Buddhism Religion Of No Religion - All Segments

Now then, we have to get on to Buddhism, and in order to introduce Buddhism, it's necessary

to remember the whole background of the world view of India.

In other words, what we're going to study, first of all, to understand Buddhism, is Indian

cosmology, just as you would have to study the cosmology of the Ptolemaic view of the

world in order to understand Dante, and in order to understand lots of things about medieval

Christianity.

So the cosmology of the Hindus, their view of the universe, has come right into Japanese

life through Buddhism, but it anti-dates Buddhism.

Buddhism simply adopted it as a matter of course, just as now if you invented a new religion,

you would probably adopt the cosmology of modern astronomy.

Well, now, how does the Hindu see the world?

You know there are really three great views of the world that human beings have had.

And they go, one is the Western view of the world, which looks upon the world as a construct,

an artifact, by analogy with ceramics and carpentry.

Then there is the Hindu view of the world, which is dramatic, looks on it as a play.

And then the Chinese view, which is organic, and looks upon the world as an organism, a body.

But the Hindu view sees it as a drama.

And it's simply this, there is what there is, and always was and always will be, which is called

the Self.

That in Sanskrit, that in Sanskrit is Atman, A-T-M-A-N.

And the Atman is also called Brahman, Brahman, from the root Bri, to grow, to expand, to swell,

is actually related to our word breath.

So, Brahman, the Self, according to the Hindu view, plays hide-and-seek with itself for always

and always and always.

How far out, how lost can you get?

So here, each one of us, according to the Hindu idea, is the Godhead, on purpose, getting

lost for the fun of it.

And how terrible it can get at times, but won't it be nice when you wake up?

That's sort of the basic idea.

And I found it's an idea that any child can understand.

It has great simplicity and great elegance.

Now in part of this cosmology, we must understand another feature of this conception of the universe.

Not only, uh, you remember now the kalpas, the periods of time, the yugas, the qualities

of the time through which the universe goes, but there's the final thing, which are called

the Six Worlds, or the Six Paths of Life.

And this is a very important for Buddhism, although it comes from Hinduism, is represented

in what is called the Bhava Chakra.

Bhava means becoming, B-H-A-V-A. Chakra, C-H-A-K-R-A, means wheel.

The wheel of becoming, the wheel of birth and death.

And it has six divisions.

It has the top people, and the bottom people.

The top people are called Deva, D-E-V-A.

The bottom people are called Naraka, N-A-R-A-K-A.

Devas are angels, and they are the people who are the supreme spiritual successors.

The Naraka are tormented in purgatory, and they are the supreme spiritual failures.

They are the Poles, the happiest people and the saddest people.

Then in between there comes the world of the Prettas, next to the Naraka, next to the purgatory.

The Prettas are the frustrated spirits, who have tiny mouths and enormous bellies, huge

appetites, but very, very limited means of satisfying it.

Then next, they come between the Narakas and the Devas at the top.

Next up from the Prettas are the human beings, and they are supposed to hold a middle position

in the six worlds.

Then you go up from the human beings to the Devas, and then you start coming down again.

The next world is called the Ashura, and those are the wrathful spirits, the personifications

of storm, and all the anger and violence of nature.

Next down is animals, coming between the Ashura and the purgatories again.

Now all these needn't be taken literally, they are different modalities of the human mind.

We are in the Naraka world when we are frustrated and in torment.

When we are merely chronically frustrated, we are in the Pretta world.

When we are in a state of equanimity, even-mindedness, we are in the human world.

When we are deliriously happy, we are in the Deva world.

When we are furious, we are in the Ashura world.

And when we are dumb, we are in the animal world.

So these are all modalities.

And it would be said now, this is terribly important to understand Buddhism.

Because the better you get, the more you go up to the Deva world.

The worse you get, the more you go down to the Naraka world.

But everything that goes up has to come down.

So you can't improve yourself indefinitely.

If you improve yourself beyond a certain limit, you simply start to get worse.

Like when you make a knife too sharp, it begins to wear away.

So the Buddhahood, or liberation, enlightenment, is on no place on the wheel, unless it might

be the center.

By ascending, by becoming better, you tie yourself to the wheel by gold chains.

By retrogressing and becoming worse, you tie yourself to the wheel with iron chains.

But the Buddha is one who gets rid of the chains altogether.

And so this will explain why Buddhism, unlike Judaism and unlike Christianity, is not very,

very frantically concerned with being good.

