===== Buddhism - 01 - As Dialogue I =====

Now, I hope you remember that this morning I was trying in the brief space of 50 minutes
to give you a basic introduction to Mahayana Buddhism,
the kind of Buddhism that is found in China and Japan,
and the kind of Buddhism of which Zen Buddhism in particular is a subsect.
And we are rather particularly concerned with Zen, since it has had such a fundamental influence
in the shaping of Japanese culture and the arts of Japan,
and since we are, in the course of this informal tour,
going to be visiting a good deal of Zen monasteries
and seeing a great deal of Zen-formed works of art, architecture, and so on.
So, I want to lead now tonight from Buddhism in general, or Mahayana Buddhism in general,
to Zen in particular.
Now, Zen plays a little game with you.
Now, whenever anybody like myself or Dr. Suzuki talks about Zen,
all the other people say, because they talk about it, they don't understand it.
Those, in the words of Lao Tzu, who know do not say.
Those who say do not know.
And yet he said that.
He wrote a book of several 80 chapters or so to explain the Tao and the De, its power,
and nobody can help themselves.
They've got to talk.
Human beings are a bunch of chatterboxes.
And when we've got something in our minds that we want to talk about, we talk.
Now, poetry, though, is the great language because poetry is the art of saying what can't be said.
Every poet knows this.
You're trying to describe the indescribable,
and every poet also knows that nothing is describable.
Whether you take some sort of ineffable mystical experience at one extreme,
or whether you take an ordinary rusty nail at the other,
nothing is really describable.
In the words of the famous Count Korzybski,
whatever you say, something is, it isn't.
We used to have a professor at Northwestern
who would produce a match booklet in front of his class
and would say to them, what is it?
And they would say, match booklet.
He'd say, no, no, no, match booklet is a noise.
Is this a noise?
What is it?
And so, to answer this, he'd throw it at them.
That's what it is.
So, in this way, you see, nothing can really be described.
And yet, on the other hand,
we all know perfectly well what we mean when we talk.
If you know, if you've shared an experience with somebody else,
then, of course, you can talk about it.
We can all talk about fire and air and water and wood
because we know what it is.
And there's no mystery.
And so, in the same way,
when it comes to discussing something so esoteric as Zen,
it can be discussed.
Only, Zen people play games with each other.
They play little tricks.
They test each other out by saying to somebody,
I remember when I met Paul Reps for the first time
who wrote that lovely book,
Zen Flesh and Zen Bones.
And he said to me,
Well, he said,
You've written quite a number of books by now.
You must think you're pretty fancy.
I said, I haven't said a word.
No, this is simply a Zen game.
And people sort of feel each other out.
There's a poem which says,
When two Zen masters meet each other on the road,
they need no introduction.
Thieves recognize one another instantaneously.
So now, having got that off my chest,
it's to say, then,
if I were to give you a really proper
and really and truly educative talk about Zen,
I would gather you around here
and sit here in silence for five minutes and leave.
And in a way,
this would be a much more direct exposition of it
than what I'm going to do instead,
which is talk about it.
Only I have a feeling that
you would feel that you were disappointed
and somewhat cheated
by this kind of behavior
if I just left in five minutes' silence.
So then,
this word Zen
is Japanese way
of pronouncing the Chinese word Chan,
which in turn is the Chinese way
of pronouncing the Sanskrit word Jnana.
And Jnana is a very difficult word
to translate into English,
if not impossible.
It's been called meditation.
Meditation in English
generally means sitting quietly
and thinking about something.
And that's not what Zen is.
Contemplation
might come a little nearer
if you use the word
in a very technical sense,
the sense that it was used
or still is used
among Catholic mystics.
Perhaps that's something a bit like Zen.
But again, contemplation,
as we normally use the word,
has a sense of inactivity,
a sense of
not doing anything,
of being completely still and passive.
whereas Zen is something highly active.
So we really don't have
an English word for Jnana,
Chan,
Zen.
But I would say
that we do know what it is
because we do all sorts of things
every day of our lives
in the spirit.
when, for example,
you drive a car.
Most Americans,
at any rate,
drive car since they were teenagers
and are very expert drivers.
And when they drive a car,
they don't think about it.
They're one with the car.
Or when a rider of a horse
is one being with the horse
when you watch a good cowboy
or a cavalry rider.
He's glued to the horse.
He's like a centaur almost.
As the horse moves,
he moves.
Which is in control?
Is the horse riding the man
or the man riding the horse?
You practically don't know.
Same way when you have
an excellent dancing partner.
Who leads?
Who follows?
It seems as if you are one body
and you move together.
That is Zen.
That is Dhyana.
And so,
in a wider sense,
when a person
doesn't react to life
on the one hand
or try to dominate it
on the other,
but when the internal world
of one's own organism
and the external world
of other people
and other things
move together
as if they were
and indeed are
one and the same motion,
that is Zen.
So,
you could say
in a very, very simple way
that the real concern of Zen
is to realize,
not merely to think,
but to know in your bones
that the inside world
inside your skin
and the outside world
outside your skin
going out as far
as anything can go
into galaxies
beyond galaxies
is all one world
and all one being,
oneself,
and you're it.
And once you know that,
then, uh,
you have completely abolished
all the problems
that arise
as a result of feeling
that you are a stranger
in the world,
that you are set down
in the middle
of a hostile
and alien
domain of nature
or people
who are not you.
this whole sense
of estrangement,
foreignness
to the world
is overcome
in Zen.
Now,
let me illustrate
this a little
before we go into Zen
in any kind
of technical way
by a few
rather superficial
but nevertheless
significant facts
out of Japanese culture
and the place of Zen
in Japanese culture.
Japanese culture
is,
as you may have noticed
or was,
as you may have noticed,
extraordinarily ritualistic.
There is a right way
of doing everything,
a good form,
a proper style.
And nowhere
is this more apparent
than in such practices
as the tea ceremony
or arranging flowers
or knowing how to dress
or knowing how to organize
a formal dinner.
The punctiliousness,
the skill
of these people
in doing these things
is quite remarkable.
But in,
uh,
the same measure
as they are very skillful
at doing these things,
they are very worried
about it.
The whole question,
for example,
of bringing presents
to somebody else.
Have they given us
more than we've given them?
Did we remember
this occasion?
Did we remember
that occasion?
These weigh very heavily
on the Japanese soul.
The debt which you owe
to your parents,
the debt which you owe
to your country
and to your emperor,
immeasurable,
infinite debt,
never can be paid.
All these weigh
very heavily.
And therefore,
in Japan,
until the sort of
breakaway of modern youth
with its westernized ideals,
this is a very nervous culture,
concerned about whether
one is playing
the ritual correctly.
A culture like that
needs an outlet,
needs a safety valve,
needs a way
out of this thing.
And Zen provides
just that.
And so,
by contrast,
when you meet a Japanese
who is thoroughly trained
in Zen,
he is a different kind
of personality
altogether
from ordinary Japanese.
He is,
in manners,
not
studdially courteous,
nor is he brusque,
but he is simply
at ease.
He gives you
his whole attention
so long as you give him
your whole attention.
If you start wandering
and frittering,
he's got work to do
and he promptly leaves.
But so long as you
are wanting to talk to him,
he is there for you
and for nobody else.
And he sits down
