Shravakas and solitary realizers
Spring from the kings of Munis.
Buddhas spring from Bodhisattvas.
The compassionate mind, non-dual awareness,
And the altruistic mind of Enlightenment
Give rise to jinaputras, children of Conquerors.

Mercy alone is perceived as the seed
Of a Conqueror’s abundant harvest,
As water for growth, and as
Fruition in long enjoyment.
Thus I hail compassion at the beginning.

Homage to compassion for gatis,
Powerless migrators, like buckets dropped in a well,
First clinging to some self, an ‘I’,
Then growing attached to things – ‘Mine’.

Homage to compassion for gatis,
Evanescent and empty of inherent existence.
Like the moon in the rippling water.
Madhyamakavatara, CANDRAKIRTI

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I’ve got to a real stage of not knowing in my practice, which is leaving no choice but to be; to be with not knowing, realising the fluctuations of the world are the flucations of mind stuff.  And the other thing is that sitting being present is well, qualitatively different from waiting for enlightenment.  And the odd thing is that being present seems to require great faith.

Not seeking requires faith.

Just my thoughts.

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I think people misunderstand the concept of sudden enlightenment. Satori itself is sudden and fully transformative, but getting to that point can take lifetimes. Buddha himself after making his vow when he first saw Dipankara took a number of lifetimes.

To think that people don’t stumble along the path is naive. We do, we say things that are cutting, we entertain selfish thoughts, we eat things it would be best not to, etc. etc. And that is one of the reasons we must generate compassion towards ourselves, not just towards others.

The other problem is the idea that we are perfecting our nature. In Zen we are not perfecting anything, just preparing the ground for enlightenment.

As a parting thought try this, in the enlightened mind the universe is already whole. There is no difference between you and the universe. As Alan Watts put it The inside and the outside are one. Where is there not Alaya?

Forgive yourself and be free.

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Yet for me 80 minutes, which is what I do like to do in a morning, is definitely better than 15 and it seems that with 30 I’m only just getting started. But that’s just my experience.

Then there are seshins although I’ve never been on one. It must be fabulous.

What’s your experience?

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OK, I thought to myself. That’s fair enough. Perhaps enlightenment is not a good word. Yet, when you look at the interest in Buddhism it almost exactly parallels the interest in enlightenment. It even gets the same amount of searches. So, what about meditation then?

Similar. So why is this downward trend? Why are people losing interest in meditation? Or are they? Meditation has currently approximately 3.4 million searches. It’s reducing but still a lot. However, look at mindfulness. While it only gets 1/4 of a million searches a month, it’s basically tripled since 2004.

Perhaps this signals an increase in people who realise that mindfulness and concentration are really the keys. But it still doesn’t explain the drop in interest in enlightenment. Perhaps enlightenment is becoming seen as something mystical and not very practical.

As an aside ranked by count, the Indian sub-continent scores highest on the meditation front, Europe scores on the mindulness front. Suggestive of the above interpretation.

What then about spiritual? It’s the same trend. What is going on?

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I guess if I were to have to make a call I’d say that I am taming the bull.  I’m reminded of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s approach to body building; everytime the same routine, session in, session out. It’s not about making it interesting, it’s about getting the job done. And I’m reminded of something Gil Fronsdal once said; to paraphrase: that people think my talk was boring is a good thing. After all, what we’re pointing to is interesting not the pointing itself. But it seems we are making finer and finer distinctions until there are no distinctions at all.

So, this taming, seems to be about getting some distance on the mind; the kind of distance where thoughts are seen to be external, which is I guess glimpsing the bull. Perhaps distance should be called spaciousness. Thoughts arise within a much wider space than the thoughts themselves. And because of that distance there is a measure of control, which seems to be no control at all, because when there is control it is really thoughts controlling thoughts. Call this wider space presence.

But, now there’s a coming and going within this presence. That is to say from the seemingly wider awareness back to identification with thought. That’s why I think this is called taming the bull and also why I think persistence is key. It seems to me it’s more like breaking in a horse, except not only are we breaking it in, but we’re learning to ride at the same time.  We fall off, i.e. return back to identification with thought. Then we realise this and get back on.  That’s the coming and going or Shin Shau’s wiping the mirror, I guess.

But those who have gone before talk about achieving a sudden realisation, an insight so deep which brings this coming and going to an end. I think we need to get grips with what those who apparently have made the leap have had to say about it. Not that there is anything to be grasped of course.  I’m sure Arnold did his research.  Aside from the fact that buddha is found within one’s own mind, I wonder what I’m not yet seeing.

In the meantime Hui Neng’s realisation on hearing his predecessor recite the Diamond Sutra comes to mind, which was something around the idea of at all moments keeping the mind free.  Perhaps awakening is a matter of spiritual will.

I like just sitting.  I wrote post on Silent Illumination recently, which talks more to this I think, bry this from the back of Dogen’s Beyond Thinking

Spiritual practice is not some kind of striving to produce enlightenment, but an expression of the enlightenment already inherent in all things.