It is concerned with being wise.

It is concerned with being compassionate.

It is a little different from being good.

With having tremendous sympathy and understanding and respect for all the ignorant people who

don't know that they're it, but who are playing the very far out game of being you and I.

And so this is why every Hindu greets his brother, not by shaking hands, but by putting his hands

together and bowing.

This is why the Japanese bow to each other, basically.

This is why Buddhist rituals are full of the bowing gesture, because you are honoring the

self, playing the roles of all the people around you.

And all the more honor is due when the self has forgotten what it's doing and is therefore

in a very far out situation.

Now that is the basic Hindu view of the world.

That's the cosmology which goes along with Buddhism.

According to taste, temperament, tradition, popular belief and so on, there is this additional

idea that when the Lord, the self, pretends that it's each of us, it first of all pretends

that it is something called the jiva-atman.

The atman, the self, pretends to be an individual soul called a jiva-atman.

And the jiva-atman reincarnates through a whole series of bodies, life after life after life.

And according to what is called karma, karma literally means doing, the law of doing whereby

acts occur in a series.

And they are linked with each other in an unbreakable chain.

So everybody's karma is the life course that he will work out through maybe innumerable

lifetimes.

I'm not going into that because a lot of Buddhists don't believe that.

You will find that the Zen people, for example, are quite divided on this.

They will say, no, we don't believe literally in reincarnation.

That after your funeral, you know, you will suddenly become somebody different, living

somewhere else.

They will say reincarnation means this, that if you sitting here now are really convinced

that you're the same person who walked in at the door half an hour ago, you're being

reincarnated.

If you're liberated, you'll understand that you're not.

The past doesn't exist.

The future doesn't exist.

There is only the present, and that's the only real you that there is.

The Zen master Dogen put it in this way, he said, spring does not become the summer.

First there is summer, and then there is spring.

Each season stays in its own place.

And so in the same way, the you of yesterday does not become the you of today.

T.S. Eliot has the same idea in his poem, The Four Quartets, where he says, when you settle

down in the train to read your newspaper and so on, you are not the same person who a little

while ago left the platform.

If you think you are, you are linking your moments up in a chain.

And this is what binds you to the wheel of birth and death.

But when you know that every moment at which you are is the only moment, this comes into

Zen.

A master will say to somebody, get up and walk across the room.

And he comes back and he says, where are your footprints?

They've gone.

So where are you?

Who are you?

When we are asked who we are, we usually give a kind of recitation of a history.

Well, I'm so-and-so, I was given this name by my parents, I've been to such-and-such a college,

I've done these things in my profession, and I produce a little biography.

Buddha says, forget it.

That's not you.

That's some story.

That's all gone.

That's all past.

I want to see the who, the real you, you are now.

Well, nobody knows who that is, you see, because we don't know ourselves except through listening

to our echoes and consulting our memories.

But then there's a real you, and that again leads us back to this question, who are you?

That is the real you.

We shall see how they play with this in Zen, by the koans, to get you to come out of your

shell and find out who you really are.

Well now, whereas in India, this world view is tied up with a whole culture involving every

circumstance of everyday life, Hinduism is not a religion in the same sense that say, being

an Episcopalian or even a Roman Catholic.

Hinduism is not a religion, it is a culture.

In this respect, it's more like Judaism than Christianity.

Because a person is still recognizable as a Jew, even though they don't go to synagogue.

Because there's certain cultural things that Jewish people who come of a line of Jewish

parents, people who have been practicing Jews, they still continue certain ways of doing

things, certain mannerisms, certain attitudes, and so they are cultural Jews instead of religious

Jews.

Now Hinduism is the same sort of thing.

It is a religion culture.

And so it involves living in India, really, to be a Hindu.

Because of the differences of climate, the differences of arts and crafts, technology, you can't be a Hindu

in the full sense in Japan or in the United States.

So what is Buddhism?

Buddhism is Hinduism stripped for export.

Now the Buddha was a reformer, you might say.

In the highest sense of a reformer, someone who wants to go to the original form or to

reform it for the needs of a certain time.

The word Buddha is a title, not a proper name.

Same way as Christ means the anointed and it's not the surname of Jesus.

Though Buddha is not the surname of Gotama, it means the one who is awakened from the root

in Sanskrit, buddh, b-u-d-h, to know.

The man who woke up, who discovered who he really was.