and he really sits.
You know,
he doesn't worry about
whether he ought
to be somewhere else.
And so,
unable to sit
with complete serenity
in one place.
You know,
if you have half an idea
that you ought
to be worrying
about something
out in the garden
or that you ought
to be cooking dinner
or that you ought
to be down
in your office
or something,
you can't sit
where you are.
You're not really there.
You're a kind
of gas balloon
that keeps wanting
to wander off.
But these people,
when you see,
as you meet
people connected
with Zen,
even the,
sometimes the most
neophyte,
novice of a priest
has this atmosphere
of knowing
how to live
in the present
and not to be
fidgety and giggly
and worrying
about whether
he's done
the right thing.
That's very much
Zen style.
Even though
at the same time
the Zen people
do have
a very
exacting
and demanding
discipline,
the function
of this discipline
is rather curious.
It's to enable
you to be comfortable.
It's to enable
you, for example,
to sleep
on a concrete
sidewalk
on a cold,
wet night
and enjoy it.
To relax
completely
under any
situation
of hardship.
You see,
ordinarily,
when you sit
on a,
you're out
in the cold,
you start
shivering
why?
Because you're
resisting the cold.
You're
tightening your
muscles against
the cold
and you get
the staggers.
But you were
taught,
if you learn
Zen discipline,
not to do that.
Take it easy.
Go with the cold.
Relax.
And all those monks
in those monasteries
here, they're as cold
as hell in winter
and they simply
sit there
most of the time
and we would be
frozen to death
and miserable
and have influenza
and the great
Siberian itch,
but they simply
relax and learn
how to take
the cold.
So there's nothing
about Zen discipline
which is masochistic.
It isn't to
beach your body
because your body's
bad and there's
the creation of the
devil or something.
It has nothing
to do with that.
It is how to be
comfortable under
all circumstances.
But that, again,
is something rather
incidental to the main
question of Zen.
As I said,
the Zen people,
as you meet them
and as you get to
know their style
of personality,
are at ease
in a culture
that is not at ease.
In a culture
that is chronically
concerned with protocol
and is it just right
that is indeed
a terribly self-conscious
culture
where everybody
is always
watching themselves
and having therefore
second thoughts
about everything.
And so the discipline
of Zen
is to enable you
to act
without watching
yourself.
We would say
unselfconsciously.
But Japanese
are as terrified
of this as we are.
They think
and we think.
If I don't watch
myself,
I'll make a mistake.
If I don't hold
a club over myself,
I'll cease
to be civilized
and become a barbarian.
If I don't
discipline myself
with all sorts
of
done on those
passions of yours,
you will become
like the monk
of Siberia
who burst
from his cell
and devoured
the father superior.
So
this basic
mistrust
and so on
in one's
own spontaneity
makes it
makes us wonder
that if the Zen
people are
really spontaneous
and they don't
plan and
premeditate
and hold clubs
over themselves,
won't they
become very,
very dangerous
people socially?
Won't they
go out and
rape their
mothers and
daughters and
murder their
grandmothers
to inherit
their fortunes
and so on
and so forth?
And Zen
people just
don't do that.
And yet
they are
perfectly
spontaneous.
So then
let me
try then
and indicate
how this
discipline
called Zen
actually works.
This will
involve a
little bit
of letting
the cat
out of
the bag
but
can't be
helped.
Let's go
back
to what
I told
you
was
fundamental
to
Buddhism.
Buddhism
is
unlike
other
religions
in that
it does
not
tell you
anything.
It doesn't
require you
to believe
in anything.
Buddhism
is a
dialogue.
And what
are called
the teachings
of Buddhism
are nothing
more than
the opening
phrases or
opening exchanges
in the
dialogue.
Buddhism
is a
dialogue
between
a Buddha
and an
ordinary
man or
rather
someone
who
insists
on
defining
himself
as
an
ordinary
man
and
thereby
creates
a
problem.
I quoted
you this
morning
our
saying
that
anybody
who
goes
to a
psychiatrist
ought to
have
his
head
examined
or
as
the
old
Chinese
master
Tokuzan
put it
if you
ask any
question
you get
thirty blows
with my
stick
if you
don't ask
any
question
you get
thirty
blows
just the
same
in other
words
what the
hell
are you
doing
around
here
defining
yourself
as
a
student
and
defining
me
as
a
teacher
in other
words
you
have
raised
the
problem
and
in
the
way
of
training
of
Zen
this
is
very
clearly
emphasized
if
you
go
to
a
Zen
teacher
and
you
approach
him
in
the
traditional
way
the
first
thing
he
will
do
is
to
say
I
haven't
anything
to
teach
go
away
well
you
say
what
are
these
people
doing
around
here
aren't
they
your
students
they
say
well
they
are
working
with
me
but
unfortunately
we
are
very
poor
these
days
we
don't
have
enough
rice
really
to
go
around
and
make
ends
meet
and
we
can't
take
on
anybody
else
in
other
words
if
you
really
want
this
thing
you've
got
to
work
for
it
that
is
the
real
point
the
point
is
that
you've
got
to
make
such
a
fuss
to
get
in
that
you
cannot
withdraw
gracefully
after
having
made
such
a
fuss
to
get
in
because
you
put
yourself
on
the
spot
and
you
define
yourself
as
somebody
needing
help
or
as
somebody
with
a
problem
who
needs
a
master
in
order
to
be
helped
out
of
the
problem
so
then
when
you've
with
your
head
on
bowed
down
on
the
steps
and
they
let
you
in
at
night
because
they
must
give
hospitality
to
any
wandering
monk
but
you
expect
not
to
go
to
sleep
any
of
those
five
nights
but
to
sit
there
in
meditation
and
they
I
want
to
know
what
the
secret
of
this
master
here
is
and
he's
told
you
from
the
start
that
he
doesn't
have
a
secret
and
he
doesn't
teach
anything
but
you
insist
that
he
does
see
that
is
the
situation
of
everybody
who
feels
that
life
is
a
problem
to
be
solved
whether
you
want
psychoanalysis
whether
you
want
integration
whether
you
want
salvation
whether
you
want
Buddha
whatever
it
is
you
define
yourself
as
wanting
you
created
the
problem
what
is
the
real
problem
that
everybody
brings
to
these
teachers
what
is
it
all
about
it's
basically
this
isn't
it
teacher
I
want
to
get
one
up
on
the
subject
to
disease
and
change
and
death
having
emotions
and
passions
means
that
I
am
tormented
by
feelings
which
I
can't
help
having
and
yet
it's
not
reasonable
to
act
on
those
feelings
without
creating
trouble
I
feel
trapped
by
this
world
and
so
I
want
to
get
the
better
of
it
and
is
there
some
wise
man
around
who
is
a
master
of
so
that's
what
everybody
is
looking
for
in
a
teacher
the
man
who
is
the
savior
and
who
can
show
you
how
to
cope
with
it
the
Zen
teacher
says
I
don't
have
any
answers
nobody
believes
that
because
he
seems
to be
so
competent
when
you
look
at
him
you
can't
believe
that
he
has
no
answers
and
yet
that's
the
consistent
teaching
of
that
it
has
nothing
to
say
and
nothing
to
teach
a
great
Chinese
master
of
the
Tang
dynasty
called
Linji
in
Chinese
or
Rinzai
in
Japanese
said
Zen
is
like
using
a
yellow
leaf
to
stop
a
child
crying
a
child
is
crying
for
gold
and
the
father
takes
an
autumn
leaf
that's
yellow
and
says
gold
or
he
said
it's
like
using
an
empty
fist
to
deceive
a
child
see
you've
got a
closed
fist
and
you say
to
the
child
what have
I
got
here
and
the
child
says
let
me
see
put your
fist
behind
your
back
foot
and
the
child
and
the
child
becomes
excited
to
know
what
the
devil
is
in
that
fist
and
fights
and
fights
and
fights
and finally
is
practically
in
tears
and then
suddenly
you finally
open the fist
and there's
nothing
inside
so in
so in exactly
the same
way
the person
who is under
the impression
that there is
something
that we ought
to get
see all this is
dressed up in a big
way
to be a buddha
to know the answer
to finally solve the problem
to get the message
to get the word
or however you put it
in other words
to be in control
of your fate
and of the world
would you like it
if you could have it
and so
all these powers
are projected
upon the Zen master
he is a buddha
he is a master of life
and if he is
the reason why he is
is that he has discovered
the unreality
of the whole problem
is that it
I've had some
thoughts
and here
are some
serious
words
I've couldn't
learn
least
I've been
working
with
more
possible


