Tag Archives: Dogen

November 3, 2012 · 3:18 pm

Buddha Nature Is Nothing Special

Buddha Nature Is Nothing Special
Ven. David Xi-Ken Astor 曦肯

Those that gave us the Parinirvana Sutta thought the Buddha said “Everything has Buddha nature.” However Master Dogen has expressed it a different way by saying, “Everything is Buddha nature.” There is a huge difference between the words “has” and “is”. This is a good lesson on not only how to express what makes us human, but also how the language we use can distort what the Buddha taught. Yes, I believe this sutta is in error. One of the most fundamental teachings of Siddhartha was on the reality expressed in seeing the world in a non-dualistic way. Therefore the Buddha would never have used the word “has” in expressing our Universal natures. Ever.

When we say “everything has Buddha nature” we mean that not only does everything exist as an individual express of the Universe, but it also has a special Buddha nature too. In other words, it has a dual-nature. But Dogen with an awakened body-mind came to realize “everything is Buddha nature”. So each thing, by it’s very nature is Buddha nature itself. It only reflects back what it is, nothing added, nothing special. As the Heart Sutta says, “Form is emptiness, emptiness is form”. When there is no Buddha nature to be found, things can be just as they are. And in that state, everything expresses Universal nature without distinction. So you see, we are Buddha nature. When we sit to try to find this nature, we are 64,000 miles away and will never come to realize the true meaning of the expression “Buddha nature”. It only exists in your mind until you stop seeking it, then something wonderful will happen. You will discover it is there all along. Nothing special.

We are expressing our Universal nature all the time when we do what humans do. We eat, sleep, work, plant, drive cars, surf the net, write poems, and many other things that we humans naturally do based on our unique capacities that contributes to the welfare of ourselves and others. This is Buddha nature in action. When we do what humans do, we are being human beings. We are not different from other things really, as they go about expressing their true natures too. When we see differences we are practicing with a dualistic mind. It is easy to do because that is how most of us get though the day. But when you go to your cushion without expecting anything special and without making distinctions, we are resuming what it is we are when we stepped through the door of the living. When we only express the “I” of our natures we are suppressing all that truly makes us human. But when we sit with a clear body-mind, our own true nature resumes itself. Nothing special. When we come to awaken to that reality, we come to realize how special this gift of life is that only can be realize when our mind is clear from making distinctions. Learn to see the world as “is”.

Solitude And The Social-Self

Solitude And The Social-Self
Ven. David Xi-Ken Shi

I speak often about the importance of awakening to how the Four Noble Truths articulate the importance for us to develop the individual as well as social elements of this noble practice we call Buddhism. We learn how we are, both as persons and as partners, in this web of connections we call life. As a Buddhist monk that has taken vows to engage others beyond the walls of a temple, it is important for me to confront the realities of the social-self component of my practice. Without it I do not have much of a Buddhist ministry. The Buddha emphasized, however, the importance for us to balance our social responsibility with the individual need for our own spiritual renewal. Siddhartha often removed himself from the everyday activities of the Sangha, and retreated into solitude in order to “recharge” his spiritual energy. The Ch’an and Zen tradition has a long history of supporting an extended period of retreating into solitude away from all distractions. This is true in both the East as it is now in the West.

I want to share with you today some thoughts on the nature of this transformative body-mind practice know as “session”, or intentional practice into solitude. Time or space is not imposed. It is up to the individual to establish the parameters surrounding the need. It is always an effect of the causal chain of events that drives the situational aspects of making the choice for withdrawing from social interaction.

Solitude or withdrawal is the state of being secluded or separate from others. An individual can choose to inter a state of practice of being solitary based on circumstances. It is an example of situational-practice. When used at the right time and in the right manner it can have an important role in our spiritual development.

Before his enlightenment Siddhartha Gotama, the Buddha, also spent over six years in extended periods alone in the forests of his ancestral home in what we know today as Nepal. He was seeking first to understand himself before he could have the wisdom to administer the affairs of others. That was when he thought his destiny was to govern the region after the death of his father, the King. That we know now did not happen. The causal nature of the Universe revealed a different path for him, and we are all the richer for that reality. Reminiscing on this time many years later he said in the Majjhima Nikaya, “Such was my seclusion that I would plunge into some forest and live there. If I saw a cowherd, shepherd, grass-cutter, wood-gatherer or forester, I would flee so that they would not see me or me them.” We know from the many references made in the various Pali Cannon that after he attained enlightenment he would occasionally go into solitude. In the Samyutta Nikaya he is reported as saying, “I wish to go into solitude for half a month. No one is to come to see me except the one who brings my food.” Even though Siddhartha came to consider that the fabric of all phenomena-form, including our human one, are interconnected and dependent, it was still vital to withdraw from intentional contact in order to reconnect with renewed vigor. The notion is that I might be in a room by myself, but I am never totally alone, because all the connections I have with others before I stepped into solitude are never severed, unless that too is an intentional act. Even then, we are only in a body-mind state of being “alone with others” as Stephen Batchelor puts it.

