Bhikkhu Cintita

Category: Dharma

  • Religiosity in Buddhism (Part 2 of 2)

    Uposatha, New Moon, January 4

    Last week I described religiosity as having an integral role in Buddhism, as the leaves and roots of the flower of Buddhism that thrive nurtured by the sun of Buddha, the water of Dharma and the Soil of Sangha, producing the strength to sustain the stem of Buddhist practice stretching upwards toward the blossom of Nirvana. If you are new to this discussion, please read last week’s episode here before proceeding.

    This week I would like to flesh out the role of religiosity in Buddhism in quite practical terms. First, we will see, following a specific example, the development of selflessness, how it contributes to higher attainments along the Noble Eightfold Path by inclining the mind already in a beneficial direction. Second, we will see how religiosity provides the most effective entry for the individual into Buddhist practice through the generation of conviction and energy.

    Working Together. Religiosity is one part of the Buddhist whole. Usually when something has multiple parts it is so that the parts can work together and performance diminishes or is lost altogether with the loss of any one part. For instance, you have two feet for walking; with one foot you could not even walk half as fast. The engine of your car has many parts. Remove a spark plug and performance will degrade noticeably, remove the fuel pump and it will fail altogether. Your washing machine is also something like that. A flower has many parts. Remove the leaves and roots and the flower would have no way to acquire nourishment, in fact I’m not sure what would hold the stem up. To understand how the various parts of Buddhism work together, let’s consider how they conspire to cultivate one quality, selflessness, or the realization of anattā, an essential attainment on the Buddhist path.

    First let’s begin with nutriment, the Triple Gem, the sun, water and soil that sustains the Buddhist flower. The Buddha exemplifies selflessness in his virtue, and inspires emulation thereof, in that his attainment represents the complete relinquishment of any sense of self. The Dharma teaches the philosophical basis of anattā and how to work with it in practice. The Sangha provides living examples of anattā in that it exhibits, or follows vows that restrict, self-serving behaviors. It is also the vehicle through which the teachings of anattā, and all other Buddhist teachings, have been successfully conveyed and taught through the hundred generations of Buddhist history to the present day.

    Entering the roots and leaves, that is, religiosity itself, confidence in the Buddha, the Dharma and the Sangha opens the Buddhist to the teachings of anattā and inspires him to develop its qualities as a part of dedicated Buddhist practice destined to blossom in Nirvana.

    Those who have joyous confidence in the highest, the highest fruit will be theirs. (AN 4.34)

    In addition, many practices running through all religiosity, including Buddhist, are physical expressions of selflessness, including bowing, which seems to be a natural embodiment or enactment with deep roots (consider that lesser dogs make a similar gesture to express submission), and including the various expressions of respect or veneration. The degree of resistance many Westerners new to Buddhist religiosity initially have to bowing is in fact clear evidence for its capacity to confront self-centered attitudes.

    When a noble disciple contemplates upon the Enlightened One, at that time his mind is not enwrapped in lust, nor in hatred, nor in delusion. … By cultivating this contemplation, many beings become purified. AN 6.25

    The Buddhist community has generosity in its veins and for the member of that community the need to protect personal interests wanes. All of these things serve to weaken that entrenched sense of self. We have seen the capacity of religiosity to encourage wholesome mental factors such as kindness and tranquility. This is the beginning of qualities further developed in the Noble Eightfold Path, which will itself as a whole further develop selflessness.

    Ascending the stem, we enter the Noble Eightfold Path along which the mind is tuned, honed, sharpened, tempered, straightened, turned and distilled into an instrument of Virtue, Serenity and Wisdom. The sense of self, tweaked, twisted, thinned, stretched, readjusted and spun, does not make it through to the end of the Path. This is the ultimate triumph of selflessness.

    The Growth of a Buddhist. A flower, out metaphor for the entirety of Buddhism, is one kind of plant and it grows in a certain way. We can compare it to three other kinds of plants that grow differently.

    The flower grows from a seed that finds itself in soil. With exposure to water and soil, roots grow into the ground, and leaves sprout above the surface and begin to absorb sun. Pretty soon the flower, thriving with confidence and energy, pushes a stem upward, ultimately to bloom.

    Grass also grows from a seed that finds itself in soil. With exposure to water and soil, roots grow into the ground and blades sprout above the surface and begin to absorb sun. Pretty soon the grass thrives with confidence and energy, but produces no stem and does not bloom.

    The tyke born of a devout Buddhist family will likely become either a flower or grass. In either case, his spiritual growth will begin the same way. The little seedling is brought into the presence of the Buddha, and monks and nuns and taught the forms of respect. He is exposed to the feel of a Buddhist community, and begins to absorb some Dharma. With growing conviction he becomes increasingly involved in the community life, developing merit in taking care of the temple and the monastics, in chanting vigorously, and such things. Maybe he takes refuge and begins to follow the precepts. Now, the prospect of advanced personal development in the Buddha’s way may or may not start to seem appealing as he reaches a critical decision point. If he undertakes meditation practice, study of the teachings and continues to deepen the practice of virtue, he will find himself firmly on the Path, and reaching upward toward Nibbāna. In this case he has become a flower, otherwise he will remain grass, nonetheless green and healthy.

    Mistletoe grows from a seed that is deposited in a bird dropping on a branch, stem or trunk of an existing plant. It develops enough of a root to absorb water and minerals from the host plant, but sprouts leaves and even flowers. It is a parasite.

    A graft is a branch or stem that is through human intervention cut from its original stock and attached to a lower part of another plant. Like mistletoe it absorbs water and minerals from the new stock, can sprout leaves, produce fruit and flower. It is a transplant.

    For the chap who comes to Buddhism later in life, spiritual development is commonly, but not necessarily, like that of mistletoe or of a graft rather than like that of a flower or of grass. Typically a Buddhist-to-be begins by reading about Buddhism, inspired perhaps by a vague sense that Buddhism is a good thing, maybe having seen the Dalai Lama on T.V. and thinking that was pretty cool, or inspired by celebrity Buddhists, or Buddhism’s reputation as “peaceful,” or by reading “Siddhartha” by Hermann Hesse.

    Now, this chap may or may not come from a previous religious tradition, possibly with a rich religiosity. The graft characterizes the first case. For instance, many who come to Buddhism have a degree of development in religiosity in the Jewish or Catholic tradition. Much of the growth of the roots and leaves has already been experienced and is, probably with mixed degrees of success, translated into Buddhist religiosity.

    The chap without a strong religious background, on the other hand, once my own case, is mistletoe. I suspect secular Buddhists are are almost always such chaps. As a result little attention has been given to the roots and leaves. Now, mistletoe grows slowly and does not really thrive the way the host plant would were the mistletoe not attached (this is a guess on my part—I’m not much of a botanist—but it supports the metaphor). Yet it can potentially bloom. In the meantime it gazes down upon the grass with disdain, little comprehending the roots and soil and the spiritual growth that is happening down there. It is common for Western hubris to see little value in Asian religiosity, little realizing how mistletoe is nourished through the roots and leaves of another, just as religiosity has sustained Buddhism for all of these years so that we can be nourished by its highest teachings. It is difficult, but that is where mistletoe needs to put down roots if conviction and zip are flow freely into practice.

    Most Buddhists world-wide are centered in religiosity, in the roots and leaves, not in the stem. They are aware of the stem, consider the Path upward, maybe make forays in that direction, and — this is almost uniquely significant in Buddhist religiosity — support generously the aspirations of the many who dedicate themselves completely to the path. However Buddhist religiosity alone — and this is probably true of most forms of religiosity — seems capable of achieving remarkable results. I see this in most Asian Buddhists I’ve known. I also see it in other religious traditions, which one way or another seem to produce some people of great attainment, even without a Noble Eightfold Path or anything resembling it! Admittedly there arises sometimes a dark side in religiosity; it can move toward exclusion, fundamentalism and superstition; I don’t want to discount that. But it also has a remarkable capacity for generating confidence, zip and many wholesome mental factors in its adherents, and can produce centered, composed, kind and insightful people, and do that all alone.

    Conclusion.The Noble Eightfold Path is the Buddha’s own checklist for personal practice. Secular Buddhists are right when they see in this teaching something way beyond common religiosity, in fact one of the most remarkable achievements in human religious, psychological and philosophical thought.*  However that personal practice exists in a human, a communal, an historical context in which religiosity has always played an indispensable role. A good part of the Buddha’s genius is found in how he shaped that religiosity to ensure that Buddhist practice would thrive, maintain its integrity and be transmitted to future generations. We have all been its beneficiaries.  Buddhist religiosity is the ideal platform from which to develop smoothly and decisively according to the Buddha’s instructions, along the Noble Eightfold Path toward the attainment of Nirvana.

    ————–
    * I won’t address some of the very narrow modern checklists which seem to missing whole flagstones in the Path of individual practice.

  • Religiosity in Buddhism (Part 1 of 2).