===== Buddhism - 02 - As Dialogue II =====

And so all these powers are projected upon the Zen master.
He is a Buddha. He is a master of life.
And if he is, the reason why he is,
is that he has discovered the unreality of the whole problem.
There is not life on the one hand and you on the other.
It's all the same.
But you see, you can't tell people that.
And just by telling, get them to see it.
And just in exactly this way,
people who know that the earth is flat can't be reasoned with.
People who believe that the Bible is the literal word of God,
absolutely impossible to reason with them at all,
because they know it is so.
So in the same way,
we tend to know that we are all separate, poor little me,
and that we are in need of salvation or something.
And we know this is so.
And so somebody says, well, you are not really that.
You know that that feeling of separateness is an illusion.
Well, that's all very nice in theory, but I don't feel it.
So what will you do?
What will you do with a person who is convinced that the earth is flat?
There's no way of reasoning with him.
If it's for some reason important that he discover that the earth is round,
you've got to play a game with him.
You've got to play a trick on him.
You tell him, great, the earth is flat.
Let's go and look over the edge.
Wouldn't that be fun?
Of course, if we're going to look over the edge of the earth,
we must be very, very careful that we don't go around in circles,
or we'll never get to the edge.
So we've got to go along consistently,
along a certain line of latitude westwards.
And then we're going to come to the edge of the earth,
just so long as we're consistent.
In other words,
in order to convince a flat earthist
that the world is round,
you've got to make him act consistently
on his own proposition.
And go consistently westwards
to find the edge of the world.
Now, at last,
by going consistently westwards,
he comes back to the place where he started.
He's been convinced that the earth is at least cylindrical.
And he may believe you.
Then take it on faith
that if he goes along a line of longitude,
the same thing will happen.
But you see,
what you did
was to make him persist in his folly.
Now, that's the whole method of Zen.
To make people
become
perfect
egotists.
And so explode the illusion of the separate ego.
So what happens?
In effect, then,
in the discipline of Zen,
when
you finally convince the master
that you're stupid enough
to be accepted as a student
because you've persisted
and because you've defined yourself
as someone having a problem,
he has warned you well in advance
that he has nothing to teach.
But he says,
now I will ask you a question.
There are many ways of asking this question,
but they all boil down to one common theme,
and that is,
who are you?
You say you have a problem.
You say you'd like to get out of the sufferings of life.
You say you'd like to get one up on the universe.
I want to know who's asking this question.
Show me you.
And only they put it in such ways as,
before your father and mother conceived you,
what was your original nature?
Questions like that.
And they'll say,
now, look,
I want to be shown.
I don't want a lot of ideas about who you are.
I don't want to know who you are
in terms of a social role.
You know,
that you have such degrees
or you have such professional qualifications
and such a name and such a family.
All that's the past.
I want to see you genuinely now.
It's like saying to a person,
now, don't be self-conscious.
See?
I want you right this minute
to be completely sincere.
Come on now.
Well, nothing is better calculated.
To make a person incapable of sincerity.
It says,
when relatives come
and aunts and uncles
and there's a little child
and they want to review this child
and see it
and the parents say to the child,
darling, come on now and play for us.
See?
And the poor child is completely nonplussed.
Doesn't know what to do.
Because you cannot play on demand.
Now, what is the Zen teacher doing
in saying to a person,
you must answer this question
by coming before me
in, in fact, a rather formal situation,
the kind of context
in which a Zen master interviews his students.
He's very formal.
And there he sits,
a sort of enthroned tiger.
He's definitely, in this culture,
a sensei,
a, um, authority figure.
And so he's the last kind of person
you can be spontaneous with
because you feel
that he knows you through and through.
And that, uh, do you know,
have you ever read that story
of von Kleist
about a man who has a fight with a bear?
The bear is a mind reader
and always knows what move
he's going to make
so that the man can never
conquer the bear
unless he makes a move
which he doesn't think about first.
How will you do that?
And then you get the same feeling
with, uh, relationship to a Zen master.
You feel
that he is absolutely aware
of everything phony about you.
That he reads you like a book.
But that you can't find a way
of being not phony.
Think about this a little.
You see, it's, uh,
we can arrange a group session.
And this is a little game
that's being played
by lots of people.
It's a kind of psychotherapy.
We can arrange a group session
in which the gimmick is this.
That when anybody says anything
or does anything,
the group or some section
of the group
challenges its sincerity
and says,
why are you coming on so strong?
Are you trying to dominate us?
And you see,
anything that you do
can be interpreted in that way.
Because the moment a group of people
becomes, starts making comments
on its own behavior,
it is setting up a situation
within the group
which is analogous,
say, in a TV studio,
to turning the camera
on the monitor.
So, uh,
when we start
thinking about thinking,
being aware of being aware,
this is what is called
in the Japanese
the observing self.
I watch myself all the time.
See?
You're in a hopeless way.
But this is the price
that human beings pay
for having become
self-conscious.
Anxiety
and guilt.
Anxiety because
am I sure
that I
thought this out
sufficiently carefully?
When I left the house
did I turn off
the gas stove?
And incidentally
I remember turning it off
but can I trust my memory?
I've learned to think
about memory now
and I wonder
if I can trust it.
Maybe I'd better
go back and look.
I went back
and I looked.
But did I really see?
I'm thinking about my sight
and whether
this is quite authentic.
Did I look properly?
Because you know
how the unconscious
can alter your senses.
And so I'd better
go and look again.
See, soon now
I've got into
a sort of
vicious circle
where I'll never
get away from the house.
And all this sort
of getting mixed up
is the penalty
we pay
for the advantageous
gift
of being able
to know
that we know.
There was a young man
who said though
it seems that I know
that I know.
What I would like to see
is the eye
that knows me
when I know
that I know
that I know.
And so this is
the Zen trick.
It's to put you
into this situation
in a very crucial way.
To think about
thinking about
or just the same thing
to make a very
strong effort
not to think.
That's Zazen.
Sit,
let your senses
operate
and be responsive
to whatever
there may be around
but don't think about it.
But now
this is already thinking.
I'm thinking
about not thinking.
How will I stop
thinking about
not thinking?
So there you are.
See, you're all
caught up.
It's like somebody
came to you
and they put
tar in one hand
or molasses
feathers in the other
slapped the two hands
together
and rubbed them around
and said
now pick off the feathers.
So you see
what happens.
The teacher
is well aware
that he's played
this trick on you
and he's going to see
what will happen
if you act
and he's going to
help you to act
consistently
on this foolishness.
Now,
you see,
what he's done
is he simply
made a special case
of what society
does to us all
anyhow.
And this is true
of most cultures.
The high cultures
of the world
whether they're
of the East
or whether they're
of the West
play a game
on every new member.
They don't know
they're playing this game
because their forefathers
played it on them
and they're still
under whose auspices
everybody comes
into this world
is as follows.
You are required
to do something
which will be acceptable
only if you do it
voluntarily.
You must love me.
You must go to sleep.
You must be natural.
You must be free.
Listen to that.
You must be free.
Now what happens,
you see,
society,
the community
into which every child
enters defines
the child.
We know who we are
as other people
reactors.
So the other people
say to us,
you're an independent
agent.
You're responsible.
You are a freely
acting individual
but this is a
commandment
and we obey it
because we can't
help it.
The child has no way
of criticizing this.
or of seeing
there's something
phony about it.
So the child
has to be free
because he is
commanded to be so
by the community.
Now then,
the community
sets itself a problem.
Having defined the child
as an independent agent
and having got the child
to believe that he's
an independent agent
because he isn't.
In other words,
he wouldn't believe this
if he were independent.
It then has trouble
getting him
to behave
as the community
wants him to behave.
So they feel then
there's something
ornery about all children.
They're born in
original sin.
They're refractuous
and so on.
Of course they are
because they've been
defined in a
self-contradictory way.
So when the community
says to a person,
you must be free
or when we are
in a family relationship
in which the members
of the family
are saying to each other,
you must love me.
It's your duty
to love me.
What a bunch of rot.
Supposing you're
one day you get up
and you say to your wife,
darling,
do you really love me?
And she replies,
well,
I'm trying my very best
to do so.
Is that the answer
you wanted?
No.
You wanted her to say,
darling,
I can't help loving you.
I love you so much
I could eat you.
You don't want her
to try to love you.
Yet that is what
you put on people
in almost any
marriage ceremony,
that you shall
love this person.
Thou shalt love
the Lord thy God.
Thou shalt love
thy neighbor as thyself.
This is a double bind.
And anybody who lives
under the dominance
of a double bind
lives in a state
of chronic frustration
because he is devoting
his whole life
to solving
a meaningless,
nonsensical problem.
Let's take the double bind
that is the deepest of all.
You must go on living.
Now, living
is a spontaneous process.
And to say to it
you must happen
is exactly the same thing
as saying
to any kind of creative artist
you must come through
with the goods.
Tonight you must give
the superb performance
and above all
you must be unselfconscious.
Well,
this is being done
to us all the time.
And the object
of the Zen discipline
is that instead
of doing this
to people unconsciously
as parents do it
and as teachers do it
to children
and as the children's peers
do it to their own
peer members
in Zen
the double bind
is put on you
deliberately
knowing how stupid it is.
The teacher
is well aware
of everything he's doing
and what tricks
he's playing on you
because he has
behind it all
the compassionate intent
of getting you
into such a fierce
double bind
that you will see
how stupid it is.
So then
what happens
is this
he gives you
the double bind
be genuine
I want to see
you do something
that is the real you.
I had a friend
who was studying Zen
and he was given
some koan
like this
to work on
and when he was
one day going
for his interview
he walked through
the garden
that connected
the sodo
or the monk's
study quarters
with the master's
place
and there was
a big bullfrog