The Buddha made a distinction between physical and psychological solitude. He considered physical solitude to be the more important. For him, psychological solitude meant isolating the body-mind from negative thoughts and emotions, something that is a natural human experience that can result in positive change, and should not be avoided. The Buddha recognized that we can choose to be solitary for a variety of reasons, some positive, and others not as useful or productive to our well being. Some of us want to isolate ourselves from others out of personal anguish, mental illness, or misplaced preference. More intelligent reasons why one might seek solitude, he said, included a feeling of healthy contentment, individual modest needs, to achieve self-examination, some appreciation for the value of aloneness, and because it can be helpful for spiritual growth. It is certainly true that regular periods of solitude and even occasional extended periods, can be psychologically refreshing. But it is important to examine our intentions to make sure that the psychological component of the desire for creating a period of withdrawal is based on healthy objectives. Some of the objectives can be to learn the value of independence, to rest the body-mind, enhance an appreciation for silence especially in zazen, and to impose a space for rigorous self-honest that brings a wiser and more confident mental state of HOW we are.

It is most important that when we seek a prolonged period of solitude for all the encompassing and corrective reasons, that we still need to monitor how this special practice is enhancing our everyday-practice in useful and productive ways. The blissful state of aloneness, however, can subtly result in the shirking of our responsibilities, to ourselves, to our teacher, to the Sangha, to our monastic vows, and to our family and community. We must be alert to the possibility of over doing it by over reaching ourselves and end up straining the body-mind state that we are trying to strengthen. This is why the Buddha cautioned, “One who goes into solitude will either sink to the bottom or rise to the top.”

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Tagged as Buddha, buddhism, contemplation, Dogen, individual, other, practice, session, social self, solitude, spiritual, Ven. David Astor, withdrawal, zen

March 31, 2012 · 1:08 pm

Receiving The Dharma: Study Of Cultural Transformation

Receiving The Dharma: Study Of Cultural Transformation
Ven. David Xi-Ken Shi 曦肯

As informed and educated beings when we respond to a new interest we first work to achieve some understanding in order to know how to engage it’s potential usefulness in our lives. While there are many ways that we can facilitate this understanding, from my experience it is generally done in the beginning through reading or listening to an awakened teacher. Today I would like to speak to you about how we should consider approaching the study of Buddhism from our reading and self-directed research. After all, many of us started our Buddhist life as “book-Buddhists”.

English language books on Buddhism have increased in number since they began to be published in the nineteenth century. Until very recently, virtually all of them have taken one of two distinct contemporary forms, either they put themselves within the modern scientific tradition in order to analyze the history and sociology of Buddhism, or from a more romantic sense as they attempt to transmit the truth and transformative nature of traditional Buddhist principles. As Buddhism engages our Western culture we often encounter current re-prints of older Asian publications that also gives us a chance to study Buddhism from an Eastern perspective. It is my reading-experience that each of these forms have tended to criticize the other severely. From a scientific point of view, romantic transmissions of Buddhism are simply inaccurate. They project forms of Buddhism more in line with contemporary non-secular ideals than with anything that has ever existed in Asia, and often miss the spiritual aspects of Buddhism. And from a romantic point of view, scientific studies miss the point of Buddhism altogether. They inadvertently transmit the mentality of a modern science worldview, and do nothing to awaken the mind, or alleviate unsatisfactoriness, for that matter. The scientific motive for the study of Buddhism is to obtain accurate knowledge of our world - awakening defined as a thorough understanding of world culture and history. The romantic motive for the study of Buddhism is to give us a breakthrough to a new kind of experience - awakening defined as a fundamental transformation of the human body-mind. These approaches seemed to be irreconcilable until recently.

If scientific rationalism and modern romanticism can now be seen to share a similar worldview, the perspective from which this can be seen is no longer completely within either one of them and therefore in some sense has created a stronger platform from which to study Buddhism from our contemporary experience. And it is this new development that has acted to create platforms like Pragmatic Buddhism, the Ch’an tradition that Ven. Wayne and I were trained under the Ven. Dr. Shi Yong Xiang, our root teacher. The quest to understand what Buddhism is without understanding cultural influences is analogous to the academic demand to set aside all personal preferences and just examine the information, or read the text, in and of itself. Our minds are context-dependent; they come to a particular form of understanding that they do within particular cultural and historical settings. As we read and study available Buddhist books we have the obligation to take care to also understand the cultural and social references, as well as the perspective, of the author. We do not just read for pleasure. We read for understanding and assimilation into our own worldview. In the language of Zen, it calls forth “the one who is right now reading,” and refuses to allow the reader to cling to his or her own invisibility. The dharma is transmitted to each generation through the process of the human connection. Transmission is the process through which all forms of culture, including Zen awakening to the Dharma, makes their way from one generation to the next, one form leading to a transformed other and to another, without end. It is another example of our causal Universe at work. Here I am using the word “transmission” to mean universal understanding of the Dharma (or what is real), not the formal transmission you may be more familiar with where a teacher passes on to their Dharma-hire the “teaching” style and methods of a particular school. The dharma is transmitted in many ways, and those of us that have stepped onto the path have opened ourselves up to receiving Siddhartha’s legacy when we became receptive to its relevance in our lives.

We are challenged to read as a form of meditation………….

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