened, is always a work in progress. Each step takes us further and makes it easier to progress yet further.

There is something very important to note here, though, which is rarely or at best infrequently noted in Buddhist texts. One can firmly believe, engage in disciplined meditation, read and otherwise be exposed to wise teachings … one can do all these things and yet still not progress beyond a certain point on the path.

Until you discover the truths of the Buddha dharma from within yourself, as part of your meditation practice and your daily life, you may develop a strong counterbalance to fear and anger and may thus by and large be free of suffering, but you will not be fully free of them. As the Heart Sutra says:

The Bodhisatva Avelokiteshvara,
Practicing the perfection of wisdom, going deep within,
Was illuminated and perceived that
All five skandhas are empty of intrinsic existence.
Thus being at one with all things,
Experiencing things directly without the intervention of thought,
All suffering and doubt ceased.

It was only after the process of going deep within him/herself and perceiving the truth directly, that the bodhisatva was truly freed of the skandhas. There is no other way.

Even with these direct realizations, however, I would not claim to be enlightened. I feel there are other dharma gates yet to penetrate. And so I have a feeling I haven’t seen the last of fear, although when it arises I expect that it will be on a far weaker footing and I shall allow it to quietly subside.

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