bullfrog
bullfrogs
in this country
are rather tame
people don't eat them
and so he swept up
the bullfrog
and dropped it
into the sleeve
of his kimono
and when he got
in front of the teacher
to answer the koan
that is to say
to do spontaneously
produce his genuine self
he produced
the bullfrog
the teacher looked at it
and shook his head
and said
mm-mm
too intellectual
or as we might say
too contrived
too studied
that's not yet you
how do you see
the bind in this
it's like being told
that everything
is alright at this moment
so long as you don't
think of a green elephant
so try not to think
of a green elephant
see
now as he works at this
as he tries to produce
the genuine you
the teacher really
strings him out on this
and makes him work
and work
and work over a period
of many months
until he comes
to the point
of seeing
this
there is nothing
you can do
to be genuine
the more you do
the phonier you are
but at the opposite
extreme
there is nothing
you can not do
that is to say
you cannot
give up
trying to be genuine
you can't relax
you know
and be completely
passive
and say
well let's forget
about it
let's think
about practical matters
and forget
all these spiritual
concerns
the moment
you do that
your
abandonment
of trying
is itself
an insidious
form of trying
for example
there is a very
interesting Hindu
teacher
by the name
of Krishnamurti
that many of you
may know about
and he tells people
you know
that all their
religious inquiry
their yoga practices
their reading
religious books
and so on
is nothing
but a form
of perpetuating
one's egocentricity
but on a very refined
and highbrow level
so he gets a kind
of disciple
who studiously
avoids reading
any kind of
philosophical
or edifying book
they are reduced
to reading mystery stories
and they become
devoted
non-disciples
see what a clever
bind that is
it's the same
as the zen
technique
you can't
in other words
let go
of your
we've seen
my point was
at the beginning
we saw
that
the way
of Buddhism
is
to let go
of yourself
to
see
that you live
in a universe
which
in which nothing
can be grasped
therefore
stop grasping
so here's the problem
I come
and say to the teacher
teach me not to grasp
he'll say
why do you want to know
and he
shows you
that the reason why
you want to stop grasping
is that it's a new form
of grasping
you feel that you will
beat the game
by being unattached
see it's horrible
to grieve
when somebody you love
dies
so maybe by being
unattached
to that person
I can avoid grief
pretty cold
isn't it
maybe
you see
by
not having an ego
when life
comes and bangs
on me
if there's nobody
there
it'll be alright
so that's why
I want
non-ego state
that's phony
all this is a new way
of safeguarding
and protecting
the ego
so this is the way
in which Buddhism
is a dialogue
so you see
if you go back
to fundamental
primitive Buddhism
people say
to the Buddha
I want to escape
from suffering
it's a perfectly
honest statement
alright
realize that suffering
is caused by desire
try not to desire
so the student
goes away
and tries to
eliminate desires
by controlling
his mind
and practicing yoga
comes back
to the teacher
and says
it's pretty difficult
but I have
managed at least
to get rid
of some desires
teacher says
to him
but you're still
desiring
to get rid
of desire
what about
that one
and then
the student
sees
that if he
tries to
stop desiring
to get rid
of it
but then
he's got
to stop
desiring
to get rid
of not
desiring
to desire
and suddenly
he finds himself
once more
with molasses
in one hand
and feathers
in the other
absolutely tied up
in a vicious circle
so he realizes
there is nothing
I can do
about it
and there's
nothing I can
not do
about it
and this
predicament
in Zen
is called
a mosquito
trying to bite
an iron bull
a position
of such
psychic extremity
that nothing
can be done
about it
now the point
here is
what does
this situation
mean
when you
find yourself
in that kind
of a trap
what's the meaning
of the trap
why that's
very simple
if there's
nothing you
can do
and also
nothing you
can not do
about a given
situation
it means
that you
are phony
that in other
words what we
call a separate
ego
isn't there
of course it
can't do
anything
because it
is not an
agent
and by virtue
of the fact
that it can't
do anything
equally
it can't
not do
anything
it's completely
phony
so what has
happened is
to expose
the fiction
of there
being a
separate ego
either
to force
its actions
upon the
world
or to have
the actions
of the world
forced upon
it as a
puppet
this thing
just doesn't
exist
except as a
figment of the
imagination
or except
as a
game rule
let's pretend
everybody
is responsible
is independent
is separate
sure that's a
great game
but it's a
game
and so
the whole
object of
this zen
dialogue
between
the teacher
and the
student
is to
carry that
game of
being the
separate ego
to its
logical
conclusion
to its
reductio
ad absurdum
so that
as Blake
said
the fool
who persists
in his
folly
will become
wise


===== Buddhism - 04 - Journey From India I =====

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 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 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, which 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 jivatman.
The atman, the self, pretends to be an individual soul called a jivatman.
And the jivatman 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.
And 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've settled
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, now 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 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.
Now, whereas in, uh, India, this worldview is tied up with a whole culture involving every
circumstance of everyday life.
Hinduism is not a religion in the same sense, uh, 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.
So 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?
It isn't now, it's a wastebasket, it's now a drum.
What is this thing?
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'd like to have a religion because it gives me something to hold
onto.
A Buddhist would say, ah, I'll cut that stuff.
So long as you hold onto something, you don't have religion.
You're 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 onto, so man let go.
Because there's no one to hold onto 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.
And 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 has
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, 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 onto yourself, you hold onto life.
Or breath is the spirit, you hold onto God, rock of ages, cleft of me, let me cling onto
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 airmail 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.
Just as 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 a 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.
Only 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.
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 meditate all the time, and eventually attain nirvana,
which will involve your total disappearance from the manifested world.
The 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.
It's now.
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, let'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.


===== Buddhism - 05 - Journey From India II =====

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.
And 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 brahmaviharas 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 love the passage where
the Buddha is giving instructions on the art of meditation,
and he's 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 of,
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 favour of the authenticity
of the Theravada tradition
as against the Mahayana tradition.
Whereas the Mahayanists put it this way,
they say that their 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 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.
suffering.
This word dukkha,
which we translate suffering,
is the opposite of sukha.
Sukha means what is sweet and delightful.
Dukha 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.
Neither sukha nor dukkha.
Neither atman nor anatman.
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,
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 words,
this is a matter of mental attitude,
and then you'll be fine.
Always control your mind.
This is another way of approaching it,
do you see?
Now then,
as soon as the student begins to experiment
with these things,
he finds out
that it's 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 eliminate desire
in order to escape from suffering,
you desire to escape from suffering.
You are desiring not to desire.
In other words,
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.
It'll 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,
to draw out 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.
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 involved
in a vicious circle.
That, in trying to control your mind,
the motivation,
the reason for which
you are doing it,
is still clinging and grasping.
It is still self-protection.
It 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 are going to use them.
You see,
you are going to practice zazen
or whatever
and make yourself into a Buddha.
But, you see,
if you are not a Buddha
in the first place,
you can't become one
because you will be the wrong man.
You are using the right means,
but because you are using them
for a selfish intent
or a fearful intent.
You are afraid of suffering
and you don't like it
and you want to get out of it,
you want to escape.
All these, you see,
are the motivations
which frustrate
the right means.
So one is meant
to find that out.
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 was a form
of Buddhist practice
and instruction
developed by Nagarjuna.
N-A-G-A-R-J-U-N-A.
Who lived approximately in 200 A.D.
Nargajuna's method
is simply an extension
and drawing to logical conclusions
of the method of dialogue
that already existed.
Except that Nagarjuna
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 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 consider
perfectly ordinary, normal Westerners
who thought they were getting involved
in just a nice abstract intellectual discussion.
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?
And 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.
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 feet.
What would you propose instead?
And the teacher says,
I don't propose anything.
He's no fool.
He doesn't put up something to be knocked down.
But you see, here are you.
If you don't put up something to be knocked down
then you 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 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 individual
a real traumatic state.
People get acute anxiety.
And you wouldn't think so
because it's just seen 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 you are preserved from insanity
by the discipline,
by the atmosphere set up by the teacher
and by the fact that he seems perfectly happy
without anything in the way of a concept
to cling on to.
The student looks at him and says,
he seems to be all right.
Maybe, maybe I can be all right too.
You know, this gives a certain confidence,
a certain feeling that all is not mad
because the teacher in his own way
is perfectly normal.
You know, he's all right.
You know, there are things that are