    Uposatha Teaching, Last Quarter Moon, December 29

    One common tendency of Western Buddhism is that we pick and choose: “I think meditation is useful, but I don’t believe in karma. I like the Buddha and all, but I don’t know why we need to bow at him all the time. I’ll wait ’til I’m enlightened, then I’ll worry about virtue. I practice in the real world, not on a cushion. Right Speech is, like, so dualistic, man.” We can call this Checklist Buddhism. At the beginning of Buddhist practice, many years ago, I admittedly started by drawing up just such a checklist, a long list, on paper! For more on Checklist Buddhism see my essay, “Picky Eaters in the Land of the Fork.”

    A particular kind of checklist defines what has been called “Secular Buddhism,” “Buddhism without the religion part,” or “Non-Devotional Buddhism,” often with the implicit or explicit assumption that Buddhism has been somehow tainted by devotional and ritual practices that make it look appallingly like (other) religions, and sometimes, further, that this is somehow a corruption or the Buddha’s original pure intention. In fact, I know of no convincing evidence that the Buddha promoted anything like a Secular Buddhism, nor that there has ever been such a thing until recent Western times. I want to make the point here, having long since thrown away my own rather naïve checklist, that such a thing would not, in fact, be a rational adaptation of Buddhism.

    Religiosity. I think what the proponents of secular Buddhism are getting at is a rejection of what I will call religiosity. In terms of religiosity Buddhism does indeed not stand all too far apart from most other religions. The fact is, religiosity seems to be a universal, found throughout the world. Scholars of comparative religion have probably looked at this in detail, but here are the recurring features I observe in almost all religions:

    • Ritual and Ceremony. These are conventionalized actions and activities.
    • Ritual spaces. Certain places and spatial relations are made significant through ritual or placement at an elevation or naturally central location.
    • Ritual artifacts. A central or prominent altar is common. Sometimes clothing is an indicator of social role in religious activities. Incense, candles, flowers and images are common.
    • Respect, Devotion and Worship. Certain rituals and gestures are used to express degrees of reverence or respect, either to designated people, to ritual artifacts, to abstractions or to otherworldly beings.
    • Scripture. Texts convey the basic doctrine or mythology of the religion and often go back to the founding of the religion.
    • Tradition. Many of the rituals, artifacts, scripture and so on are archaic, that is, bespeak of an ancient time to give a sense of embeddedness in a long tradition.
    • Chanting. Typically this is a group activity and involves reciting scripture.
    • Community, and Group Identity. There is a sense of belonging to a community, often assuming a certain role in a community dynamics and interrelatedness, much like belonging to a family.
    • Common world view or conviction. This is faith in a certain set of doctrines, creeds or values.

    Notice that, although I group them under “religiosity,” most of these features are not limited to religion. For instance, table manners and proper arrangements of cutlery and plates and glasses in a proper table setting exhibit a large number of these features. Sports events also involve ritual, ritual spaces, worship, chanting, group identity, and often a sense of tradition. Government functions and places of government exhibit every one of these features, by my count. Armies exhibit most. Even Academia exhibits a lot of these features. And no traditional school of Buddhism I am aware of fails to exhibit any one of them.

    In terms of function, religiosity seems to cultivate certain positive states of mind, to define a realm of significance outside one’s own body, to relate oneself to a large community, and people find safety, and comfort in that, and lose their own identity in favor of something other. It also secures social harmony within the religious community (outside can sometimes be problematic). This embeddedness in something greater than ourselves is almost anathema to the individualistic Westerner when he realizes what he is doing. Religiosity can, however, induce strong wholesome feelings of security, stability and calm.

    The secularist might find some valid objections to parts of religiosity, however none of them apply across the board. Religiosity clearly involves features of universal meaning and appeal. The contentedly religious person has no more obligation to explain or rationalize participation in them than the secularist has to explain or rationalize why he jumps up and down when excited or rolls his eyes when frustrated, even though all of these are very interesting questions. What appear as objective acts and artifacts in religiosity are in fact a reflection of something deep in the subjective human psyche.

    But let me play devil’s advocate for a couple of paragraphs. A feature I left out in the list above, which is fairly common in religiosity, is the attribution of special efficacy to the ritual aspects of this list, particularly powers of healing or control over natural phenomena, or magic. This is sometimes even among the most basic functions or expectations of religiosity. The secularist or rationalist might indeed have a basis not only for challenging this efficacy, where it is asserted, but also for arguing further that belief in it actually causes harm by creating false expectations. On the other hand certain healing powers, in any case, can be accounted for in a modern understanding of the relationship of mental health and physical health, taken together with the sense of safety and calm that religiosity tends to induce.

    More generally, since a particular system of religiosity most often also includes some doctrinal assumptions, the secularist has a basis for challenging, for that particular case, the veracity of those assumptions. However, the contentedly religious person needs simply to point out that it is not the function of religion to do good science, and she would be right. Mythology has a remarkable capacity for fulfilling religious functions, and even non-religious functions. Besides, hardly any area of human interest does science well−science does not always do science well−so why should religion? The desperately religious person, on the other hand, is likely to argue back, ill-advisedly, in favor of the veracity of doctrinal assumptions, which would be a lucky break for the secularist intent on debate. I discuss the question of religious truth in more detail in “Buddhism with Beliefs.”

    Religiosity in Buddhism. Buddhism is a flower. The problem with Checklist Buddhism is that a flower is an organic whole, a system of interrelated inter-functioning parts that is much greater than the sum of the individual parts. Each part has a function and, regardless of whether or not you recognize at first what that function is, the whole flower would die if it were missing just one major part. To complete the metaphor, here is how Buddhism would map onto the major parts of the flower:

    • The blossom of the flower is Nibbāna.
    • The stem that supports the blossom is the practice of the Noble Eightfold Path, the basis of Buddhist practice and understanding.
    • The leaves and roots that collect nourishment of sun, water and soil in order for the flower to thrive, constitute religiosity.
    • The sun, water and soil that nourish the flower are the Triple Gem, the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha.

    Now, here is the same thing in more detail:

    Blossom. This is the highest attainment of human character, liberation from suffering, perfect wisdom, virtue, enlightenment, awakening, all those good things.

    Stem. This is the most uniquely Buddhist part. The Buddha drew on many elements of the religiosity of his day and combined this with a astonishingly sophisticated, surprisingly modern, understanding of the human psychology and the human condition, to craft the training defined in the Nobel Eightfold Path, what someone has called a technology of enlightenment, that systematically moves the practitioner toward the perfection of human character in its aspects of serenity, virtue and wisdom, toward what the Buddha himself attained. The stem is made of three strands, which are Paññā, Sīla, Samādhi, that is, the training in wisdom, the training in virtue and the training in meditation, each of which bundles two or three smaller strands to give the eight folds. All the strands work together and, when taken up with conviction, energy and a sense of urgency, guarantee growth. There is nothing like this in its practicality and sophistication in almost any other religious tradition.

    An easy way to identify religiosity as a separate level in Buddhism is to ask, What aspects of Buddhism cannot be categorized easily under one of the folds of the Noble Eightfold Path? I used to wonder myself why many aspects of Buddhism did not fit into the Eightfolds. The answer seems to be a set very close to what I described above as the universal of religiosity. From the perspective of the stem, religiosity is a kind of launch pad, a preliminary stage that brings confidence and other qualities of mind together in preparation for the ascent up the Noble Eightfold Path.

    Leaves and roots. This is the religiosity of Buddhism, ritual, devotion and conviction, entangled in a community context. In its particular case it includes placing the hands together as a gesture of respect, circumambulating burial mounds, prostrating to images of the Buddha, sometimes to mythical figures and to adapts (roughly monastics and trained lay teachers), recitation and often memorization of ancient texts, confidence in the efficacy of Buddhist practice, that is, the stem of the Noble Eightfold Path and in those that have progressed far, commitment to codes of ethical conduct, a community life driven by generosity and close and repeated association with adepts.

    The stuff of religiosity was amply present in the Buddha’s India, he as a teacher had only to tap into that energy and shape it a bit to support the program of training he advocated to progress toward Nibbāna. His teachings do not dwell exhaustively on religiosity, but he was at points very critical of some of the excesses of the religiosity he found around him and at others very interested in slanting in a healthier direction. He pruned and staked where he saw fit. Here are some hallmarks of the Buddha’s take on religiosity.

    • Admirable friendship (kalyanamittatā). Hang with persons consummate in virtue, in generosity or in wisdom, or in all three, if you can find them. The following dialog expresses the critical importance the Buddha attached to this:

    As he was sitting there, Ven. Ananda said to the Blessed One, “This is half of the holy life, lord: admirable friendship, admirable companionship, admirable camaraderie.”

    “Don’t say that, Ananda. Don’t say that. Admirable friendship, admirable companionship, admirable camaraderie is actually the whole of the holy life. When a monk has admirable people as friends, companions, & colleagues, he can be expected to develop & pursue the Noble Eightfold Path. – SN 45.2.

    The Buddha originally required of monastics that they be in daily contact with laypeople as a means of securing a reserve of admirable friends for the laity, and asked that they be, “worthy of gifts, worthy of hospitality, worthy of offerings, worthy of respect.”