Now the thing that wherein, the crucial point, wherein Buddhism differs from Hinduism, is it

doesn't say who you are.

It has no idea, no concept, and I emphasize the word idea and concept, it has no idea and

no concept of God.

Because Buddhism is not interested in concepts, it's interested in direct experience and direct

experience only.

So from the Buddhist standpoint, all concepts are wrong.

Just in the same way that nothing is really what you say it is.

Is this a stool?

If it isn't now, it's a wastebasket, it's now a drum.

What is this thing?

See?

It is what it does, it's this, see?

Anything you can use it for is what it is.

So if you have a rigid idea that it's a stool and you can only sit on it, you're kind of stuck.

But if it's all these other things as well, then you suddenly see that anything can be

everything.

So in the same way, Buddhism does not define and say what you really are is something.

Because it would say that if you believe that, you've got stuck with an idea and you're clinging

onto it for spiritual security.

So a lot of people say, well, I like to have a religion because it gives me something to

hold on to.

A Buddhist would say, ah, cut that stuff.

So long as you hold on to something, you don't have religion.

You only, you only really there when you let go of everything.

And you don't depend on any fixed idea, any belief for your sanity or happiness.

So you would think Buddhism is very destructive.

Because it breaks down, it doesn't believe in God, it doesn't believe in an immortal soul,

it doesn't believe in, doesn't seek any solace in any idea of life after death.

It absolutely faces the fact of the transiency of life.

There's nothing you can hold on to, so man let go.

Because there's no one to hold on to anything anyway.

So Buddhism is the discipline of doing that.

But if you do that, you see, you discover something much better than anybody has who has a belief.

Because you've got the real thing.

You can't say what it is.

They say in Zen that if you're enlightened in Buddhism, you are like a dumb man who's had

a wonderful dream.

That is to say, when you've had a wonderful dream, you want to tell everybody what it

is.

But you can't.

But if you're dumb, see, if you can't speak.

So the real thing in Buddhism, which they call nirvana, which is a sort of equivalent

to moksha, nirvana means blow out.

Phew!

You know, the sigh of relief.

Because if you hold your breath, you lose it.

You hold on to yourself, you hold on to life, or breath is the spirit, you hold on to God,

rock of ages cleft for me, let me cling on to you.

It's all dead, becomes just a rock, just an idol.

But let go, breathe out, and you get your breath back.

That's nirvana.

So the Buddhist idea is, in doctrine, the highest negativism.

They characterize the ultimate reality as shunya, which means emptiness.

In Japanese, ku, which is the character you use for the sky or the air, when you get an

air mail envelope, you know, to write home.

It will, the second character is ku, the air, which means emptiness.

They use this to translate shunyata, emptiness, fundamental nature of reality, the sky.

But sky, you see, is not negative emptiness.

The sky contains all of us.

It's full of everything going on.

But you can't put a nail in the sky and pin it down.

So in the same way, Buddhism is saying, you don't need any gizmos to be in the know.

You don't need a religion.

You don't need any, even Buddha statues.

You don't need any temples.

You don't need any Buddhist bondioseries, rosaries, and all that jazz.

But when you get to the point that you know you don't need any of those things, that you

don't need a religion at all, then it's fun to have one.

Then as it were, you can be trusted to use rosaries and ring bells and clappers and chant

sutras, you see?

But those things won't help you a bit.

They'll just tie you up in knots if you use them as methods of catching hold of something.

So every teacher of Buddhism is a debunker.

But he does it not to be a smart-aleck and to show how clever he is, but out of compassion.

That's when a surgeon chops off a bad growth or a dentist pulls out a rotten tooth.

So the Buddhist guru or surgeon is getting rid of your crazy ideas for you, which you use

to cling on to life and make it dead.

Now, there are two kinds of Buddhism.

They are called Mahayana, Mahā is Sanskrit word for great, M-A-H-A, Yāna means a vehicle

or conveyance.

And there is Hinayana, means the little vehicle, Hina in Sanskrit, H-I-N-A means little.

Actually that's a term invented by the Mahayanists for the other people, and the other people

don't like it.

They like to call themselves Theravada, T-H-E-R-A, V-A-D-A, which means Vada, the way, Thera,

of the elders.

Now, Theravada Buddhism you will find in Ceylon, Burma, Thailand, Cambodia, and generally

South Asia.

Mahayana you find in, it originated in Nepal, northern India, and you find it in Tibet, China,

Mongolia, Japan, and to some extent in Indonesia.