===== Buddhism - 06 - Middle Way I =====

I want to start by re-emphasizing the point that what are called the religions of the East and the ones we're discussing, Hinduism, Buddhism and Chinese Taoism, they don't involve that you believe in anything specific.
And they don't involve any idea of obedience to commandments from above, and they don't involve any conformity to a specific ritual, although they do have rituals, but their rituals vary from country to country and from time to time.
Their objective is always not ideas, not doctrines, but a method, a method for the transformation of consciousness.
That is to say, for a transformation of your sensation of who you are.
And I emphasize the word sensation because it's the strongest word we have for feeling directly.
When you put your hand on the corner of a table, you have a very definite feeling.
And when you are aware of existing, you also have a definite feeling.
But in the view of these methods or disciplines, the ordinary person's definite feeling of the way he exists and who he is, is a hallucination.
To feel yourself as a separate ego, a source of action and awareness that is entirely separate and independent from the rest of the world, somehow locked up inside a bag of skin, is seen as a hallucination.
That you are not a stranger in the earth that comes into this world either as a result of a natural fluke or being a sort of spirit that comes from somewhere else altogether.
But that you, in your fundamental existence, you are the total energy that constitutes this universe, playing that it's you, playing that it's this particular organism, and even playing that it's this particular person.
Because the fundamental game of the world is a game of hide and seek.
That is to say, that the colossal reality, the energy that is everything, that is a unitary energy, that is one, plays at being many.
At manifesting itself in all these particulars that we call you, and you, and you, and you, and you, and you, and you, and you, and this, and that, and all around us.
And it's fundamentally a game.
And you can say that this goes, really, for all the systems that I'm talking about.
It's the basis of Hinduism, of Buddhism, and of Taoism.
This intuition.
Now, today we're going to talk about Buddhism.
Buddhism is an offshoot of Hinduism.
You could, in a way, call it a reform of Hinduism, or Hinduism stripped for export.
It originates in northern India, close to the area that is now Nepal, shortly after 600 B.C.
There was a young prince, by the name of Gotama Siddhartha, who became the man we call the Buddha.
Now, the word Buddha is not a proper name.
It's a title.
And it's based on the Sanskrit root buddh, B-U-D-H, which means to be awake.
And so you could say the Buddha is the man who woke up from the dream of life as we ordinarily take it to be,
and found out who he was, who he is.
It's curious that this title was not something new.
There was already, in the whole complex of Hinduism, the idea of Buddhas, of awakened people.
And, curiously, they are ranked higher than gods.
Because, in the view of Hinduism, even the gods, or the angels, the devas, are still bound on the wheel of the sort of squirrel cage,
of going round and round and round in the pursuit of success.
And the idea is that if you pursue something that you can call success, pleasure, good, virtue,
which originally, of course, means strength, magical power, all these positive things,
you are under illusion because the positive cannot exist without the negative.
To be, you only know what to be is by contrast with not to be.
So, if we say, now, there is a coin in the left hand, there is no coin in the right.
And from this you get the idea of to be and not to be.
And you can't have the one without the other.
So, if you try to pursue, to gain the positive, and to deny, get rid of the negative,
it's as if you were trying to arrange everything in this room so that it was all up and nothing was down.
You can't do it.
You set yourself an absolutely insoluble problem.
Because the basis of life is spectrum.
And consider the spectrum of colors.
When you think of a spectrum, in what form do you think of it?
Most people think of it as a ribbon, with red at one end and purple at the other.
But the spectrum is actually a circle.
Because purple is the mixture of red and blue.
It goes right round.
And so, in this way, all sensation, all feeling, all experience whatsoever, is moving through spectra.
You don't only have the spectrum of color, you have a spectrum of sound.
You have various complex spectra of texture, of smell, of taste.
And you're constantly operating through all the possible variations of experience.
And it implies that you can't know one end of the spectrum without also knowing the other.
So, if you wanted, say your favorite color is red, and you wanted only red,
and you had to exclude, therefore, blue and purple.
Without blue and purple, you can't have red.
Behind, of course, all the various colors in the spectrum is the white light.
And behind everything that we experience, all our various sensations of sound, of color, of shape, of touch,
there's the white light.
And I'm using the phrase, the white light, rather symbolically.
I don't mean it literally.
But there is common to all sensations what you might call the basic sense.
And if you explore back into your sensations and reduce them all to the basic sense,
you're on your way to reality, to what underlies everything, to what is the ground of being, the basic energy.
And to the extent that you realize this, and know that you are it, you transcend, you overcome, you surpass the illusion that you are simply John Doe, Mary Smith, or what have you.
So then, the Buddha, as the man who woke up, is regarded as one Buddha among a potentiality of myriads of Buddhas.
Everybody can be a Buddha.
Everybody has in himself the capacity to wake up from the illusion of being simply this separate individual.
The Buddha made his doctrine very easy to understand, because in those days there wasn't very much writing being done,
and people committed things to memory.
And so he put his doctrine, or method, in various formulae, which are very easy to remember.
And I'm going to explain it in those terms, so that you can remember it just as well.
He, of course, practiced the various disciplines that were offered in the Hinduism of his time.
But he found in a certain way that they had become unsatisfactory, because they had overemphasized asceticism,
had overemphasized putting up with as much pain as you can.
There was a feeling, you see, that if the problem of life is pain, let us suffer.
And this is the root of the ascetics, you see, who lie on beds of nails,
who hold a hand up forever and ever and ever, who eat only one banana a day,
who renounce sex, who do all these weird things,
because they feel that if they head right into pain, and don't become afraid of it,
but suffer as much pain as possible, they will, by this method, overcome the problem of pain.
And they will set themselves free from anxiety.
There's a certain sense in that, as you can obviously see.
Supposing, for example, you have absolutely no fear of pain.
You have no anxieties.
You have no hang-ups.
How strong you would be.
Nobody could stop you.
You would have ultimate courage.
But the Buddha was very subtle.
He is really the first historical psychologist.
The great psychologist.
Psychotherapist.
He is very subtle.
Because he saw that a person who is fighting pain,
who is trying to get rid of pain,
is still really fundamentally afraid of it.
And therefore, the way of asceticism is not right.
Equally, the way of hedonism, of seeking pleasure, is not right.
So the Buddha's doctrine is called the middle way,
which is neither ascetic nor hedonistic.
So it's summed up in what are called the Four Noble Truths.
And the first is called Dukkha.
Dukkha means suffering in a very generalized sense.
You could call it chronic frustration.
And it is saying that life as lived by most people is Dukkha.
It is an attempt, in other words, to solve insoluble problems.
Try to draw a square circle.
You can't.
Because the problem itself is meaningless.
Try to arrange the things in this room so that they are all up and none of them down.
It is meaningless.
Such a problem cannot ever be solved.
So try to have light without dark, or dark without light.
It can never be solved.
So the attempt to solve problems that are basically insoluble,
and to work at it through your whole life, that is Dukkha.
Now, he went on to analyze this, that there are what he called three signs of being.
The first is Dukkha itself, frustration.
The second is Anitya.
And this means, the letter A in Sanskrit at the beginning of a word,
is often the equivalent of our non.
So Nitya means permanent.
Anitya means impermanent.
That every manifestation of life is impermanent.
And therefore, our quest to make things permanent,
to straighten everything out, to get it fixed,
is an impossible and insoluble problem.
And therefore, we experience Dukkha,
or this sense of fundamental pain and frustration,
as a result of trying to make things permanent.
And the third sign of being is called Anatman.
Now, you know from my talk on Hinduism,
that the word Atman means self.
Anatman means therefore non-self.
That there is in you no real ego.
Now, I've explained that already.
I've explained, in talking about Hinduism,
that the idea of the ego is a social institution.
It has no physical reality.
It is simply, the ego is your symbol of yourself.
Just as the word water is a noise,
which symbolizes a certain liquid reality,
so the idea of the ego, the role you play,
who you are, is not the same as your living organism.
Your ego has absolutely nothing to do
with the way you color your eyes,
shape your body, circulate your blood.
That's the real you.
But it's certainly not your ego,
because you don't even know how it's done,
from the standpoint of your conscious attention.
So, the idea of Anatman is firstly,
that the ego is unreal.
There isn't one.
Now then, this then is the first truth.
There is this situation,
that we have dukkha, or frustration,
because we are fighting the changing-ness of things,
and because we don't realize that the ego, the I, is unreal.
The second of the Four Noble Truths is then called Trishna.
Trishna is a Sanskrit word again,
and is the root of our word thirst.
And it's usually translated desire.
But it is better translated clinging, grabbing.
Or, there's an excellent modern American slangy word, hang up.
That is exactly what Trishna is, a hang up.
Trishna is clutching.
As for example, what we call smother love.
When a mother is so afraid that her children may get into trouble,
that she protects them excessively.
And as a result of this, prevents them from growing.
Or when lovers cling to each other excessively,
and have to sign documents,
that they will curse and swear to love each other always,
they are in a state of Trishna.
And this is the same thing as holding onto yourself so tightly
that you strangle yourself.
Now, so, the second truth then about Trishna
is that the cause of Dukkha is Trishna.
Clinging is what makes suffering.
If you don't recognize that this whole world
is a phantasmagoria,
an amazing illusion,
a weaving of smoke,
and you try to hold onto it, you see,
then you start suffering,
seriously suffering.
Trishna is in turn based upon avidya.
The same negative, a.
Vidya, from the root vid, means knowledge,
as in the Latin video,
and the English vision.
Avidya, therefore, is ignorance.
Gnosis, gna, means, of course, to know.
Knowledge is the same thing as gnosis in Greek.
To know.
So this is not to know.
To ignore.
To overlook.
And I explained in the first talk in this series
how we ignore all kinds of things
because we notice only what we think noteworthy.
And therefore our vision of everything is highly selective.
We pick out certain things
and say that's what's there,
just as we select and notice the figure
rather than the background.
Sometimes I draw this on the blackboard
and ask the question, what have I drawn?
What would you say?
What have I drawn?
The circle.
Any other suggestions?
A hole in the black.
Yeah, you're getting the point.
I've drawn a wall with a hole in it, you see.
But ordinarily, you've been reading my books.
So, but ordinarily people see the ball, the circle,
the ring or whatever,
and never think of the background
because they ignore the background.
Just as one thinks that you can have pleasure without pain.
You want pleasure the figure
and don't realize that pain is the background.
So, avidya is this state of restricted consciousness,
restricted attention,
that moves through life unaware of the fact
that to be implies not to be and vice versa.
So, now the third noble truth is called nirvana.
This word means blow out.
Nira is a negative word again, like ah.
Vana is blowing.
So, it's a kind of out blowing.
Now, in breathing, you know that breath is life.
The Greek word, you may pronounce it pneuma or pneuma,
is the same as spirit.
And spirit means breath.
In the book of Genesis,
when God had made the clay figurine
that was later to be Adam,
he breathed the breath of life into its nostrils.
And it became alive.
Because life is breath.
But now, if you hold your breath, you lose it.
He that would save his life will lose it.
So, breathe in, breathe in, breathe in,
get as much air as you can
and trishna, cling.
And you lose it.
So, nirvana means breathe out.
What a relief that was.
The sigh of relief.
Let it go.
Because it'll come back to you,
if you let it go.
But if you don't let it go,
you'll just suffocate.
So, a person in the state of nirvana
is what we might call a blown out person.
Like, blow your mind.
Let go.
Don't cling.
And then you're in the state of nirvana.
And I re-emphasize the point.
This is not, I'm not preaching.
See?
Not saying this is what you ought to do.
I'm simply pointing out a state of affairs that is so.
There's no moralism in this whatsoever.
It's simply pointing out, like,
if you put your hand into the fire, you'll get burned.
You can get burned if you want to.
That's okay.
But if it so happens that you don't want to get burned,
then you don't put your hand in the fire.
So, in the same way,
if you don't want to be in a state of anxiety all the time,
and again, I emphasize,
if you'd like to be anxious, it's perfectly all right.
If that's...
See, Buddhism never hurries anyone on.
They say, you've got all eternity through which to live in various forms.
And therefore, you don't have just one life in which you've got to avoid eternal damnation.
You can go running around the wheel and the rat race and play that game just as long as you want to,
so long as you think it's fun.
But if there comes a time when you don't think it's fun,
you don't have to do it.
So, I wouldn't say to anyone who disagrees with me,
and who says,
well, I think we ought to engage the forces of evil in battle,
and put this world to right,
and so on and so forth,
and arrange everything in this world so that it's all up.
Try it, please.
It's perfectly okay.
Go on doing that.
That's it.
What's something...
It's extremely sick.
The whole time when I walk back,
Like I was so rich,
I mean, if you can take this word.
Type figure...
There is no intention,
you can take the gift that exists,
that it's easy.
I mean, how expensive you're not gonna lie through,
or let's make it cool.
I'm pretty sure,
야,
I'm so happy about that,
but this is the reason where you say was so long
in time now.