    • Respect. The Buddha advocated respect for parents, teachers, the elderly and monastics, even monastics of other traditions, expressed through the range of ritual gestures of respect. One way he enforced this in the case of monastics is to stipulate in the discipline that monastics not teach in the presence of someone who is acting disrespectfully. Within the monastic community the Buddha completely eliminated the prevailing caste system in terms of a hierarchy of respect based entirely, and somewhat arbitrarily, on ordination date. The importance of respect is not only in opening oneself to the influence of admirable friends, but also in the wholesome mental factors that arise in the very exercise of respect.
    • Generosity (dāna). This is the fundamental social value in the Buddha’s thought and is almost everywhere the lifeblood of the Buddhist community. This is partially enforced in the discipline by taking monastics entirely out of the exchange economy, leaving them vulnerable and unable to live in the absence of the freely offered generosity of others, but free to practice generosity themselves in their deeds and words. Generosity on this basis becomes pervasive throughout the Buddhist community, which becomes a kind of economy of gifts, this in contrast to the brahmanical tradition of paying for the enactment of rituals.
    • Discouragement of magic and special powers. It is however significant that the Buddha downplayed the magic or efficacious side of religiosity, while by no means abandoning it. The magic tends to creep back at least a bit in probably every Buddhist tradition, to surprising degrees in some, occasionally triggering revisionist movements, for instance, that led in Thailand in the Twentieth Century by Ven. Buddhadāsa, to restore the rational basis Buddhism. In general the Buddha did not want monastics to predict the future, exhibit extraordinary powers, heal the sick. While not denying that such powers exist (every indication in the scriptures is that he believed they did), he put them outside the Buddhist life and considered their cultivation a distraction from the real practice.

    It is important to note that much of religious ritual involves enactments that lend themselves in the West to paranormal interpretation, but in Buddhist are merely enactments for their symbolic value. In the West we tend to look for objective interpretations, whereas the value of virtually everything in Buddhism is found in the subjective world. For instance, food offerings to a representation of a Buddha, or in some schools to mythical bodhisattvas, are very common, but there is generally no understanding in Buddhism that someone is actually accepting the offering and eating the food; it is play, but play that does make a difference in the practitioner’s state of mind. We do the same when we put flowers on the grave of a dear departed.

    • Confidence and investigation. The Buddha reached an advanced understanding, a level of insight and knowledge that he knew would be very difficult for others to achieve. As a teacher he had to consider the process whereby others can reach that understanding, and recognized that it requires a combination of confidence (saddhā) in the teacher and teachings, and direct experience of what these are pointing out. Faith is necessary to open oneself completely to a network of direct understandings, unblemished by competing notions one is likely to have accrued. But confidence, for the Buddha, was useless in itself, unless it is backed up by personal investigation. Confidence is a natural product of religiosity, prior to thorough investigation, ready to be put to use in the Noble Eightfold Path. It is significant the Buddha was very parsimonious in his teachings, giving nothing as an object of conviction or investigation that did not have a function in the Path.

    Nourishment. Conviction is the part of religiosity that allow the roots and leaves to absorb the nourishment of the sun, water and soil. Conviction focuses on the Triple Gem of the Buddha, the Dharma and the Sangha. These nourish our entire practice, and in fact the beginning of Buddhist practice is generally considered to be refuge in the Triple Gem.

    • The sun is the Buddha. Conviction in the Enlightenment inspires our deeper practice. The Buddha stands an an example to emulate, an admiral friend, alive in accounts of his life and in the Dharma-Vinaya, his teachings.
    • Water is the Dharma. The teachings of the truth that the Buddha directly experienced and the instructions for perfecting the human character constitute the water that flows into every aspect of our Buddhist life and practice, into the roots and leaves and up into the stem, to inform us what to embrace and what to reject on our way to Nibbāna.
    • Soil is the Sangha. This is the contemporary community of adepts, whose task it is to understand and develop personally along the path, and to accurately interpret and convey and embody the teachings, thus serving as admirable friends to the Buddhist community. The Sangha is alternately identified with the visible monastic community (bhikkhusangha), or with the Noble Ones (ariyasangha), more difficult to identify but individually more precisely qualified in having reached a certain minimal level of attainment on the Path. They are the soil that transports the water and ensures that the entire practice, roots, leaves, stem and blossom, will not blow away in years to come.

    In short, the stem and blossom of the Buddhist flower nourish the roots and leaves, and the roots and leaves nourish the stem and blossom. The Buddha presupposed a culture of religiosity, but adjusted it in many ways. In particular, ritual, scripture, devotion, world view and the rest all point actually toward the higher practice represented by the stem and blossom, not to some kind of external agent or force. This is probably also uncommon in world religiosity.

    To be continued. Thus ends the first part in this two part series on Religiosity in Buddhism. Next week we will look at some examples of how religiosity works together with the other parts of Buddhism for optimal results and a variety of scenarios for establishing conviction and where that takes our practice, and thereby will gain hopefully an increasingly practical appreciation of the importance of religiosity in Buddhism.

    I would like to invite readers to raise questions about religiosity, particularly from a secularist viewpoint. This is a blog, after all, albeit a very civilized blog. I realize that many are attracted to Buddhism precisely because they perceive it as lacking religiosity, even while others are attracted to it precisely because of its rich religiosity. I do not want religiosity to be a stumbling block or deal breaker that inhibits anyone from higher attainment. I am probably aware of the range of viewpoints on this and can anticipate issues that can be raised, from indoctrination of children to opiates and inter-religious violence and am completely willing to discuss these.

    Part Two

  • From Thought to Destiny: Conclusion

    Uposatha Teaching: Full Moon, December 21, 2010.

    Index to Current Series
    “    Thought – Act – Habit – Character – Destiny”

    “Sow a thought,
    and you reap an act;
    Sow an act,
    and you reap a habit;
    Sow a habit,
    and you reap a character;
    Sow a character, and you reap a destiny.”

    We now conclude this series of Uposatha (Quarter Moon) Day teachings on Karma.

    We humans are thinking acting creatures potentially with a broad array of free will options in every conscious moment. This enables new karma whereby thoughts give rise to acts, or just remain thoughts. Our acts play out in the world and their consequences run deep, in fact continue indefinitely into the future, where they mingle with all the other chains of cause and effect to make the world what it is. At the same time each new karmic thought or act leaves a residue in the mind, and the accumulation of this residue make us who we are. We are what we do. The karmic residue, the old karma, begins to harden into walls and byways that tend to fix our future acts and thoughts into habit patterns, into mounds then mountains that become our world view, fixed opinions, values and aspirations. This landscape, whether pleasant or craggy, becomes the world we inhabit and the best predictor of our future thoughts and acts, the future new karma that will then leave further karmic residue. Our inner world thus formed can become heaven or hell, a human realm of both pain and pleasure, a place of limitless craving and fear, a ghostly realm of perpetual dissatisfaction or a world of rage and competition. Our outer influences can be for harm or benefit, and the outer world we help create around us as we produce new karma in turn produces conditions that trigger our responses in the form of more new karma, just as our acts trigger karmic responses in others.

    Unfortunately left to our own devices, with neither skillful reflection nor wise guidance, we rarely achieve the control over our own karma necessary to shape either our outer or our inner world in a healthy direction. We most naturally fall into service of impulses to seek personal advantage, to exploit for ourselves what we think the world might offer and to protect ourselves from the dangers we think the world might harbor. Alongside these is a desire to be of benefit to others, to treat others with kindness, especially those closest to us. But we struggle with an incessant feeling of lack and a sense of dissatisfaction when we actually manage to acquire what we seek, which then just becomes another need. One need leads to another and our behaviors rather than benefiting begin to harm, for which we fashion clever justifications, even as they harm ourselves. The reactions of those we harm create new needs. We wonder why happiness is so elusive as our karma accumulates. We end up inhabiting, disappointed and confused, an unsatisfactory or even frightening world of our own making, with no better notion of what went so dreadfully askew than to try harder at whatever we were doing before, no longer even considering alternatives to the well-worn byways and walls and the rest of the craggy landscape we’ve formed.

    With wise guidance and skillful reflection we are able to take control of our karma. First, we see how our impulses that seek personal advantage lead us astray in increasing lack not decreasing it, in leading to more dissatisfaction not less, in leading to harm for others and unhappiness for ourselves, in enmeshing us further and further in our struggles with the world. Second, with sufficient discipline, energy and sense of urgency, we sort out what is skillful and unskillful in our our thoughts and actions. Immediately we become a force for benefit in the world and gradually we begin, by choosing our thoughts and actions with due deliberation and in spite of established patterns of habit and view, to break through the old karmic walls to create new byways, to create a new more habitable and pleasing karmic landscape. Thereby we begin to loosen the compelling hold of greed, aversion and fixed views, and develop in their stead renunciation, kindness and compassion. We are on our way to the attainment of Nirvana.