And the Mahayana is what we are finding here.

All the sects of Japanese Buddhism are Mahayana.

Now, what's the great difference between these two schools?

The Theravada is very strict.

It's a way for monks, essentially, rather than laymen.

And it is, you see there are many ways of living Buddhism, it'll take me some time to

show you this.

The Theravada Buddhists are trying to live without desires, to have no need for wives or girls

or husbands or boyfriends, not to kill anything at all, to live the strictest vegetarian way,

and to strain your water so that you even don't eat any insects, little insects with it.

And to this very strict way, and to meditate all the time, and eventually attain nirvana,

which will involve your total disappearance from the manifested world.

Mahayana feeling is that that is a dualistic point of view.

You don't need to get away from this world to experience nirvana, because nirvana is what

there is.

It's here.

So, the ideal person of Mahayana is called a Bodhisattva.

This originally meant somebody on the way to becoming a Buddha.

But in Mahayana it has a different meaning.

It means somebody who has become a Buddha, but has gone back into the world, in the spirit

of compassion, to help all other beings to become awakened.

Well now that's an endless task.

It's like filling a well with snow, you know.

Put snow into a well and never fills up.

So when at the Zen monastery, they've said their homage to the Buddha, the Dharma, that's

say the Buddha's doctrine or method, and the Sangha, the order of followers of the Buddha.

Then they take five vows.

And one of them is, however innumerable sentient beings are, I vow to liberate them all.

Well, so you see there's no end to that.

Never comes a time when all sentient beings are liberated.

But actually from the standpoint of one who is a Buddha, he sees everybody as liberated.

In other words, if I were to be a Buddha, I wouldn't say, now look everybody, I'm a Buddha,

and I'm more experienced than you, and I know more than you, and you owe me respect

on that account.

On the other hand, I would see you all as being exactly right where you are.

All of you Buddhas.

And even those of you who don't know it, it would be right for you not to know it at this

moment.

In talking about Buddhism in past seminars, I explain that it's absolutely fundamental

to an understanding of Buddhism to recognize that its whole method of teaching is dialectic.

That is to say, it consists of a dialogue between a teacher and a student.

And the method of this dialogue is called upaya, that is to say, skillful means used by the

teacher to bring about the enlightenment of the student.

The word upaya meaning expert pedagogy in teaching, but meaning deceit when used in a political

context.

And since Buddhism is a dialogue, what you ordinarily understand as the teachings of Buddhism are

not the teachings of Buddhism, they are simply the opening gambit, or the opening process of

this dialogue.

The point being, that Buddhism is not a teaching, its essence consists in a certain kind of experience,

in a transformation of consciousness which is called awakening or enlightenment, which

involves our seeing through or transcending the hoax of being a separate ego.

And so a Buddhist does not have the same tendency that a Christian has to want to find out what

his faith is by going back to the most original sources.

There has always been a tendency in Christianity to ask, what did Jesus really teach? What is

the pure New Testament, uncorrupted by theologians and by scribes who inserted things into the

mouth of the master?

It does not occur to Buddhists to have this attitude because of this dialectic pattern.

You see, when you have an acorn, if it's a lively acorn, it grows into an oak.

And that's the way it should be.

In other words, it should develop into something.

And so Buddhism, as it has developed since the days of the Buddha, has gone a long way.

It has become sometimes more complex, sometimes more simple.

But it has changed radically because the seed which the Buddha planted was alive.

Now for example, when we ask, what are the Buddhist scriptures?

You can get two answers to that question.

In the Southern School, there is a set of scriptures which are written in the Pali language.

divided into three sections, called the tipitaka, which means the three baskets.

Because these palm-leaf manuscripts on which the sutras were eventually written down

were, of course, carried around in baskets.

And three baskets of these palm-leaf manuscript volumes comprised the Buddhist scriptures.

But you must remember that in the evolution of these scriptures,

that the Buddha wrote nothing, nor did his immediate disciples.

That's a very important thing to remember, that all Indian scriptures were for many centuries handed down orally.

And so we have no clear guide as to their dates.

Because when you hand down an oral tradition,

you are not always likely to preserve certain historical landmarks.

Supposing we are talking about a certain king,

and the name of this king will mark a historical point.

But in an oral tradition, the name of the king is likely to be changed every time the story is told,

to correspond to the king then reigning.