What a very packed sentence. Try these on for size:

1. All beings are inherently enlightened, so when you practise, your expressing the enlightenment of all beings, not some individual enlightenment.
2. Enlightenment is not dependent on striving, but on removing the sense of separation.
3. To practise being aware of the enlightenment in others is the practise of enlightenment.
4. Enlightenment is.
5. If you are aware of the enlightenment inherent in all beings you come across in your daily life then you can help bring out that inherent enlightenment, that is the practise of enlightenment.

I’m sure there are more. Though I do like the sense of non-separation that comes through so loudly and clearly. Or is that just me

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Vimalakirti was a householder, or as some call him, a lay practitioner to whom is attributed the Vimalakirti Sutra. Of all the heros of Buddhism he is my favourite precisely because he was a householder. Whether he existed or not is moot. My read on the sutra is that he must have had a lot of material possessions. The point is that he achieved enlightenment (now there’s an oxymoron) while going about his everyday life. Zen emphasises the ordinary and here he is.

Actually, I’m writing this having just got back from putting the rubbish out. And I’m going to go and sit on my mat in a minute.

I think the point is that our everyday lives are meditation practise too.

Some people break the eightfold middle path down into three sections:- prajna (wisdom):- right view, right intention ; sila (ethics):- right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort; and samadhi (meditation):- right mindfulness, right concentration. But I think it’s really just one practise – extending the emptiness of meditation into the emptiness of our daily lives. Strange as that may sound.

When we sit in meditation, realising that the stuff in our minds is just stuff is much easier. It’s much harder in everyday life. I think that it’s the waking up from a train of thought in meditation that points the way to waking up in our daily lives. And, at least in meditation in the little way I imagine I know it, it really does feel like waking up.

Thanks for the inspiration, Vimalakirti.

The first thing I should like to note is that emptiness equals spaciousness and not allowing thinking to concretise. Thinking needs to be kept flowing and not become a thing, that keeps the mind free. Just like a tree is not a tree, but a process given rise by causes and conditions. The same is true of ideas. They have no truth in themselves. The mind part of heart mind.

The second is metta bhavana. It strikes me that it is true that what you’re wishing for all beings is what you’re wishing for yourself. And this makes metta bhavana the other side of the coin of zen as this is unity from another angle. The heart part of heart mind. And this creates a spaciousness towards other beings.

Thirdly, unity cannot be conceived by the dualistic mind anyway. Every thought is rooted in dualism. Even the word unity is dualistic because it implies there is that which is not dualistic. So how can you hold unity as an object of thought? The root delusion is that we see ourselves as separate, but we need to break through our thinking to get to it. And this is the illness that zen is attempting to cure.

And lastly, trying to reach enlightenment. What is that? It can’t be done. Here and now. This is enlightenment. You can’t find enlightenment by sitting on a mat. You can’t find enlightenment by doing anything. Fully present with a spacious heart and a flowing mind, that’s what love is.

So if you bothered to read this, I hope you got something from it, after all may your heart mind awaken and be free.

I had a dream the other night in which I was standing within a void. I could see the void clearly. It was dark with a diffused light, shining within the darkness, like the fog on the manukau in the morning. But in this case the fog was the light.

I ordered the Lankavatara Sutra, which arrived a couple of days ago. It’s translated by Daisetz Teitarao Suzuki who has an interesting introduction. Although I’m reminded of a comment by Hyon Gak Sunim; to paraphrase it’s not what’s said that’s interesting but what is being pointed to. I think that’s much the case here.

“The Tathata-garba, therefore, whose psychological name is Alayavijnana, is a reservoir of things good and bad, pure and defiled. Expressed differently, the Tathagatagarbha is orginally, in its self-nature, immaculate, but because of its external dirt it is soiled, and when soiled – which is the state generally found in all sentient beings – an intuitive penetration is impossible. When this is impossible as is the case with the philosphers and ignorant masses, the Garbha is believed sometimes to be a creator and sometimes to be an ego-substance. As it is so believed, it allows itself to transmigrate through the six paths of existence. Let there be, however, an intuitive penetration into the primitive purity of the Tathata-garbha, and the whole system of the Vijnanas goes through a revolution. If the Tathata-garbha or Alaya-vijnana were not a mysterious mixture of purity and defilement, good and evil, this abrupt transformation of an entire personality would be an impossibility. That is to say, if the Garbha or the Alaya while absolutely neutral and colourless in itself did not yet harbour in itself a certain irrationality, no sentient beings would ever be a Buddha, no enlightenment would be experienced by any human beings. And as this illogicalness is practically possible, the Mahayana establishes the theory of Mind-only.”

And what I really love is that we find this within. Not that there is a without and within. And besides where else would we find it? Suzuki goes on to say Mind here does not mean our individual mind…

It was only a dream, but perhaps what it pointed to was interesting.