    Unfortunately we tend to have a small view of the scope of the Buddhist project, we tend to think all the benefit of practice as confined to this one solitary life, limited in time and space, where it competes with all the other temporal attractions that promise happiness, such as physical workouts, dieting, the ideal hair style, wind surfing, executive moving and shaking, and opera tickets. The problem with the limited temporal view is that, since all accomplishment on the Buddhist path will be dissipated at the death of the physical body anyway, the reserve of discipline, energy and sense of urgency otherwise available will be dissipated right now, in favor of potentially more pleasant paths to happiness. The fact is, however, that our unskillful karma propagates and perpetuates itself, if not serially projecting into subsequent lives, then at least laterally through imitation, through the responses of others as consequences of our actions, through adoption into the popular culture. Our karma slops over and spills on others so that large parts of our pleasing or craggy karmic landscape are replicated over and over in the lives of others, in our children, in our colleagues and friends and in all who bear the consequences of our deeds. They carry aspects of ourself, we at the minimum are reborn in bits and pieces. And their potential for attaining Nirvana will, to that extent, look like ours.

    Our entire Buddhist practice consists in how we meet this moment, and the next, and the next, …, in Thought and Act. We can meet it skillfully or unskillfully. The teachings on karma tell us how important that Thought and that Act are. While profoundly and eternally conditioning the outer world for harm or benefit, they add their imprint on our Habits, on our Character and in the end on our Destiny. Practice is forever.

  • From Thought to Destiny: The Pragmatics of Destiny

    Uposatha Teaching: First Quarter, December 14, 2010.

    Index to Current Series
    “    Thought – Act – Habit – Character – Destiny”

    Nirvana is both the beginning and end of Buddhist practice. We begin with accepting the truth of the Buddha’s enlightenment. Even before we have an understanding of what this is, we accept that the Buddha gained some special quality that we too can with time achieve in Buddhist practice. We end with Nirvana. We practice in between, gaining confidence in the Buddha’s enlightenment as we observe elements of our own character fall into place and gain glimpses of the ultimate goal.

    Nirvana, along with its companion, Rebirth, forms a context for Buddhist practice. Keep in mind though that practice is simply about skillful intentional action, that is, Karma. We have added the layers Habit, Character and Destiny to Thought and Act merely to explore the consequences of our intentional action, so that we better understand what it is to be skillful and why its cultivation is so imperative. As with the understanding of Rebirth the understanding of the goal of Nirvana is not without pitfalls.

    The Goal. Goals themselves are often put to unskillful uses. They quickly become objects of desire, clinging and obsession, and thus foster unskillful states of mind. “I gotta have that NOW! Oh, I can’t wait, I can’t wait.” Sugarplums are painful things to have dancing in your head. Nirvana can do that as well. Once achieved goals accordingly create an equivalent fear of losing what has been accomplished, or dissatisfaction in it. Don’t worry, you will not have achieved Nirvana in the first place if you have this level of clinging. How do you have a goal skillfully?

    It is important to hold skills lightly. Think of them as the North Star, guiding your path, but not something you need to actually reach (in fact the North Star is more and more out of reach the further you travel toward it; it ends up overhead). If you are learning a language, you just follow a fixed daily routine of practice, otherwise you will make yourself miserable striving to speak as a native and will eventually give up. Consider Gandhi’s life task; he just followed the daily practice of non-violent non-participation along with encouraging others to join him; he never would have endured his half-century campaign had he been obsessed constantly with driving the British out of India. Consider the misery of dieting to get slim, the repeated sacrifice of what needs to be renounced in the painful effort to be slim, then the disappointment after you abandon the discipline that you had barely been able to sustain, only to return to your former pleasingly plump condition. The goal can skillfully form a background context to occasionally consult to ensure you are headed in the right direction.

    The ways in which the goal of Nirvana has been framed seems to have played an important role in Buddhist thought. In China the notion of Sudden Enlightenment became very prominent. This is the idea that within this very life it is very feasible that one can attain Nirvana, without plotting out a path of development spanning many lifetimes. Zen literature is full of references to people who through practice and skillful instruction suddenly realize in a single instant Enlightenment, often with little preparation beforehand. These stories in a sense mirror the stories of the early Suttas of disciples of the Buddha who realize the final goal during a single discourse of the Buddha. However in the Suttas the presupposition is almost always present that these are people “with little dust in their eyes,” people who have already lived as recluses perhaps for many lifetimes, practiced meditation, developed virtue, reflected deeply on the nature of existence, and only needed the wisdom of the Buddha’s teaching to pull it all together. Within Zen even while embracing Sudden Enlightenment the contrasting notion that one should practice without a goal, simply practice. The notion that “We are already enlightened” encourages this. This is particularly evident in the teachings of Japanese Master Dogen (1200-1253), whose view was essentially that Enlightenment is not something you achieve, it is something you do, or fail to do, moment by moment. After all, the only way we shape Habit, Character and Destiny, or in fact anything else in the world, is through our intentional actions. Isn’t it enough just to get our intentional actions right, that is, to face each moment with a calm mind, virtue in the heart, and clarity about what is going on, and then act skillfully? Similarly, for the chubby person is it not enough just to face each day moderate eating habits? In either case the goal takes care of itself.

    It is important to distinguish striving for a goal from effort. Effort does not require clinging, which is painful, only discipline, which can be quite joyful. What we would call an awakened being, and arahant, someone who has attained the goal of Nirvana gets intentional actions right naturally and without effort, which is why we don’t even think of them as intentional or karmic any more, and would not know what else to do. The rest of us must meet each moment while being hammered by the typhoons and eruptions of impulse and obsession, assaulted by the flames and avalanches of passion and rage, so we must be able to put all that aside then act with a calm mind, virtue in the heart, and clarity about what is going on, and to enact Enlightenment. So effort does not vanish with the notion that we are already all enlightened. We still need to act like it.

    I suspect that, like much of Buddhist doctrine, the various ways of treating the goal of Nirvana are pragmatic adaptations of the Buddha’s teachings to differing cultural circumstances. It has been suggested that the idea of Sudden Enlightenment is related to the existence of greater social mobility in China than in India. In India there was not much expectation that one’s lot in life would change significantly within this lifetime, life required extreme patience, and many lifetimes to make progress. In China one might be born a peasant and die an advisor to the emperor, quick results could be expected in this lifetime. I doubt that the Chinese actually developed a way to become enlightened faster, they just framed to process in a more appealing, less frustrating way. For those that might have doubts about the veracity of Rebirth, which recall brings with it a sense of urgency in practice, the prospect of Sudden Enlightenment might also inspire to urgency in practice. The downside of all this is that the prospect of Sudden Enlightenment encourages clinging to the ultimate goal. This would explain the common accompanying theme of practicing with no goal as a wise defense against this clinging.

    Now let’s consider Western culture. We tend to be acquisitive, we tend to expect instant click-of-a-button gratification, we tend to interpret things as personal goals. These things require that we be extremely careful with Nirvana, Enlightenment and the other synonyms. Already these have become marketing tools for Buddhist products, including teachings, accompanied by promises of fast results. I recommend that people steer clear of such appeals. I personally like to teach in terms of Gradual Enlightenment but Steady Progress in order to mitigate greed and encourage patience. I teach in terms of Perfection of Character or Virtue rather than Ending of Suffering, or Eternal Bliss, because it is less about personal advantage, it suggests something you do for everyone rather than just for yourself. I tried teaching in terms of Responsibility for a while, but students seemed to think that was a bummer. (It is perhaps an advantage of being a monastic that I do not have to try to sell anything, like seminars, books and retreats; I don’t depend on teaching as a livelihood, I have no livelihood. This leaves me free to teach what is most skillful, like renunciation and disenchantment, rather than what appeals to the naive and commercially influenced understanding.) Most importantly is to settle into a well-defined daily practice routine, disciplined but not striving. The book will get written if you write a certain number of pages a day, competence will develop if you learn something new each day. Just take care of the day, the moment, the intention behind the action and the rest will take care of itself.

    Rebirth and Nirvana together give a broader meaning to the Buddhist path that extends beyond the confines of this one life. Although Nirvana is a distant goal for most, it is one toward which noticeable progress, along with occasional glimpses of its waiting arms, can be witnessed in this one life, and sometimes some recluse will actually attain this lofty goal of perfection of character. For most of us Nirvana simply provides a cathedral-like framework to contain our daily practice or aspirations.

    Greater than the One Life. The focus on this one life gives a limited view of the Buddhist path. Another analogy is perhaps in order.

    The focus of corporate capitalism tends to be limited to quarterly profits. Sometimes the executive vision is a bit more far-sighted as certain long-term perspectives are able to raise stock prices for the short term, but the performance of executives are by and large judged on the basis of quarterly profitability. This means that the global view is largely lacking; where will we be, say, one hundred years from now? The characteristic myopic decisions of individual corporations exemplifies what in Artificial Intelligence is known as Hill Climbing. The logic of Hill Climbing is that if you want to get to the top of the mountain in the fog, just keep walking up hill. The decision-making process is thus driven by a local metric, the contours beneath your feet. The weakness of hill climbing is that you almost always get stuck at the top of a foot hill and miss the top of the mountain altogether because you lack the global perspective. This is the problem of scrambling for short-term, measurable gain. Since corporations by and large can not sustain a long-term perspective, other human institutions are required that can. The scientific and technological research communities can afford a long-term view because at their purest they are generally not required to show quarterly results or any particular practical results. Their practitioners, sustained by job security (tenure and so on) provided generally through government funding, have the leisure to work on projects with very long-term goals, or simply advance human understanding of certain principles, like computability. They become a resource for future long-term corporate profitability, at little corporate expense. They also potentially provide a social conscience in corporate decision-making. (Unfortunately a great weakness of the corporate system is that more often than not warnings that would conflict with quarterly profits tend not only to be ignored actually suppressed through corporate control of media and through corporate lobbying of government agencies responsible for allocating funds for scientific and technological research.)