So, in other words, things that do change, that have a historical rhythm, like a succession of kings,

they will be changed in handing down the oral tradition.

But things that do not change, that is to say the essential principle of the doctrine,

they won't be altered at all.

So, you must remember that the Buddhist scriptures were for some hundreds of years handed down orally,

before they were ever committed to writing.

And that accounts for their monotonous form.

That is why everything is numbered, why there are four noble truths,

eight steps of the eightfold path,

ten fetters, five skandhas,

four brahma-viharas or meditation states,

and so on and so on.

Everything is put in numerical lists,

so as to be memorized easily.

And so, there are formulae, which are constantly repeated.

And this is supposed to aid the memory.

Now then, it is obvious that those scriptures

of the Pali Canon,

when you really sit down and read them,

you know that what has happened here,

is that partly they have a certain monotony due to mnemonic aids,

but also that in the course of time before they were written down,

many monks spent wet afternoons adding to them,

and adding things in such a style

that no inspired person could ever have said them.

And they made commentaries upon commentaries upon commentaries,

and lots of them had no sense of humor.

I always loved the passage where

the Buddha is giving instructions on the art of meditation,

and he is describing a number of things on which one could concentrate.

And there's a commentator making little notes on this.

And so, when he's made his list of things on which you could concentrate,

like a square drawn on the ground,

or the tip of your nose,

or a leaf, or a stone, or anything,

and then he says,

or on anything,

and the commentator puts footnote,

but not any wicked thing.

I mean, that's professional clergy for you,

the world over.

So, this sort of thing has obviously happened.

But you must remember that this is not,

this accumulation,

this attribution of one's own writings to the Buddha

is not done in a dishonest way.

It would be dishonest today,

with our standards of literary historicity and correctness.

It would be very wrong of me

to forge a document

and pretend that it was written by

some very venerable person,

say, by Dr. Suzuki,

or by Goethe.

But,

centuries ago,

both in the West and in the East,

it was considered quite immoral

to publish any book of wisdom

under your own name.

Because you, personally,

were not entitled to the possession of this knowledge.

And that is why you always put

on any book of wisdom

the name of the real author,

that is to say,

the person who inspired you.

So in this way,

it is highly doubtful

if the book of the wisdom of Solomon,

at least it's not only doubtful,

but it's perfectly certain

that Solomon never wrote it.

But that it was attributed to Solomon

because Solomon was an archetype

of the wise man.

So in the same way,

when for centuries,

various Buddhist monks and scholars

wrote all kinds of sutras,

scriptures,

and ascribed them to the Buddha,

they were being properly modest.

They were saying,

these doctrines are not my doctrines.

They are the doctrines

that proceed from

the Buddha in me,

and therefore,

they should be ascribed to Buddha.

And so over and above the Pali canon,

there is an enormous corpus

of scriptures

written originally in Sanskrit

and subsequently translated

into Chinese and Tibetan.

We have very inadequate manuscripts

of the original Sanskrit,

but we have very complete

Chinese and Tibetan translations.

And so it is primarily

from Chinese and Tibetan sources

that we have the

Mahayana canon

of the scriptures

over and above

the Theravada canon

which is written

in the Pali language.

Pali is a softened form

of Sanskrit.

Whereas in Sanskrit

one says Nirvana,

in Pali one says Nibbana.

Sanskrit says Karma,

Pali says Kamma.

Sanskrit says Dharma,

Pali says Dhamma.

It's very similar language,

but it's softer

in its speech,

articulation.

Now it's a general feeling

among scholars

of the West

that the Pali scriptures

are closer

to the authentic teachings

of the Buddha

than the Sanskrit ones.

And so

with our Christian

background

and approach

to scriptures

in general

the West

has built up

a very strong

you might say

prejudice

in favor

of the authenticity

of the Theravada tradition

as against

the Mahayana tradition.