===== Buddhism - 07 - Middle Way II =====

But if you see that it's futile, then you can let go.
Don't try to cling, relax.
And if you do that, you're in the state of Nirvana, and you become a Buddha.
And of course it means that you become a rather astonishing person.
You may of course be subtle about it, and make like you're a very ordinary person, so
that you don't get people mixed up.
And so in Buddhism, the Buddha explained that his doctrine, his method, was a raft.
It's sometimes called a yana, the word Y-A-N-A, yana, means a vehicle, a conveyance.
And when you cross a river on a raft, and you get to the other shore, you don't pick up the
raft and carry it on your back.
You leave it behind.
But people who are, what I would call, hooked on religion, are always on the raft.
They're going back and forth, back and forth, back and forth on the raft.
So the clergyman tends to turn into a ferryman, who's always on the raft and never gets over
to the other shore himself.
Now there's something to be said for that, because how are we going to get the raft back
to the first shore to bring over the other people?
See?
Somebody has to volunteer to take the back journey.
But he must be awfully careful to realize that the real objective is to get the people across
and set them free.
If you dedicate yourself to ferrying people across, don't ask them to come back on the raft with
you.
Because you get overcrowded, and people will think that the raft is the goal rather than the other shore.
So when, I find this in actual practice, that when clergymen do not ever ask for money, and it's all right, you know, like a doctor who simply charges a fee.
He says, you come to me, you pay me so much.
But the clergyman says, he doesn't say pay me so much, he says, we would like your pledge,
your voluntary contribution.
See?
And then nobody knows what to give.
That's the idea of the raft.
Now then, the fourth noble truth is called Marga.
This word means path.
And the way of Buddhism is often called the Noble Eightfold Path, because there are eight phases.
I won't say steps, because they're not sequential.
Samyak is a very curious phrase.
It doesn't mean right in our sense of correct.
Some is the same, really, as our word some, total, complete, all inclusive.
We might say, we might use the word integrated, as when we say a person has integrity.
A person who has integrity, we mean he's all over peace.
He's not divided against himself.
So, in this sense of Samyak Drishti, this is related to the word Darshan, which means a
point of view, or viewing.
When you go to visit a great guru or teacher, you have Darshan, you look at him, and you
offer your reverence to him.
This is Darshan.
Many senses of it.
But it means simply to view.
Look at the view.
So, the Samyak Darshan is the complete view.
For example, let's take the constellation called the Big Dipper.
We look at it from a fairly restricted zone in space, and it always seems, whatever the
season of the year, because we're so far away from it, that those stars in the Big Dipper
are in the same position.
But imagine looking at it from somewhere else in space altogether, and those stars would
not look like a Dipper.
They'd be in another position.
Now then, what is the true position of those stars?
Don't you see there isn't one?
Because wherever you look, the position alters.
You could say that the true situation of those stars is how they are looked at from all points
of view, all possible points of view.
Inside the constellation, looking outwards.
Outside the constellation, looking inwards.
From everywhere and everywhere.
But you see, there is no such thing as the truth.
The world, in other words, is not existing independently of those who witness it.
Because the world is precisely the relationship between the world and its witnesses.
And so if there are no eyes in this world, the sun doesn't make any light.
Nor do the stars.
So what is, is a relationship.
You can, for example, prop up two sticks by leaning them against each other and they will
stand.
But only by depending on each other.
Take one away and the other falls.
So in Buddhism it is taught that everything in this universe depends on everything else.
That we have a kind of a huge network.
And this is called the doctrine of mutual interdependence.
All of it hangs on you.
And you hang on all of it.
Just as the two sticks support each other.
And this is conveyed in a symbol which is called Indra's net.
Imagine a multidimensional spider's web in the early morning covered with dewdrops.
And every dewdrop contains the reflection of all the other dewdrops.
And in each reflected dewdrop the reflections of all the other dewdrops in that reflection.
And so ad infinitum.
That is the Buddhist conception of the universe.
In an image.
The Japanese call that Jiji Muge.
A G means a thing event.
A happening.
So between happening and happening.
Mu, there is no, ge, separation.
Jiji Muge.
Now, so the first phase of the Eightfold Path has to do with one's view.
Understanding of the world.
The second phase has to do with action.
How you act.
The Buddhist idea of ethics is based on expediency.
If you are engaged in the way of liberation.
And you want to clarify your consciousness.
Doing that is inconsistent with certain kinds of action.
So every Buddhist makes five vows.
Five precepts.
And you may perhaps have heard the Buddhist formula of taking what is called Panchasila.
The five precepts.
And they take what are called Thisarana.
The three refuges.
And the five precepts.
The refuges are the Buddha.
The Dharma.
The doctrine.
And the Sangha.
The fellowship of all those who are on the way.
So, the priest, the bhikkhu, the Buddhist monk, and the lay people will chant the formula.
Buddha-hanga saranaṅga-chāmi.
Dang-hanga saranaṅga-chāmi.
Sang-hanga saranaṅga-chāmi.
Those are the three refuges.
The Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha.
Then they take the five precepts.
Pāṇā-ti-pātha.
Vēramani-sikāpadaṅga-samādhyāmi.
Ādi-nadāna.
Vēramani-sikāpadaṅga-samādhyāmi.
Kāmesu-michachara.
Vēramani-sikāpadaṅga-samādhyāmi.
So they take these five precepts.
Pāṇā-ti-pātha.
I undertake the precept to abstain from taking life.
Ādi-nadāna.
I undertake the precept to abstain from taking what is not given.
Kāmesu-michachara.
I undertake the precept to abstain from exploiting the passions.
Nusāvāda.
I undertake the precept to abstain from falsifying speech.
Sūra-mērīya-mājapa-mādatāṅga.
I undertake the precept to abstain from being intoxicated by Sūra-mērīya-mājapa-mādatāṅga.
Whatever they were.
I presume Tadi, which is alcohol,
I don't know what else it was.
Nobody does, no.
Because, you see, if you start killing people,
uh, or, uh, taking life, you're in trouble.
You set up an opposition, and you've got to become involved in taking care of it.
If you start stealing, you worry people.
You upset people's orientation in life,
because if you suddenly come back home for dinner and find somebody's stolen your table,
where you're going to serve dinner.
Uh, if you exploit your passions,
um, it means that, uh,
when you're, when you feel bored,
uh, somehow that life is a little bit empty,
you say, well, now, what are we going to do this evening?
Let's go and get stuffed.
A lot of people who suffer from obesity are trying to simply fill their empty psyche,
by stuffing themselves with food.
Well, it's the wrong cure.
So, uh, likewise, Musavada,
if you start telling lies to everybody,
you know what happens when you start telling lies,
you have to tell extra lies to cover up the first one,
and you get into the most hopeless misunderstanding.
Speech collapses.
And, of course, the intoxication is the same problem as the exploitation of the passions.
So there's a purely kind of practical, expedient, utilitarian approach to morals.
There's another side to this which doesn't enter into the precepts,
which I will explain later.
So, that's the third phase of the Eightfold Path.
Then, the, no, the second phase.
Then the third phase has to do with your mind,
with your state of consciousness.
And this has to do with what we would ordinarily call meditation.
There are the two final,
the seventh and eighth, uh, aspects of the path,
are called Samyak Shmriti and Samyak Samadhi.
Shmriti means recollection.
That's the best English word for it.
Now, do you understand?
The word recollect is to gather together what has been scattered.
What is the opposite of remember?
Obviously dismember.
What has been chopped up and scattered
into the bread.
It becomes remembered.
So, in the Christian scheme,
do this in remembrance of me.
You see, the Christ has been sacrificed.
Chopped up.
But the mass is celebrated in remembrance.
One of the old liturgies says,
the wheat which has been scattered all over the hills,
and grows up,
is gathered again into the bread.
Remembered.
Go back to your Hindu basis.
The world is regarded as the dismemberment of the self,
the Brahman, the Godhead.
The one is dismembered into the many.
So, remembrance is realizing again that each single member of the many is really the one.
So, that's recollection.
You can think of it, too, in another way.
And it's really the same way if you think it through.
I'm going to leave you with a few puzzles,
so that you can think them through,
and I won't explain them.
But another way is to be recollected,
is to be completely here and now.
Are you here and now?
Are you really here?
There was a wise old boy who used to give lectures on these things,
and he would get up and not say a word.
He would just look at the audience.
And he'd examine every person individually.
And they'd all start feeling uncomfortable.
He wouldn't say anything, he'd look at them all.
And then he'd suddenly say,
Wake up!
You're all asleep!
And if you don't wake up, I won't give you any lecture.
Are you here, recollected?
See, most people aren't.
They're bothering about yesterday and wondering what they're going to do tomorrow.
And aren't all here.
That's a definition of sanity, to be all there.
So to be recollected,
is to be completely alert,
available for the present.
Because that's the only place that you are ever going to be in.
Yesterday doesn't exist,
tomorrow never comes.
There is only today.
A great Sanskrit sort of invocation says,
Look to this day, for it is life.
In its brief course lie all the realities of our existence.
Yesterday is but a memory.
Tomorrow is only a vision.
Look well then, to this day.
Such is the salutation of the dawn.
So shmiti means then, recollectedness in the sense of being all here.
In the sense that this is the only way there is.
Then beyond that comes samadhi.
Again, notice the presence of this word S-A-M.
Sam.
Samadhi is integrated consciousness,
in which there is no further separation between the knower and the known,
the subject and the object.
You are what you know.
Now we think, in the ordinary way,
that we are the witnesses of a constantly changing panorama of experience,
from which we as the knowers of this, in a way, stand aside and watch it.
We think of our minds as a kind of tablet,
upon which experience writes a record.
And the tablet is always there,
although the experience goes by.
And eventually the experience, by writing so much on the tablet, wears it out.
It's all scratched away.
And you die. See?
But actually, if you will investigate this,
and you have to experiment on this,
because I cannot explain it to you in words.
You can only find it out for yourself.
There is no difference between the knower and the known.
When you say, I see a sight, I feel a feeling,
you are using redundant language.
I see implies the sight.
I feel implies the feeling.
Do you hear sounds?
No.
You just hear.
Or you can say, there are sounds.
Either one will do.
So you will find, if you thoroughly investigate the process of experiencing,
that the experiencing is the same as the experiencer.
And this is the state of Samadhi.
I put it originally in this form,
that the organism and the environment are a single behavioral process.
So likewise is the knower and the known.
So you as someone who is aware,
and all that you are aware of is one process.
That is the state of Samadhi.
And you get to that state by the practice of meditation.
Every Buddha figure practically is seen in the sitting posture of meditation,
which is sitting down quietly and being aware of all that goes on without comment,
without thinking about it.
And when you stop categorizing, verbalizing, talking to yourself inside your head,
naturally the separations between, for example, knower and known, self and other, simply vanish.
Can you point to the difference between my five fingers?
Where will you put your finger if you want to point to the difference?
You see, the idea of difference is an abstraction.
It just isn't there in the physical world.
Of course, that's not saying that the fingers are joined like a duck's claws with a web,
but that, it's just that.
They're not the same.
That's an idea.
They're not different.
That's an idea.
And these ideas just aren't here.
See?
You can't point to it.
You can't put your finger on it.
Get then to the state of affairs where you see the world free from concepts.
That's what Buddhists mean by void.
When they say the world is basically, they use the phrase shunya, that has a meaning of like empty, void.
Everything is shunya.
This has certainly also the meaning of anitya, of transience, but basically it means.
You can't catch the world in a conceptual net.
Just if you try to catch water in a net, it all slips through.
If you try to tie up water in a paper package, or grab it in your hands, it all flows through.
So shunya, it doesn't really mean that the world itself, that the energy of the world is nothing at all.
It means that no concept of it is valid.
You cannot make any one idea, or belief, or doctrine, or system, or theory, tie the thing up.
So, if you go through this, and you get completely blown out, and released, and are in the state of nirvana,
for no reason that anybody can explain, just as for example, as I pointed out, when you see that you can't change yourself,
you can't lift yourself up by your own bootstraps, you then get a new access of psychic energy.
So in exactly the same way, when you get to this state of nirvana, there wells up from within you,
what the Buddhists call karuna, or compassion.
The sense that you aren't different from everybody else.
Everybody else's suffering is your suffering.
And so this tremendous sense of solidarity with all other beings arises.
So that he who reaches nirvana doesn't, as it were, withdraw into a sort of isolated peace,
but is always coming back into the world, into the difficulties, into the problems of life,
in compassion for everyone else.
You can't be saved alone, because you're not alone. You are the whole cosmos.
You've been listening to Following the Middle Way with Alan Watts,
from the Alan Watts Radio Series Number 6 on Buddhism.
For information on how to obtain the radio series on cassette tape, call 1-800-969-2887.
Or you can write to The Electronic University, P.O. Box 2309, San Anselmo, California, 94979.
When you call or write, please indicate the name of your local station.
That you heard the program, Following the Middle Way, from the Alan Watts Radio Series Number 6.