    Our individual spiritual focus tends to be similarly limited to quarterly results. Sometimes we are motivated to sustain a meditation practice through the inspiration of others, but generally we waste time scrambling for short-term measurable gain, wealth, reputation, fun, a new romance, kids off drugs and in school, the neighbor’s dog not barking all night, getting the upper hand in the battle of the bulge, finding the best cell phone service provider for the family, looking busy at work and so on. With so many petty concerns it is easy to lose sight of Nirvana, the overarching goal of the Buddhist life, the lofty peak that may lie many lives in the future, and instead get stuck at the top, or even half way up, a little hill. As a matter of fact, since Buddhists by and large can not easily, in the bustle of samsara, sustain a long-term perspective, another human institution is required to hold to that perspective as a constant reminder. This is a traditional role in Buddhism of the monastic Sangha. Its practitioners, sustained by lay donations, and at the purest giving up all temporal concerns that might distract them from the higher goal, have the leisure to work on something much bigger than their single lives. They become the conscience of the Buddhist, keeping him pointed toward the higher goal. On a quarterly basis the elements of Buddhist practice may not seem so urgent, but those periods on the cushion, meeting situations with kindness and insight, keeping life simple and peaceful, make an incalculably huge difference in the Destiny of the world.

  • New Post: The Dharma of Linux

    A Buddhist Monk’s Reflections upon Installing Ubuntu on his Laptop

    Linux is a computer operating system, a competitor, with a small market share, of Microsoft Windows. Dharma is the Buddha’s teachings on the perfection of human character, in its three aspects of Serenity, Virtue and Wisdom. I’m a monk, and I pack a laptop, Dell Latitude D420.

    Read the whole post here.

     

  • From Thought to Destiny: Nirvana, the Perfection of Character 2/2

    Uposatha Teaching: New Moon, December 6, 2010.

    Index to Current Series
    “    Thought – Act – Habit – Character – Destiny”

    Last week we began discussing Nirvana in two of its aspects, Imperturbability and Awakening, that is, the affective and cognitive aspects. This week we consider the the remaining aspects of Highest Virtue and of Liberation, which ties together these three aspects.

    Highest Virtue. This is the result of developing the behavioral aspect of character, or the morality, and thereby brings us one again to the issue of Karma. Virtue comes with the erosion and eventual loss of unskillful roots of Greed, Aversion and Delusion and with the arising and growth of Renunciation, Kindness, Compassion and Wisdom. In fact, with the complete disappearance of Greed, Aversion and Delusion, and backed by Renunciation, that is, staking no personal claim in anything, and by the penetrating and encompassing insight of Wisdom, the factors of Kindness and Compassion are unleashed to bring the world unlimited benefit. A saint is born. This seems, in fact, to accord with the Buddha’s life story.

    However, there appears to be some confusion about what the Arahant, the one that has attained Nirvana, is capable of. Nirvana is frequently described as the End of Karma, referring specifically to the end of New Karma, that is, intentional actions, rather than Old Karma, that is, the cumulative results of past intentional actions, which may persist for a while after the attainment of Nirvana. For instance the following passage describes actions in accord with the Noble Eightfold Path as leading not only to the ending of skillful (bright) Karma, but also to the ending of unskillful (dark) Karma and everything in between, the ending of All New Karma altogether.

    The intention right there is to abandon this kamma that is dark with dark result, the intention right there is to abandon this kamma that is bright with bright result, the intention right there is to abandon this kamma that is dark and bright with dark and bright result. This is called kamma that is neither dark nor bright with neither dark nor bright result, leading to the ending of kamma. AN 4.232

    Because Karma is a fabrication, that is a compounded thing, this provides a release from the arising of any slight suffering that would be associated with even skillful (bright Karma). Furthermore, with the end of Karma comes the end of Samsara, that is the end of Birth and Death, upon the physical death of the body. Rebirth, recall, is driven by Karma. But then, it seems that the arahant must be not only incapable of intentional action after Nirvana is attained, but also would be unable, in any case, to stick around to be of benefit in subsequent lives. So on the path nearing Nirvana the arahant has accumulated this huge reservoir of Virtue, only for it to be squandered in the attainment of Nirvana! Could this really be the case? It seems from the Suttas that the arahants were all capable of much more than sitting around blissfully drooling on their mudras, but apparently this is a common Mahayana understanding of what it means to become an Arahant: In response the Bodhisattva became a contrasting ideal, as one who stops just short of Arahantship, intentionally and nobly, in order to put this huge reservoir of Virtue to use for the benefit of all beings, in this life and in subsequent lives.

    The best way to resolve this question, whether the Arahant is capable of benefiting the world, would be to find an arahant and ask him, but I am not sure where to find one. However, I would suspect to find someone far from the common Mahayana view of the Arahant. For instance, there are alternative passages that suggest as much. The following example suggests that the skillful roots produce no karmic fruit in any case:

    In the same way, any action performed with non-greed… performed with non-aversion… performed with non-delusion — born of non-delusion, caused by non-delusion, originating from non-delusion: When delusion is gone, that action is thus abandoned, its root destroyed, made like a palmyra stump, deprived of the conditions of development, not destined for future arising. AN 3.33

    The emphasis on non-delusion might suggest that particularly pure actions of non-greed and non-aversion are under discussion, ones without a hint of attachment to what is thereby fabricated. Perhaps these are the activities allowed the arahant. These might be quite spontaneous pure and simple acts of compassion and kindness in response to conditions as they present themselves with no attachment to results. The turtle is on its back, set it upright, what is there to say or even think about? There is nothing karmic about it in the sense of producing a lasting impression on the character or producing another Rebirth, but such simple actions can produce enormous benefit, coming from an limitlessly insightful, compassionate and kind mind. I think this is probably like the Taoist notions of no-mind and the action of no-action, which in fact became the Zen understanding of nirvanic behavior, as described like this in Twelfth Century China:

    People of the Way journey through the world responding to conditions, carefree and without constraint. Like clouds finally raining, like moonlight following the current, like orchids growing in shade, like spring arising in everything, they act without mind, they respond with certainty. — Master Hongzhi

    In other words compassionate and wise action becomes the natural function of an Arahant, just as the natural function of rain is to pitter-patter and the natural function of a door is to bar access until opened, requiring no particular intentionality on the part of the rain or door or even sense that a choice is being made.

    Liberation. In common usage Liberation means the freedom to do what you want: If you want to speak harshly of others, freedom of speech allows you to do so. If you want to eat ice cream, money in your pocket ensures that you can. In Buddhism Liberation is something deeper: It is freedom from having to want. It is therefore freedom from the constraints of our own minds, freedom from the annoying backseat driver in our heads that is constantly demanding that we go there and avoid that, all the while with little sense of what will get us into an accident or take us on a long detour. These directives have their origin in the fabricated self, that entity in the world but not of it, on behalf of which personal advantages are sought in the world and the dangers of the world avoided. They take the form of emotional cues, of lust, of disgust, of heartbreak, of anger, of longing of disappointment, of envy, of acquisitiveness, of stinginess, of pity, or sadness, that keep the mind in anxiety and turmoil and give rise to our actions. This is the human condition.

    Buddhism is about looking outside the box with the eye of wisdom. It is about seeing how our rich emotional lives, though providing good material for Italian opera, keep us constantly on edge, perpetually dissatisfied and trapped inwardly in a drama from which we cannot get free, all the while thrashing about outwardly a world of our own fabrication in horribly harmful ways. It is about transforming this insanity that we all seem to be endowed with, and instead to live worthwhile, satisfying and harmless lives, by liberating our actions from our basest emotions, by developing skill in our Karmic actions, turning away from our untutored emotional reactiveness. This is taking responsibility for our lives.

    The word Nirvana means extinguishing, as one would extinguish a fire. Ven. Thanissaro Bhikkhu points out that at the Buddha’s place and time the physics of fire was different that we commonly understand it, so that the image for us can be misleading. Something like liberation from painful bondage is intended. Ven. Thanissaro translates Nirvana as Unbinding. In ancient India fire was considered to be present everywhere, normally in a cool state. However when it comes into contact with fuel it tends to attach to it, at which time the fire becomes hot and visible, as in the Buddha’s famous Fire Sermon:

    Monks, the All is aflame. What All is aflame? The eye is aflame. Forms are aflame. Consciousness at the eye is aflame. Contact at the eye is aflame. And whatever there is that arises in dependence on contact at the eye — experienced as pleasure, pain or neither-pleasure-nor-pain — that too is aflame. Aflame with what? Aflame with the fire of passion, the fire of aversion, the fire of delusion. Aflame, I tell you, with birth, aging & death, with sorrows, lamentations, pains, distresses, & despairs. The ear is aflame. Sounds are aflame… The nose is aflame. Aromas are aflame… The tongue is aflame. Flavors are aflame… The body is aflame. Tactile sensations are aflame… The intellect is aflame. Ideas are aflame. Consciousness at the intellect is aflame. Contact at the intellect is aflame. And whatever there is that arises in dependence on contact at the intellect — experienced as pleasure, pain or neither-pleasure-nor-pain — that too is aflame. Aflame with what? Aflame with the fire of passion, the fire of aversion, the fire of delusion. Aflame, I say, with birth, aging & death, with sorrows, lamentations, pains, distresses, & despairs. SN 35.28

    Nirvana is a matter of unbinding the fire from the fuel to return to the natural, and for people of India more pleasant, state. He does not mention it, but this is much like our modern understanding of Oxygen, normally tame and cool, but quite ready to turn aflame in the presence of fuel and spark. Flame is as a metaphor for the directions of of the backseat driver brings forth graphically the aspect of suffering.