Whereas the Mahayanists

put it this way

they say

that they're

most

they have a

hierarchy

of scriptures

one for

very simple-minded

people

the next

they have

about four grades

going progressively

to

the scriptures

for the most

intelligent people

and they say

that the Buddha

preached that

to his intimate

disciples first

and then slowly

as he reached out

from the most

intimate group

to others

he came down

to what is now

the Pali Canon

as the scriptures

for the biggest

dunderheads

but that

the ones

that he preached

first

were not revealed

until long

long after

his death

so they have

no difficulty

in making

a consistent

story

about the fact

that the scriptures

in Sanskrit

represent

a level

of the historical

evolution

of Buddhist

ideas

that from

our point

of view

could not

possibly have

been attained

in the Buddha's

lifetime

but you see

they say

though

that the latest

revealed

was actually

the first

taught

to the in-group

well

you've got to

make allowances

for these

differences

in points of view

and not entirely

project

western standards

of historical

and documentary

criticism

onto

Buddhist

scriptures

because as I said

it is in the

essence of Buddhism

to be

a developing

process

because it is

a dialogue

so then

you can see

the initial

steps of the

dialogue

in

our earliest

or presumed

earliest records

of Buddhism

in the

Four Noble Truths

where you have

it put out

that

the problem

which Buddhism

faces

is suffering

this word

dukkha

which we

translate

suffering

is the opposite

of sukha

sukha

means

what is sweet

and delightful

dukkha

means the opposite

what is bitter

and

frustrating

and

Mahayanists

will explain

that the Buddha

always taught

by a dialectical

method

that is to say

when people

were trying

to make

the goal

of life

the pursuit

of sukha

that is to say

the pursuit

of happiness

he counteracted

this wrong view

by teaching

that life

is essentially

miserable

when people

thought

for example

that there

is a permanent

and eternal

self

in each one

of us

and clung

to that

self

the Buddha

in order

to counteract

this one-sided

view

taught the other

extreme

doctrine

that there

is no

fixed self

in us

no ego

but a Mahayanist

would always say

the truth

is the middle way

non-atman

self

nor non-self

the

whole point

is like this

once when

R.H. Blythe

was asked

by some students

do you believe

in God

he answered

if you do

I don't

if you don't

I do

and so

in much

the same way

all Buddhist

pedagogics

teaching

is

specifically

addressed

not to people

in general

but to the

individual

who brings

a problem

and wherever

he seems

to be

overemphasizing

things in one

way

the teacher

overemphasizes

in the opposite

way

so as to

arrive at

the middle

way

so then

with this

emphasis

on life

is suffering

it's simply

saying

this is the

problem

we're dealing

with

we hurt

we

human beings

feel pretty

unfairly

treated

because we

are born

into a world

so arranged

that

the price

that we

pay

for enjoying

it

that is to

say

for having

sensitive

bodies

is that

these bodies

are at the

same time

because they

are sensitive

capable of

the most

excruciating

agonies

isn't that

a nasty

trick to

play on

us

what are we

going to

do about

it

this is the

problem

so then

when the

buddha

says

the cause

of suffering

is desire

trishna

is our

word

thirst

and may

perhaps be

translated

desire

in a very

general sense

or perhaps

better craving

clinging

grasping

something like

that

he is saying

now

I'm going to

make this

suggestion

you suffer

because you

desire

now supposing

then you try

not to desire

and see if by

not desiring

you can cease

from suffering

or you can

put the same

thing in another

way

you can say

to a person

it's all in

your mind

there is

nothing either

good or ill

but thinking

makes it so

and therefore

if you can

control your

mind

you've nothing

else that you

need control

for example

you don't need

to control

the rain

if you can

control your

mind

if you get

wet

it's only

your mind

that makes

you think

it's

uncomfortable

to be

wet

a person

who's got

good mental

discipline

can be

perfectly

happy

wandering

around

in the

rain

you don't

need a

fire

if you've

got good

mind

control

because

if you've

got

ordinary

bad mind

control

when it

gets

cold

you start

shivering

that's

because

you're

putting

up

a

resistance

to

the

cold

you're

fighting

it

but

don't

fight

it

relax

to

the

cold

and

in

other

attitude

and

then

you'll

be

fine

always

control

your

mind

this

is

another

way

of

approaching

it

you see

now

then

as soon

as the

student

begins

to

experiment

with

these

things

he

finds

out

that

it

is

not

so

easy

as

it

sounds

not

only

is

it

very

difficult