===== Buddhism - 08 - No Religion I =====

I was discussing last night the Bodhisattva doctrine in Mahayana Buddhism
and comparing it or relating it to the two great tendencies in Indian spirituality,
anti-worldliness or otherworldliness and world affirmation
and showing how the idea that the highest kind of a Buddha is in a certain way a non-Buddha.
The highest kind of a Buddha is like an ordinary person.
And this comes out very, very much in various tendencies in Zen
where, for example, all the painting, peculiarly characteristic of Zen Buddhism,
in the Chinese and Japanese tradition, is, as it were, secular.
It has a peculiarly non-religious atmosphere.
That is to say, the painting of Shingon sect and Tendai sect,
as you saw it in the museum today, was religious painting.
You could tell at once that the subject matter of these paintings is religious.
But with Zen painting, the way of dealing with philosophical and spiritual themes is secular.
So that when an artist like Sengai, living in the 17th century, Japan, paints the Buddha,
there is something slightly humorous about the Buddha.
He wears his halo over one ear.
There is an informality, a slight raffishness.
And so this comes from China, from those great Song artists like Liang Kai,
who painted the sixth patriarch of Zen, chopping bamboos,
looking like the most extraordinarily unkempt country oaf.
So, also, the greatest Zen painting has as its subject matter not really religious themes at all.
It uses pine branches, rocks, bamboos, grasses, everything of that kind.
And you would never know that these things were icons.
Likewise, also, in poetry, which we will go into more extensively in the future,
the superb expression of Zen poetry is derived from the Chinese poet,
who says, wondrous action, supernatural power, drawing water, carrying fuel.
Now, that poem is a little bit too religious for Zen taste.
And so, preferable to that is Basho's famous poem,
The Old Pond, A Frog Jumps In, Plop.
Plop is the only possible English translation for the Japanese,
Mizu no Otto, which means literally, the water's sound.
Plop.
But that poem, you see, is a very high-style Zen poem,
because it has nothing in it about religion.
There is a poem on the edge, which also was written by Basho,
which says,
When the lightning flashes,
how admirable he who does not think life is fleeting.
You see, the flash of a lightning is a Buddhist cliché
for the transiency of the world.
Your life goes by and disappears as fast as a flash of lightning.
That becomes a cliché.
So, all religion,
all religious comments about life,
eventually become clichés.
Religion always is falling apart,
and becoming a certain kind of going through the motions,
a kind of imitation of attitudes,
as if one would say,
we've got a book called The Imitation of Christ.
It's a terrible book,
because everybody who imitates Christ
is a kind of a fake Jesus.
So, in the same way,
there's all kinds of imitation Buddhas,
not just sitting on altars made of wood,
gilded,
but just sitting around in monasteries.
So,
one might say, then,
that the highest kind of
religious
or spiritual attainment
has no sign about it
that it is religious
or that it is spiritual.
And so,
as a metaphor for this,
there was used in Buddhism
from the very beginning
the idea of
the tracks of birds in the sky.
They don't leave any tracks.
And so,
the way of the enlightened man
is like the track of a bird in the sky.
And as one poem,
a Chinese poem says,
entering the forest,
he does not disturb a blade of grass.
Entering the water,
he does not make a ripple.
In other words,
there is no sign about him
to indicate
that he is self-consciously religious.
And this goes, too,
for the fact that
his not having any religious sign
is also
not something contrived.
It isn't like Protestant simplicity.
You know,
all those Catholics
with their rituals
and how dreadful
and the insincere,
that is,
the real reason you know
why Protestants think
Catholic ritual is insincere.
You know?
It's expensive.
Protestantism started
in the burger cities
of Europe.
places like
Freiburg,
Hamburg,
you know,
and Geneva.
Because
the merchant class,
who were the foundation
of the bourgeoisie,
got annoyed
because every time
a saint's day came around,
all their employees
got a day off
because it was a holy day
and they had to attend mass.
There were so many
of these nuisance holy days
and all these contributions
that were assessed
by the church,
buying your way
out of purgatory
and saying masses
for the dead
and so on and so forth,
they found this
not very economical.
The priests were getting
the money
instead of the merchants.
And so they decried
as unbiblical
and irreligious
and wasteful
all the finery
of the Catholic religion
and wanted something
plain and simple.
So it became
in course of time
a sign of being
really religious
to avoid rituals
and to avoid
colorful clothing
and splendor
in churches
and to be
as ordinary
as possible.
But that is not yet
the real religion
of me giving
no sign
of having a religion
because this
simplicity
and absence
of ritual
itself becomes
a sign.
a way of advertising
how spiritual
you are.
So the completely
bodhisattva type
of person
doesn't leave
any track
either
by
being religious
overtly
or by being
non-religious
overtly.
How will you be
neither religious
nor non-religious?
See,
that's the great test.
How will you
avoid that trap
of being
one or the other?
It's like
are you a theist
or are you
an atheist?
See,
the theist
is caught
by God
and the
idea of God,
the belief in God
but the atheist
is equally caught
because an atheist
is very often
an atheist
because
he cannot stand
the idea
that God
is watching him
all the time.
That there is
this constant
all-seeing eye
prying on your
most private life
and that
there is
you know how
when you are
a child in school
and you are
writing something
or doing
arithmetic
and the teacher
walks round the
class and looks
over your shoulder.
Nobody wants
to be watched
like that.
Even someone
who is good
at writing
or at arithmetic
doesn't want
somebody looking
over their shoulder
while they are
doing it.
It puts you
off.
It bugs you.
So the idea
of the Lord God
who is watching
us all the time
who is judging
everything that we
do puts people
off and they
can't stand it.
So better be an
atheist to get
rid of teacher.
So, but the
atheist you see
the man who
advertises his
disbelief in God
is a very pious
person.
Nobody believes
in God like an
atheist.
There is no
God and I am
his prophet.
So then, the
true bodhisattva
state is very
difficult to pin
down as being
either, neither
supremely
religious nor
blatantly
secular.
And people
who think
that the
height of
Buddhism or
the height
of Zen
is to be
perfectly
ordinary
have still
missed the
point.
Like the
atheist has
missed the
point.
But for this
reason then,
there is an
element in
art, the
painting, the
poetry, etc.,
which has been
inspired by this
kind of
Buddhism, this
kind of art
where the
subject matter
is non-religious.
Nevertheless,
there is
something about
the way in
which this
non-religious
subject matter
is handled
world that
stops you
and you
know there
is something
strange about
it.
This is how
I first
became interested
in Oriental
philosophy and
all that kind
of thing.
I had an
absolute
fascination
for Chinese
and Japanese
painting,
the secular
painting, the
landscapes, the
treatment of
flowers and
grasses and
bamboos.
there was
something about
it that
struck me as
astonishing, even
though the
subject matter
was extremely
ordinary.
And I, just
as a child
practically, I
had to find
out what was
the strange
element in
those bamboos
and those
grasses.
I was being
of course
taught by
those painters
to see
grass, but
there was
something in
there that
one could
never pin
down, never
put your
finger on.
And that
was this
thing that
I will
call the
religion of
no religion.
The supreme
attainment of
being a
Buddha who
can't be
detected.
Who, in
this sense
then, leaves
no trace.
You remember,
some of you
have seen
those ten
paintings called
The Ten
Stages of
Spiritual
Oxherding.
And the
author, there
are two sets
of these
paintings.
There's a
heterodox one
and an
orthodox one.
The heterodox
one, as the
man catches
the ox, it
gets progressively
whiter, until
in the end it
disappears
altogether, and
the last picture
is an empty
circle.
But the
orthodox set of
paintings doesn't
end with the
empty circle.
The empty circle
arises, two
from the
end, three
from the
end.
It is
followed by
two others.
After the
man has
attained the
state of
emptiness, the
state, in
other words, of
complete
iconoclasm, the
state of no
attachment to
any spiritual
or psychological
or moral
crutch, there
are two more
steps.
One is called
returning to
the origin, which
is represented
by a tree
beside a
stream, and
the final one
called entering
the city with
hands hanging
down.
That means
hands giving
a hand out, as
it were, giving
bounty.
And it shows
the picture of
the fat Buddha
Putai, or in
Japanese, known
as Hotei, who
has an enormous
belly, big
ears, who
carries round a
colossal bag.
And what do
you think this
bag has in
it?
Trash.
Wonderful
trash.
Everything that
children love,
things that
everybody else
has thrown
away and
thought of as
valueless, this
bum collects
and gives it
away to
that he
goes on
his way
without
following the
steps of the
ancient sages.
His door is
closed.
That's the
door of his
house.
And no
glimpses of
his interior
life are to
be seen.
So, in other
words, it's
like when you
erect a
building, while
you're building
it, you
have all
kinds of
scaffolding
up.
That shows
you that
building is
going on.
But when the
building is
complete, the
scaffolding is
taken down.
To open a
door, as
they say in
Zen, you
may need to
pick up a
brick to
knock at
the door.
But when
the door is
open, you
don't carry the
brick inside.
To cross a
river, you
need a
boat.
But when
you've reached
the other
side, you
don't pick
up the
boat and
carry it.
So, the
brick, the
boat, the
scaffolding, all
these things
represent some
sort of
religious
technology or
method.
And in the
end, these
are all to
disappear.
So that the
saint will not
be found in
church.
I don't take
what I say
literally.
The saint can
perfectly readily
go to church
without being
sullied by
church.
But ordinary
people, when
they go to
church, they
come out
stinking of
religion.
There was a
great Zen
master once,
and one
of his
disciples asked
him, how
am I making
progress?
He said, you're
all right, but
you have a
trivial fault.
Well, what is
that?
He said, you
have too much
Zen.
Well, he
said, when
you're studying
Zen, don't
you think it's
very natural to
be talking
about it?
The master
said, when
it's like an
ordinary
conversation, it
is much
better.
And so,
another monk
who was
standing by
listening to
this exchange
said to
the master,
why do you
so specially
dislike talking
about Zen?
And he
replied, because
it turns one's
stomach.
So, what did
he mean when
he said, when
it's like an
ordinary everyday
conversation, it
is somewhat
better?
When the old
master, Joshu,
was asked, at
the end of the
kalpa, when
everything is
destroyed in
fire, there will
be one thing
remaining, what
is that?
And Joshu
replied, it's
windy again this
morning.
So, in
Zen, when
you're asked a
question about
religion, you
reply in terms of
the secular.
When you're
asked about
something secular,
you reply in
terms of
religion.
So, what is
the eternal
nature of the
self?
It's windy
again this
morning.
Please pass
me a knife.
The master
hands him the
knife with the
blade first.
He says, please
give me the
other end.
What would
you do with
the other end?
example, starts
out with the
ordinary.
Please pass
me the
knife.
And suddenly
he finds
himself involved
in a
metaphysical
problem.
But if he
starts out
with the
metaphysical,
he's going
to get
involved with
a knife.
So, now
to go
deeply into
the
religion of
non-religion,
we have to
understand
the, what
you might call
the final
ultimate
attainment
of Mahayana
Buddhist
philosophy.
And this
is
contained in
a school
of thought
which is
called in
Chinese
Hua Yan
and in
Japanese
Kegon.
Kegon
is the
intellectual
foundation
for Zen.
And there
was a
great Chinese
master by
the name
of Shumitsu
who was
simultaneously
a Zen
master
and the
fifth
patriarch
of the
Hua Yan
sect.
Hua
means
flower.
Yan
garland.
The
garland
of flowers.
And it's
all based
on a
Sanskrit
sutra
called
Avatangsaka.
This is
called
simply
in Japanese
Kegon
Kyo.
A very
big
sutra.
And
the subject
matter of
this sutra
are what
are called
the four
Dharma
worlds.
And I
must explain
what these
four worlds
are so
that you
get the
point.
First of
all,
there is
a level
of being
which we
will call
Ji.
The word
Ji,
which is
Japanese
way of
pronouncing
the Chinese
chur,
is the
world of
things and
events.
What you
might call
the common
sense
world,
the
everyday
world
that our
senses
normally
record.
The word
Ji,
the character
in Chinese,
has a
multiplicity
of meanings
because it
can mean
a thing
or an
event.
It can
also mean
business,
an affair,
not in a
love affair,
but something
in the way
the French
say,
les affaires
for business,
something
important.
It can
also mean
affectation,
putting
something on
or showing
off.
And so
a person
who is a
master in
Zen is
called
Buji,
which means
no business,
no
affectation,
nothing
special.
The poem
says,
On Mount
Lu there is
misty rain,
and the
river
Jiang is
at high
tide.
When you
have not
been there,
your heart
is filled
with longing,
but when you
have been
there and
come back,
it was
nothing
special.
Misty
rain on
Mount
Lu,
river
Jiang
at high
tide.
But
this
nothing
special
is not
a way
of putting
something
down.
Do you
see that?
I could
say,
well,
it was
nothing
special,
it didn't
really
amount
to
anything.
That's
one way
of
saying
it was
very
ordinary.
But
Buji,
just as
it doesn't
mean
it was
very
one.
He
looks
like
one,
but
he
isn't.
And
you
have
to
know
what
he
knows
in
order
to
see
that
he
isn't
and
to
recognize
him
for
what
he
is.
So
nothing
special,
Buji,
it
doesn't
stand
out,
it
doesn't,
as we
would say,
it doesn't
stick out
like a
sore
thumb.
So
the
world
of
multiplicity,
the world
we
ordinarily
feel
we're
involved
in.
So
that's
the
first
world.
The
second
world
is
called
the
world
of
Ri.
Now
Ri,
in
Chinese
Li,
is
as I
explained
to
you
when
we
were
discussing
the
idea
of
the
law
of
nature.
The
character
means
the
markings
in
jade
or
the
grain
in
wood
or
the
muscle.
But
in
the
Huayen
philosophy
the
word
Ri
means
the
universal
underlying
all
particulars
the
one
underlying
all
multiplicity.
The
unitive
principle
as
distinct
from
Ji
which
is
the
differentiation
principle.
So
as
it
were
like
it's
like
this
when
you
see
into
the
nature
of
this
world
you
start
from
Ji.
You
start
from
noticing
all
the
particular
things
and
being
baffled
by
their
multiplicity
and
dealing
with
the
multiplicity
of
things.
But
as
you
go
into
this
you
discover
as
you
understand
things
what
do
you
mean
when
you
understand
things
it
means
you
become
aware
of
their
relationships
to
each
other
and
eventually
you
see
the
unity
behind
them
and
it
is
as
if
the
multiplicity
of
the
world
dissolved
into
unity