    Liberation, it can be seen, summarizes the three aspects of Imperturbability, Awakening and Virtue. Imperturbability is the stilling of the flames, the turning away from the directives of the backseat driver, not getting caught up in the emotional life. Awakening results from seeing the world from a perspective other than through the flames of want, to see the world as it is on its own terms, and thereby recognize the insanity of the emotion-driven life. Highest Virtue is to recognize the sanity of the purpose-driven life and to behave in accordance with the world as it is.

  • From Thought to Destiny: Nirvana, the Perfection of Character 1/2

    Uposatha Teaching: Last Quarter Moon, November 29, 2010.

    Index to Current Series
    “    Thought – Act – Habit – Character – Destiny”

    The final Destiny for those on the Buddhist Path is Nirvana. “Nirvana” itself means Unbinding or Extinguishing, and has been described as the End of Suffering; the End of Greed, Hate and Delusion; the Destruction of Fermentations; the End of Karma; the End of Samsara or the Round of Birth and Death; the Deathless; Awakening, Enlightenment or Realization; Attainment or Realization of Emptiness; Liberation. Each of these phrases describes a specific aspect of Nirvana. A more encompassing description would be simply Perfection of the Human Character, or Finally Growing Up Completely. It is the North Star toward which we navigate in our practice. The one who has caught a first glimpse of Nirvana is called a Stream Enterer and is said to be no longer able to turn away from the Path to Nirvana, which is said to be attained within seven lifetimes. The one who has attained Nirvana is called an Arahant. This generally happens, for example, like this:

    Dwelling alone, secluded, heedful, ardent, & resolute, he … reached and remained in the supreme goal of the holy life for which clansmen rightly go forth from home into homelessness, knowing and realizing it for himself in the here and now. He knew: “Birth is ended, the holy life fulfilled, the task done. There is nothing further for the sake of this world.” And thus Ven. Sona became another one of the arahants. AN 6.55

    Few make it there in this life. The one who has shown us how to attain Nirvana is the Awakened One, the Buddha. Lets take the different aspects of Nirvana in turn: Imperturbability, Awakening, Highest Virtue and Liberation.

    Imperturbability. This is the result of developing the affective aspect of character. With the ending of craving, suffering ends. Craving ends with Greed and Aversion, with the fermentations, the taints on the human character. The ending of craving entails the arising of contentment in all things.

    In Nirvana, neither scantily clad lass, nor debonair hunk, neither chocolate cream cake a la mode, nor catchy tune, will make the heart beat faster with passion. Neither plunge into nest of snapping vipers, bite of bear, nor lunge of lion, neither ghoul, nor remorseless torture, will raise a hair in fear. Neither fender bender nor rude waiter, neither computer crash with total loss of data, nor out o’ cash with total loss of face, will curl the lip or wrinkle the brow one snippet in ire. Life simply ceases to be a problem or a struggle. The senses continue to function, even physical pain can still be discerned, but nothing is taken personally, ever.

    As a single mass of rock isn’t moved by the wind, even so all forms, flavors, sounds, aromas, contacts, ideas desirable and not, have no effect on one who is Such. AN 6.55

    This non-attachment runs very deep. The imperturbable mind, for instance, can have no stake in that which is compounded or fabricated, which is to say everything we think of as being a thing, because a compounded thing is always held with some degree of stress or suffering, even if it is a good intention, a skillfully motivated plan or a thing of great beauty. We’ll look at what it is with these darn compounded things in a few paragraphs.

    To be a mass of rock, unmoved by the wind, might seem a bit boring, like a bland soup without any spice. It certainly could not form the basis of a popular soap opera. But in fact, those who have attained Nirvana report an abiding feeling of bliss, just not in sensual things. It is the bliss of serenity, the bliss that arrives as suffering departs, the bliss of settling in with things as the are and not seeing them as personal problems, the bliss of contented abiding in this marvelous world. It is like a soup that, though bland, is simply healthy and nourishing to the body. It is the bliss of renunciation, of no personal stake, that abides by its own accord, that will not and cannot depart, no discipline required.

    A favorite story from the Suttas relates that Ven. Bhaddiya Kaligodha was often heard by other monks to exclaim, “What bliss, what bliss!” Since he had, as a layman, been a king, they assumed that he was reminiscing, that while he had let go of all of his cushy advantages physically, he was still having trouble with unskillful thoughts. Upon word of this, the Buddha summoned Ven. Bhaddiya and discovered that the monks were underestimating his realization. This was Ven. Bhaddiya’s account:

    “Before, when I was a householder, maintaining the bliss of kingship, I had guards posted within and without the royal apartments, within and without the city, within and without the countryside. But even though I was thus guarded, thus protected, I dwelled in fear — agitated, distrustful, and afraid. But now, on going alone to a forest, to the foot of a tree, or to an empty dwelling, I dwell without fear, unagitated, confident, and unafraid — unconcerned, unruffled, my wants satisfied, with my mind like a wild deer. This is the meaning I have in mind that I repeatedly exclaim, ‘What bliss! What bliss!’”

    A couple of analogies might help to understand the affective experience of Nirvana. Suzuki Roshi used to tell his students who, like good Westerners intent on results, expressed too much greed for Nirvana, “How do you know you will like Enlightenment?” In fact, we don’t like the idea of giving up sensual pleasures, nor fame and gain. But consider how much you gave up in the process of growing up. Toys and games and interpersonal concerns that one year seemed so enticing the next year had no appeal. All of the elements of samsaric existence are one by one similarly shed in the process of Finally Growing Up Completely. The toys and games and interpersonal concerns are themselves, in the end, simply boring. In contrast, consider the moments of bliss that meditators commonly experience in the utter stillness of samadhi, and most people have experienced spontaneously in occasional moments of serenity, sometimes in the gaps between worrying about this and worrying about that. This bliss seems to arise naturally just by making room for it.

    Awakening. This is the result of developing the cognitive aspect of character, or the wisdom faculty. It is seeing things clearly as they really are, rather than through the lens of our concepts. This is not omniscience—the Buddha apparently was not omniscient—but rather more like being able to see the fabric out of which reality is sewn, in particular the impermanence and non-self of all things, the unceasing contingency and flux of reality, even as we humans try to comprehend it with fixed and solid conceptualizations. That which is compounded or fabricated only to quickly fade, we take to be things that exist more substantially, independently and reliably than they deserve. We thereby live most of our lives in a Fabricated World that cannot keep possibly keep pace with reality, a world that we take very seriously, but which is in fact Empty. Living in that Fabricated World, we stake our claims to many of the things we find there and because they cannot keep pace with reality, stress or suffering arises; they will always disappoint our expectations or demands, they become problems. Now, what you are reading is a very conceptual account of the nature of compounded things, which I hope has a its own logic. The highest Wisdom, realized in Nirvana, is to see these things directly, to see right through that Empty Fabricated World in which we dwell to the actual reality of things as they are.

    Impermanent are compounded things,
    Prone to rise and fall.
    Having risen, they’re destroyed,
    Their passing truest bliss.

    Suffering are compounded things,
    Prone to rise and fall.
    Having risen, they’re destroyed,
    Their passing truest bliss.

    Insubstantial are compounded things,
    Prone to rise and fall.
    Having risen, they’re destroyed,
    Their passing truest bliss.

    The compounded thing to which we stake the greatest claim is, naturally, Me, the Self. And this becomes, naturally, the source of our greatest delusions, our greatest suffering and our greatest misguided efforts. The second greatest claims are to those things that the Self identifies itself with: this body, this mind, this intellect, this sparkling personality, this style of attire. The third greatest claims are the compounded things the Self thinks it possesses, that is, the things the Self stakes a claim to: this spouse, this car, this bank account, these power tools, this power. In Awakening this all becomes transparent, it dissolves into Emptiness, and the reality is seen directly, there is nowhere where one can discernibly stake any claim at all. There is a kind of cruel hoax in thinking, as we embark on Buddhist practice, that progress toward Nirvana is some kind of self improvement, in seeing the bliss of Nirvana, for instance, as a My Birthright, as something that I hope someday to stake a claim to. The hoax is that, when I finally arrive, there is no Self to stake the claim; in fact that is the most prominent feature of Nirvana, the absence of a stakeholder.