not

to

desire

not

only

is

it

very

difficult

to

control

your

mind

but

there's

something

phony

about

the

whole

business

and

this

is

what

you're

intended

to

discover

that

namely

when

you

try

to

i'm not

merely

playing

with

logic

i'm

saying

that

a

person

who

is

escaping

from

reality

will

always

feel

the

terror

of

it

will

be

like

the

hound

of

heaven

that

pursues

him

and

he's

escaping

in

a

way

even

when

he's

trying

not

to

escape

and

it

was

this

point

you

see

that

this

method

of

teaching

was

supposed

to

educate

from

you

not

by

saying

to

anybody

all

this

in

the

first

place

but

by

making

the

experiment

not

to

desire

or

the

experiment

to

control

your

mind

thoroughly

this

is

the

first

step

you

to

understand

this

you

must

go

through

that

or

some

equivalent

of

it

so

as

to

come

to

the

point

where

you

see

you

are

that

in

trying

to

control

your

mind

the

motivation

the

reason

for

which

you

were

doing

it

is

still

clinging

and

grasping

there

is

still

self

protection

there

is

still

lack

of

trust

and

love

so

when

this

is

understood

the

student

returns

to

the

teacher

and

says

look

this

is

my

difficulty

i cannot

eliminate

desire

because

that

itself

my effort

to do

so

is

itself

desire

i cannot

eliminate

selfishness

because

my reasons

for wanting

to be

unselfish

are

selfish

as one

of the

chinese

buddhist

classics

puts it

when the

wrong man

uses the

right

means

the

right

means

work

in

the

wrong

way

now the

right

means

are

all

the

traditional

disciplines

and

you're

trying to

practice

zazen

or

whatever

and

make

yourself

into

a

buddha

but

you see

if you're

not a

buddha

in the

first

place

you

can't

become

one

because

you'll

be

the

wrong

man

you're

using

the

right

means

but

because

you're

using

them

for

a

selfish

intent

or

a

fearful

intent

you're

afraid

of

suffering

and

you

don't

like

it

and

you

want

to

get

out

of

it

you

want

to

escape

and so

then

in

course

of

time

when

all

this

was

thoroughly

explored

by

the

buddha's

disciples

there

developed

a

very

evolved

form

of

this

whole

technique

of

dialectic

which

was

called

madhyamika

m

a

d

h

y

a

m

i

k

a

it

means

the

middle

way

but

it

n

a

g

a

r

j

u

n

a

who

lived

approximately

in

a.d

Nargajuna's

method

is simply

an extension

and

drawing to

logical

conclusions

of the

method

of

dialogue

that

already

existed

except

that

Nargajuna

took

it

to

an

extreme

and

his

method

is

simply

this

to

undermine

to

cast

doubts

on

any

proposition

to

which

his

student

will

cling

to

destroy

all

intellectual

formulations

and

all

concepts

of

the

nature

of

reality

or

the

nature

of

the

self

whatsoever

now

you

might

think

that

was

simply

a

parlor

game

a

little

intellectual

exercise

but

if

you

engaged

in

it

you

would

find

it

was

absolutely

terrifying

and

you

would

feel

yourself

brought

very

close

to

the

verge

of

madness

because

a

skillful

teacher

in

this

method

reduces

you

to

a

shuddering

state

of

total

insecurity

I

have

watched

this

being

done

among

people

you

would

but

then

finally

the

teacher

as

the

process

goes

on

discovers

in

the

course

of

the

discussion

what

are

the

fundamental

premises

to

which

every

one

of

his

students

is

clinging

what

is

the

foundation

of

sanity

what

do

you

base

your

life

on

when

he

has

found

out

what

that

is

for

each

student

he

destroys

it

he

shows

you

that

you

can't

found

a

way

of

life

on

that

it

leads

you

into

all

sorts

of

inconsistencies

and

foolishness

and

the

student

turns

back

to

the

teacher

and

says

well

it's

all

very

well

for

you

to

pull

out

all

the

carpets

from

under

my

can't

play

ball

with

the

teacher

and

you

may

say

well

I

don't

need

to

then

on

the

other

hand

there's

something

nagging

you

inside

telling

you

do

and

so

you

go

and

play

ball

with

him

and

he

keeps

knocking

it

down

whatever

you

propose

whatever

you

cling

to

and

this

exercise

produces

in

the

and

you

wouldn't

think

so

because

it

just

seemed

as

if

it

were

nothing

more

than

a

discussion

on

a

very

intellectual

and

abstract

level

but

when

it

really

gets

down

to

it

and

you

find

that

you

don't

have

a

single

concept

you

can

really

trust

it's

the

heebie

jeebies

but

it

he seems

perfectly

happy

without

anything

uh...

in the way

of a concept

to cling

onto

and the

student

looks at

him

and says

he seems

to be

alright

maybe

i can

be

alright

too

you know

this gives

a certain

confidence

a certain

feeling

that

all

is