===== Buddhism - 09 - No Religion II =====

You start from noticing all the particular things, and being baffled by their multiplicity,
and dealing with the multiplicity of things.
But as you go into this, you discover, as you understand things,
what do you mean when you understand things?
It means you become aware of their relationships to each other,
and eventually you see the unity behind them.
And it is as if the multiplicity of the world dissolved into unity.
And so here you encounter a problem.
I can see the world as a unity.
I can see the world as a multiplicity.
But how the devil am I going to put the two visions together?
If I am to be a practical success in business, in family life, and so on,
I have to observe the world of particulars.
It's particulars that matter.
I have to know chalk from cheese.
But if I become a saint, a monk, or a hermit, or even perhaps a poet or an artist,
I will forget about the practical matters, and contemplate the unity,
the secret meaning underlying all events.
But then all those practical people are going to say to me,
you're falling down on the job.
You've escaped from life.
Because they feel that the world of particulars is the real world.
But the other guy says,
no, your particulars are not real.
You make a success of things, yes, but it's completely temporary.
You think you're an important person,
that you're really contributing to human life.
But actually, your success in doing this sort of thing lasts for a few years,
and then you fall apart like everybody else does.
Where's your success now?
When you're dead, what happened to the millions of dollars you made?
Where are you?
You're all gone.
So that isn't real, from the standpoint of the person who concentrates on the unity.
So then, to perfect our understanding, we have to go to the third of these worlds,
which is called, Ri, Ji, Mu, Ge.
Now, that means between Ri, the unity, and Ji, the particulars,
Mu, there is no, Ge, block.
That means the world of the universal and the world of particulars are not incompatible.
Let's take two very different things,
and see how they can be united.
Take shape and colour.
Never in a million years can you, with a black pencil that can draw shapes, make red.
But, if you have red, you can draw a circle.
You can draw a red circle.
Even though the circle shape and the red colour will never be the same.
Yet, red circle, they go beautifully together.
So, think of circle as Ji, and red as Ri.
The circle is the particular, the colour is the universal.
They go together.
So then, we might say, the properly rounded out person is both spiritual and material.
Both otherworldly and worldly.
This is the supreme attainment of a human being, to be both.
Don't get one-sided.
A person who is, what you might call, just a materialist, ends up by being very boring.
It's, you know, you can live the successful life of the world, and you can own every kind of material refinement.
You can have the most beautiful home, delicious food, marvellous yachts, and cars, and everything.
But if you have no touch of mysticism, it eventually is all perfectly boring, and you will get tired of it.
Then, on the other hand, there are people who are purely spiritual.
And they live in a kind of dry world, where all luxury has been scrubbed away.
And they are very intense people.
When you are in their presence of a very spiritual person, an excessively spiritual person,
you feel inclined to sit on the edge of your chair.
You are not at ease.
Because you know the eye of judgment is looking through you, and going down into your very soul,
and finding that you are just a scallywag after all.
And here is this absolutely sincere, this dreadfully honest and unselfish person.
This is something which is always puzzling to people brought up in a western environment.
Because great spiritual people are often very, very sensuous.
Because they can't be materialists, in the ordinary sense.
They can't be straight, open sensualists.
Because for them, the world is too wonderful for that.
Any human being is too marvellous to be treated as just a kind of sexual object.
They may be very much a sexual object, but so marvellous.
You have to stop with it, and really go into the whole of that marvellous, wonderful personality.
So there is a trouble that keeps coming up for the West.
When you go to church, and you suddenly go to a church where there is a marvellous clergyman.
And you think he is the very exemplar of life, and you idealize him.
And then suddenly there develops a frightful scandal.
That he has an affair with his secretary.
And you think all is lost.
That the faith has been sold out.
That everything is going to rack and ruin.
Because he was not purely spiritual.
And he himself may be terribly confused and worried about this.
Because in our world, you see, we make the spiritual and the material mutually exclusive.
But ri ji muge, this third world means that between the spiritual and the material there is no obstruction.
So we might say this would sound as if it were the highest level.
But there is one more to come.
Which is called ji ji muge.
This means then suddenly ri has disappeared.
But between ji ji and ji there is no obstruction.
Between one event and any other event or events there is no mutual exclusiveness.
Shall I put it that way?
This is the doctrine, the highest doctrine of Mahayana Buddhism.
Which you could call the doctrine of the mutual interpenetration of all things.
Or the mutual interdependence of all things.
And its symbol is the, what is called Indra's net.
That is used in the avatang saka sutra.
Imagine, at dawn, a multidimensional spider's web, covered in dew.
A vast, vast spider's web that is the whole cosmos.
And is not only a kind of a flat thing, but a solid thing.
And is solid in four, five, six and n dimensions.
Covered with jewels of dew.
All of which have rainbow colouring.
And every drop of dew contains in it the reflection of every other drop of dew.
And since every drop of dew contains the reflections of all the others.
Each reflected drop of dew contains the reflections, you see, of all the others.
And so ad infinitum.
Now this is the Mahayana vision of the world.
Which is to say, this is relativity.
That whatever exists in this world and is characterised as something particular.
As a thing, as an event, as something or other, you see, as a unit.
This does not exist without all other such things and events.
So that you might say, any one event implies all events.
And all events, the total universe, past, present and future, depends on every single member.
In other words, you may say, I can understand that I depend on this whole universe.
There could not be me unless there was everything else.
It is harder to see the corollary of that.
That the whole universe depends on you.
You might say, well, how can that be?
Because I come into being and then I go out of being.
And when I'm, before I was born, I'm sure the universe was here.
And after I die, I'm sure it will go on.
How can you say then that the whole thing depends on me?
Very simply.
It depends on your, supposing you're dead.
And we're talking about someone in the past.
Let's say, we're talking about Socrates.
And I'm going to say, this whole universe depends on Socrates.
I may put it more exactly.
It depends on Socrates having existed.
You see your parents now.
Some of your parents may be alive, but some of your parents may be dead.
Without your parents, he would not have come into being.
So you depend on your parents, even when your parents have gone.
So everything, even when you disappear, the universe will still depend on you.
On your having been here.
Or if you have not yet arrived, it depends on your going to be here.
So we can say, obviously, going back to Socrates,
the fact that Socrates existed tells us something about the kind of world we're living in.
This world, once Socratized.
And that Socrates and his wisdom was a symptom of the kind of universe we're living in,
in just the same way as I showed you that an apple is a symptom of a tree,
a certain kind of tree.
It tells us something about that tree, what it functions, how it produces things.
So a world which produced Socrates, or a world which produced John Doe,
who was nobody in particular, and nobody ever remembered him or thought to,
write his biography.
Nevertheless, for all his obscurity, the whole universe depends on him,
and it depends equally on every fruit fly, every gnat,
every vibration of every gnat's wing, and it depends on every last electron.
However brief its manifestation may be.
So that what this is saying is that everything that there is implies everything else.
And all those other things collectively, in their totality, which we call the universe,
in turn imply each individual object, event, and so on.
That's the meaning of Indra's net.
So that, this is called in Zen, to take up a blade of grass,
and use it as a golden Buddha, sixteen feet high.
When you have a chain, and you pick up a link, all the other links come up with it.
You see?
Because it implies, if this is a link, it is a link in a chain.
If it isn't, it's just an oval piece of metal.
But if it's a link, up come all other links.
So if you are an event, every event, there is no such thing as a single event.
The only possible single event is all events whatsoever.
That could be regarded as the only possible atom.
The only possible single thing is everything.
But the things that we call things all imply each other.
We know what we are only in relation to what we aren't.
We know of the sensation of oneself only in relation to a sensation of something other.
So the other goes with the self as the back goes with the front.
And your life, however short, everything depends on it.
If that did not happen, nothing would happen.
So in this sense, the whole world bears your signature.
It would not be the same world if it weren't for you.
You've heard, haven't you, what is called the pathetic fallacy?
This was an idea of the 19th century.
Which said that it was false and wrong to project human feelings on the world.
The wind in the pine trees is not sighing.
It's you who are sighing.
The sun is not happy.
It's you who are happy when the sun shines.
So don't mix up your happiness with the sun.
The sun has no feeling.
The sun is not human.
The wind has no feeling and is not human.
The poet says, the moon doth with delight look round her when the heavens are bare.
And the logician says, no, the poet looks round with delight at the moon in the bare heavens.
How awful.
I mean, if that's the point, you see, better not say any poetry.
Just have prose.
But actually the moon does look round with delight when the poet looks round with delight.
Because the world of which one symptom is the moon is the same world of which another symptom is the poet.
They go together.
A world where there is a moon implies a world where there is a poet.
A world where there is a poet implies a world where there is a moon.
So, in this sense, the moon can be said to look round with delight through the agency of the poet.
Because you can't separate poet and moon.
Just as you can't separate head and feet without destroying the unity of the body.
So, in that sense then, this whole world is a human world.
And we should not take the silly attitude or philosophy called the philosophy of the pathetic fallacy.
Which says, outside our skins it's all inhuman and dumb and blind force.
And only inside the skin is there the human world.
All this world is human.
Because it depends not only on the existence of humanity in general,
but on the existence of Mary Smith in particular.
So, the whole world is covered, as it were, with your personal signature.
But at that moment when you suddenly seem to be everything,
and to be Mr. A, you know,
you suddenly see the obverse of this.
That your particular personality is nothing at all without everything else.
Without everybody else.
I need, in order to be Alan Watts,
I need every single other human being,
and the uncontrollable otherness of all those other human beings,
that I can't do anything about.
They are going to be themselves whatever I do.
And yet, at the same time,
I depend on all their difference from me.
And yet, they all depend, likewise, on me.
So that I'm in a very funny position.
The moment I would be egoless and say,
I'm nothing without you.
Then suddenly I find I'm the kingpin.
They all depend on me.
Then suddenly, when I get swell-headed about being the kingpin,
I find I'm nothing at all without them.
So everything keeps going blip, blip, blip, blip, blip.
In other words, the moment you think you've got it in one state,
it transforms itself into the other.
That's the Gigi Muge.
Now in Gigi Muge, you see,
you've got a vision of the world
in which everybody is boss and nobody is boss.
There is no one boss who governs the whole thing.
It takes care of itself.
It's a colossal democracy.
But yet, every man and every Uguisu and every snail is king in this world.
And at the same time is commoner.
And that's how it works.
And there is no great king,
although in Hinduism they have an idea,
a very strange one to us, called Ishvara.
Ishvara means the Supreme Personal God.
The top being in the Deva world.
And many Buddhists believe that there is such a God.
There is a ruler of the universe.
But he is lower than a Buddha.
Because in the course of the endless cycles,
Ishvara will dissolve into nothing.
All gods, all angels are within the round of being.
It's a very curious idea to our minds.
And therefore, although Buddhists believe in God in that sense,
they don't take it importantly.
There are no shrines in Buddhism to Ishvara.
So then, it is through Jiji Muge,
this idea of the mutual interpenetration and interdependence of all things,
that we have the philosophical basis for Zen as a practical, non-intellectual way of life.
Because of the realization that the most ordinary event,
the charcoal brazier, the mat, soup for dinner, sneezing, washing your hands, going to the bathroom, everything.
All these so-called events, separate events, imply the universe.
So, this is why Zen people will use the ordinary event to demonstrate the cosmic and the metaphysical.
Only, they don't rationalize it that way.
To see infinity in a grain of sand and eternity in an hour is still Riji Muge and not Jiji Muge.
Jiji Muge is when you offer somebody the grain of sand,
for God's sake, stop thinking about eternity.
Here's just the grain of sand.
There is no difference between the grain of sand and eternity.
So, you don't have to think about eternity as something implied by the grain of sand.
The grain of sand is eternity.
So, in the same way exactly, our sitting here at this moment is not something different from Nirvana.
We are Nirvana as sitting here, exactly like this, you see.
So, you don't have to say any philosophical comment on the grain of sand or on our sitting here.
That's called legs on a snake or a beard on a eunuch.
You put legs on a snake, you see, and you embarrass the snake in its motion.
And a eunuch doesn't need a beard.
We would say in our idiom, don't gild the lily.
Or Zen would say, don't put frost on top of snow.
So, all what you might call specifically religious activity, is legs on a snake.
Eventually, this is going to be eliminated, just as eventually, we hope that government will be eliminated.
And will become unnecessary.
Because every individual will be self-governing.
And therefore, relate properly to his brother.
And the state will vanish.
So too, at the same time, the church will vanish.
And that's why in the book of Revelation, in the New Testament, it is said that in heaven there is no temple.
Because the whole place is the temple.
So, when we achieve the fulfillment of Buddhism, there is no Buddha.
No temple.
No gong.
No bell.
Because the whole world is the sound of the bell.
And the image of Buddha is everything you can look at.
So, a Zen master was asked, Mountains and hills, are they not all forms of the body of Buddha?
And the master replied, Yes, they are.
But it's a pity to say so.
So, I hope that they are there.
Let's segue what essa said.
Baby to accrue himself.
One 하는ider from
themselves.
Are we vibe?
No.
Keeping it bulky.
One.
Would you like to add a Initiative?
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ычно.