    In the Fabricated World that we take as reality things exist in and of themselves, and if not permanently, then at least with a lifespan. You, your Self, has a life span, you are born, you live and you die. When you see through that Empty world there is only continuous change everywhere, you are hard put to find something that behaves with a well-defined birth, lifespan and death. There is no Self that abides so long, there is no birth, only an evolution from whatever preceded and no death, only an evolution to whatever follows. The reality behind the Fabricated World is therefore sometimes known as the Deathless, which is the reality you recognize on attaining Nirvana. It is also sometimes called Emptiness, but this is a bit of a misnomer: It is the fabricated world that is Empty; the reality behind it is actually quite rich and full, just not full of fixed Things.

    A couple of pointers might be helpful in understanding the cognitive experience of Nirvana. For many this is the most obscure point of the Buddha’s teachings. First, an intellectual understanding is of limited value. This is the best intellectual understanding I can convey here, and at its best an intellectual understanding provides only the closest jumping off point from which to plunge into an experience beyond concepts, beyond language. And this experience should represent a radical reorientation. For example, a theoretical physicist while on campus inhabits a curious intellectual word of strings of vibrating probabilities that have already jumped this way or that depending on who is observing at the moment, but at home inhabits the same world—wife, dog, kids, dinner, TV—that most of us inhabit; the one does not impinge on the other. The Deathless should impinge, though this requires some courage on the part of the practitioner. If it does not impinge you will continue to be caught up in suffering, in Greed, in Hatred, in misperceptions, in unskillful and harmful behaviors. Second, there is another means to develop the abilty to see through the fabricated world: Don’t be a stakeholder. Seeing through the fabricated world helps you to stop being a stakeholder. It works the other way as well. Just as money seems very real to the person who keeps earning and spending it, and God seems very real to the person who keeps praying to Him, the fabricated world will seem very real to the person who continues to have a stake in the things that it offers. This is a reason that Renunciation along with the meditative and ethical practices that loosen the grip of Greed and Aversion are critically important.

    … to be continued next week.

  • From Thought to Destiny: Perspectives on Rebirth

    Uposatha Teaching: Full Moon, November 21, 2010.

    Index to Current Series
    “    Thought – Act – Habit – Character – Destiny”

    Rebirth raises Western eyebrows. For those disposed to religious skepticism it may be a deal breaker. For others it may be an opportunity either to overhaul Buddhism or after all these years finally to reveal the Master’s true intent. Lest readers become too sure of themselves let me point out four viable views of Rebirth.

    1. Rebirth is Literally True. Probably this is the dominant view historically.
    2. Rebirth is a useful Working Assumption to frame our practice. Recall, for instance, that the Buddha recommends this to the skeptical.
    3. Rebirth is an Approximation for something more subtle. Recall Niels Bohr’s dictum, “Truth and clarity are complementary.” Rebirth is clear; if we look a bit deeper we may get closer to a less tractable truth. I will briefly consider below that Rebirth is an approximation of Karmic Spillage of last week’s discussion.
    4. Rebirth is a humbug; it has no productive role in Buddhism. This is the position of many Western Buddhists, perhaps most articulately represented by Stephen Batchelor.

    To summarize the discussion of the last few weeks, in “Is Rebirth Verifiable?” I considered the case for 1., though not conclusively. In “The Pragmatics of Rebirth” I suggested that either 1. or 2. has a productive role in framing the Buddhist Path, and that could well be extended to 3.. In “Buddhism with Beliefs” I argued that Working Assumptions, as in 2., even if literally false, are not only common but also productive parts, not only of religion but of almost any realm of human affairs. I also pointed out that Approximations as in 3. are the rule in Scientific discourse. The most distinguished advocate of 4. is probably Buddhadasa Bhikkhu, possibly the most influential Thai monk of the Twentieth Century. While 1. and 4. are the opposing literalist viewpoints, 2. and 3. each involve a more subtle understanding of religious truth and of the meaning of Rebirth. I hope no readers go off in a broken-deal huff over the issue of Rebirth; whatever your persuasion you will find yourself in good company.

    This model of Karmic Spillage does not exclude the conventional karmic model of Rebirth; it may well supplement it, that is, while some karmic dispositions are transmitted genetically, culturally and through emulation, others may be transmitted by Rebirth. This gives another way in which to evaluate the veracity of Rebirth: Rather than seeking verification for the process of rebirth, we can turn the question upside down and ask instead what is not due to rebirth. If the transmission of all karmic dispositions is accounted for in terms of well-understood mechanisms, then Rebirth becomes vacuous. If, on the other hand, elements of transmission have no reasonable explanation in terms of conventional mechanisms, the case for Rebirth, or some unknown mechanism, is strengthened. This as a means of evaluation highlights the importance of cases in which, for instance, genetically identical twins, exposed to the same cultural, familial and social circumstances manifest differences in character.

    Even if Rebirth as literally understood cannot stand on its own two feet, it might stand as an approximation of Karmic Spillage, The framework of Rebirth has some pragmatic value not immediately evident in Karmic Spillage: The linearity of Rebirth makes Karma and the path to Nirvana more of a personal project. Even while Buddha discourages the personal until the project is well underway there is solidity in the thinking of the project as involving step-by-step personal development over a long period of time. Expression in these personal terms also reminds us that our practice is primarily focused on the internal world of our own thoughts, our skillful and unskillful intentions. Nonetheless, Karmic Spillage also points to a way in which moment by moment skillful karmic decisions have consequences that transcend this single current life, in fact even more profoundly, than in the serial Rebirth model since karmic consequences are transmitted laterally and expansively as well as into the future.

    The Buddha could conceivably been aware that Rebirth is an approximation of a process something like Karmic Spillage, but chose to express his understanding in terms of a traditional model that would have been widely understood in his day. Nagapriya suggests that adopting previous religious framework to new system like remodeling old building, the structure is not completely recommended by the function. This may be why Rebirth is so peculiar on first sight in the West.

    The main point of this speculation, however, is not to do science, not to look for an empirically verifiable truth, but to find a proper context for Buddhist practice. I discussed in previous weeks the usefulness of Working Assumptions or myths in religious practice. Our doctrines should be held lightly, first, so that we do not get caught up in meaningless speculation, perhaps when challenged hardening into religious fundamentalism, and, second, so that our religious aspirations are not put on hold awaiting the results of scientific evidence. It would be a source of great discomfort to think that the entire foundation of one’s religious practice and understanding could be undermined by new developments in science. Consider that one might be instructed in practice to “sit like the Buddha.” This does not mean by that one is the Buddha, but it is an efficiently communicated effective instruction: It works. Likewise in Vajrayana traditions one might be instructed to identify with her guru; it is not a matter of literally becoming her guru in an independently verifiable way. Similarly, we can practice as if we were able to continue life after life until we reach Nirvana, the highest perfection of human character, and thereby abide in an efficiently communicated and effective frame of mind for the purpose of practice.

    At the same time, science can help us to stand back and see our practice from another perspective. It is helpful to understand how we impact the world when we hold on to greed or hatred, or when we act from a point of renunciation and kindness, or how our views shape our actions and ultimately the world in which we live. This wider perspective has always been integral to Buddhism, particularly the ecological view of dependent origination that science only significantly came to appreciate in recent years. I can say that the Butterfly Effect has had a profound effect on how I view my engagement in the world and the importance of grounding that engagement in Buddhist practice. Karmic Spillage is perhaps a more immediate invitation to Science to study Karma in more detail than is Rebirth. It is important at the same time, however, that we not allow the coldly analytical nature of most Western science to dissect an essentially holistic living body of mutually reinforcing practices and understandings into a meat market of independent parts, ready for human consumption.

    Rebirth is important in the Buddhist project because it frames practice in a way that makes its implications much greater than this single short life, in terms that make compromising one’s highest aspirations for temporary comfort less compelling, implications that involve transcending much more than the fleeting pain of the current existence. In fact our practice does have that global importance, which is for many most only evident through tracing the consequences of Karmic Spillage, but which is most readily visualized in the process of Rebirth. Beliefs are not as a rule that important in Buddhism; of primary importance is our mindset, in particular, one that encourages us to live our lives karmic act after karmic act with utmost virtue. What conceptual apparatus will keep us steadfast is likely to vary over the range of Western students of Buddhism, from the wary to the wily. How we think of Rebirth is something we best come to terms with, but we have lighter options than rigid dogma.

    In any religious enterprise it is important that one embed your (current) life into something greater than yourself, rather than embedding something smaller than yourself into your life. This is why traditional psychotherapy or an interpretation of Buddhism in traditional psychotherapeutic terms is a poor substitute for Buddhism or for any other functioning religion: it simply adds something to your life to make it more comfortable and fails to embed your life into something greater to make it more meaningful. This is not just about religion: scientists, scholars, artists, writers, activists, philanthropists, matriarchs and patriarchs. I think all discover this. For instance, consider the difference between, on the one hand, the scientist who sees himself embedded in an evolutionary cooperative ongoing centuries-old effort to make sense of the universe, as opposed to, on the other hand, the scientist who does a job in order to get paid and maybe gain some fame. You find scholars of both kinds. The former, I maintain, sees a deep meaning in science, and in the life of a scientist, the latter only temporary convenience and comfort. The latter scientist lives a small life, a bit to be pitied for missing the point. This is analogous to the priest who initiates the centuries-long building of a magnificent cathedral as opposed to the village cleric who builds himself a church, or the Buddhist who regards Buddhism as psychotherapy as opposed to the one who sees its transcendent value. (This is not meant to deny the therapeutic value of Buddhism in this life, which is important, only to state that it is a limited perspective.)  For it is only this embedding of your life in something greater than this life that allows you to fully transcend the self, which the Buddha explicitly put at the heart of Buddhist practice and teaching. This, as I understand it, is the real meaning of Rebirth in Buddhism, embedding your current life into something transcendent.

    As an additional note, in spite of Western skepticism (which will prove ultimately valuable), we have an advantage in the West in that our Buddhist practice is naturally embedded in something greater than ourselves, namely the long but slow historical process, already almost two centuries old, of bringing Buddhism to the West. Like it or not, each of us carries enormous influence and responsibility in a process that is much greater than ourselves, and influence and responsibility that is not so evident in lands where Buddhism has long been established. For many of us being a pioneer in this sense can lend great meaning to our lives of practice.

  • Bearing Witness in Austin, Texas

    This recounts the experience of me and a group of fellow Engaged Buddhists and reflects on what it takes to be of benefit to Society.

    Politics as Usual. We normally think of a political process as dialectical in the West. We advocate the position that is Right, that accords with reality, that is compassionate, that will benefit the most people in the best way, and we oppose the others who advocate a different position, which is, of course, Wrong. Our purpose is …, well, that is where things get murky. I would like to say, our purpose is to make our position, the Right one, the one embraced by a majority and the basis of public policy. But that so rarely happens that we end up seeking more modest victories, like Going on the Record with what is Right, or Causing Vexation those who are Wrong.

    More.

  • From Thought to Destiny: Rebirth and Karmic Spillage

    Uposatha Teaching: First Quarter, November 14, 2010.

    Index to Current Series
    “    Thought – Act – Habit – Character – Destiny”

    We have been considering the Buddha’s teachings on Rebirth for the last few weeks, including the pragmatic case for Rebirth and the scientific case for Rebirth. I want to consider this week a parallel phenomenon that might help us understand the Buddha’s teachings on Rebirth, one that has much of the pragmatic value of Rebirth but is more grounded in a more scientistic understanding (that is grounded in commonly accepted observables) of Karmic consequence.

    Karmic Spillage. Aside from missing a mechanism by which Rebirth can happen, the traditional Buddhist account of Rebirth seems to account for only part, and perhaps a small part, of the migration of Karmic dispositions from one life to another. Recall that Rebirth is not the continuance of You, that is, of a Person, Soul or Self, after your death, but rather the transmission of the stream of karmic dispositions from your current life to a serially succeeding life, where, delivered as a neat package, it can continue to evolve according to one’s practice. However, there are many other better understood paths for the transmission of karmic dispositions from one life to another and this suggests that Rebirth as traditionally understood can be no more than a part of karmic transmission. The following are some other sources and targets of our Karmic dispositions. Notice that each of these involves transmission of karmic dispositions from life to life, but in a lateral, not in a serial, fashion.

    1. Genetic influences. Many of our inborn karmic dispositions seem to be inherited from our parents, not from a recently deceased being. The genetic conditioning of predispositions is well established in modern science. These include not only highly individualized tendencies, such as a predisposition toward anger or toward alcoholism, but also species-wide tendencies such as a predisposition toward affection or toward play.
    2. Emulated behaviors. Many behaviors are simply learned through example from parents and others in the immediate environment or even from TV characters. There is some evidence that humans learn behaviors simply by observation. So, it is common that if a parent smokes, the child will grow up to smoke, if the parent is abusive, the child will grow up to be abusive. If the parents are studious and like to snack, the child will grow up studious and disposed toward snacks.
    3. Cultural influences. The culture in which an individual is embedded sets norms for behaviors and values and provides a set of role models which the individual is encouraged to emulate. If the culture is tolerant and creative, the individual will tend to be tolerant and creative. Unfortunately we live in a mass- media culture that is to a high degree deliberately manipulated by commercial and political interests to encourage greed and aversion with alarmingly adverse effects on the well-being of the individual.
    4. Stimulus and response. Association with a person of certain karmic habits to which you must habitually respond produces new karmic habits in yourself. This is different from emulating another’s behavior.
      For instance, actions performed out of anger tend to adversely affect others, in whom anger or fear may thereby be evoked. Living with an angry person may turn you into either an angy person or a fearful person, as your emotional response becomes habitual.
      Notice that in this case your particular karmic disposition might not show up as the same particular disposition in another, as your anger may show up as another’s fear, or your kindness may show up as another’s sense of security. I speculate however that unskillful factors in yourself will tend to evoke unskillful factors in others and that skillful factors in yourself will tend to evoke skillful factors in others.
      Likewise a single stimulus can initiate a chain of stimuli and responses that grow progressively in karmic consequences, as when speech motivated by hate inspires another to commit an act of terrorism which leads, along with injury and loss of life, to fear, anger and plans for vengeance.

    Most of these factors poorly understood in Buddha’s day. But, in fact, your Karma, constantly spilling over others, becomes their karma. And their Karma, constantly spilling over you, becomes your Karma. Although the transmission is lateral, your karmic dispositions may be carried into the future and past the end of your own life, in fact indefinitely, by those who outlive you. However, unlike through the conventional model of Rebirth, through these mechanisms your karmic inheritance is not delivered to you in a neat package at birth to be worked on during your life, and your karmic heritage is not neatly packed together at death to be delivered to a single individual at birth. Rather your karmic inheritance is delivered from many sources and your karmic legacy is dispersed widely and selectively, both throughout the span of your life.

    For instance, your present alcoholism may still persist a century from now, in your great grandchildren, or in the great grandchildren of your current drinking buddies, and may have been alive in your great grandfather or in the great grandfathers of your drinking buddies. In fact tracing your karmic legacy can become very complex indeed: Your greed or the cumulative greed of you and people like you can through the fabric of human and social relations, through economic and political forces, show up unknown to you in violence and war elsewhere, with their own grave karmic consequences. Similarly a single karmic act on your part, for instance, yelling at someone in anger, could well initiate a series of Karmic actions involving many actors with grave Karmic consequences of which you will never be aware.

    Similarities of Karmic Spillage and Rebirth. Karmic spillage does not contradict Rebirth; if it did it would defeat Rebirth, since it is independently verifiable. It does, however, cover much of the same ground, the transmission of karmic dispositions from one life to another. Its primary difference is that it includes in its purview lateral as well as serial transmission..The ripening of karma beyond the present life also acquires an even more profound dimension: As in the case of hateful speech ripening in the great suffering of a terrorist bombing, it is easy to appreciate that virtually all of our actions have consequences, often unseen, beyond ourselves, In fact the Butterfly Effect.tells us that the consequences of actions are unlimited, each action effectively has the capacity to write future history.

    Karmic Spillage can be given a clear pragmatic function in Buddhism in providing a view that the consequences and goals of practice extend far beyond the comfort of this one life. Buddhist practice is about meeting the present moment and acting appropriately, that is, with Karmic purity, over and over. Rebirth puts that in the wider context that helps us recognize why we do that, what the full consequences of our virtue or nonvirtue are. To paraphrase Ven. Bhikkhu Bodhi:

    To take full cognizance of the principle of Karmic Spillage will give us that panoramic perspective from which we can survey our lives in their broader context and total network of relationships.

    The difference from Rebirth is that the Goal becomes much more ambitious, not the building of a cathedral or of a single Buddha, the perfection of a human character, but rather the perfection of all human character. Karmic Spillage gives our practice more of a Mahayana flavor. This is a cooperative endeavor that requires a great faith that others will be there to move all of human society karmically in the right direction, now and in generations and centuries to come. Along with patience this project contains within it a sense of urgency as the huge consequences of our karmic actions for the larger society dwarfs all petty considerations in our small lives; after all the consequences of every decision they we make has huge consequences. This means you will continue to practice virtue, even under the pressure of bad times or of good short-term gains, not only because your actions have immediate consequences beyond yourself, in the example you set and in the responses you evoke, but because it is your internal virtuous karma will influence your future actions. Your small life will acquire huge meaning in the context of this project. Sicknesses, deaths, births, falling stock prices will barely deter you in your determination to see the work continue without interruption. Embedded within a karmic network extending far beyond this current life, your attitude, motives, inspiration and relation to practice would be profoundly different and your progress greater in this life than otherwise.

    Monastic practice serves as an example. Generally defined as the path to the perfection of a single human character, the monastic practice also entails inspiring others and ensuring the integrity and continuity of the Buddhasasana. This is the obligation to ensure that monastic actions are always worthy of emulation, that they exhibit virtue, that their consequences will always encourage, and not weaken, the success of Buddhist understanding and practice for all and for future generations, that is, that they move in the direction of ending afflictions for all beings..

    Next week we will conclude the discussion of Rebirth by summarizing the variety of perspectives we have discussed in the last few weeks, including whether to take Karmic Spillage as a substitute or as a supplement to Rebirth.