Rebirth

August 25th, 2010

It is not hard to imagine that after we are dead and gone, some other life form will appear. After all, we appeared after Ben Franklin and a lot of other people were out of here.

After we are gone, an earthworm will be born. So will a fish. And gazillions of bacteria and people and life forms on other planets of which we are not even aware.

And somewhere in the universe, a being will be born with an IQ of 10,000. On that planet, the kids master calculus in kindergarten and as adults their minds understand subjects that we don’t even know exist. They are smarter than us by as much as we are smarter than turtles. Or bugs.

So what does that have to do with rebirth? Who gets reborn? And in what consciousness?

Buddhism teaches that there is no permanent, abiding self that is reborn. It therefore follows that our next life will be conditioned by this one and the lifetimes that preceded it, just as this one was conditioned by all the previous ones. The next life flows from previous lives as a matter of cause and effect.

Just as at age 50 we differ from our self at age 5, so will we differ in the next life from this one. At 50 we are hardly the same person as we were at 5, but we are not entirely different either.

Lives are connected in the same way. If we tore off butterfly wings at the age of 5, chances are that 50 finds us in a prison. Where we are now is the sum total of every thing we’ve ever said, thought, or done. Nothing could be more obvious. Karma is just the law of cause and effect.

If our minds are clear and noble, and human, the next life will not be spent in fur and horns. It will be another human life that flows in the same stream of cause and effect as its previous lives.

If our mind is deluded, we may resonate with the conscience of a non-human lifeform.

How can we say these things with such assurance? There are two reasons.

First, those who have awakened report that they remember their past lives.

Secondly, it’s impossible to be conscious of death. We are either alive in one form or another. There will never be a moment when we can say: Well, I’m dead now.

New life will follow our death. That is a certainty. That new life doesn’t have to appear on this planet and this human consciousness.

The only question is which life form will our present lifestyle lead us to, as a matter of cause and effect? This life is the cause of the next. We will not be re-born on a planet where the average IQ of the beings that dwell there is 10,000.  We are in the human dharma realm because we think like humans. Even the notion of the earth and other planets and other life forms is a part of the human dharma realm.

Master Hsuan Hua said that to be re-born as a dog, just think like one and that will do the trick. Or to be re-born as a Buddha, think like a Buddha.

Consciousness can be compared to a radio receiver. It gets only the station it is tuned to at the moment. We are in resonance with the human dharma realm, not the dharma realm of animals or super-beings that make us look like bacteria. So if we take no action and just continue to plod along as humans, our consciousness will remain in this human dharma realm.

Zazen helps us tune into the Buddha station. It helps us to enter into resonance with Buddha nature so that when this individual human consciousness ends, the next radio signal received will be from the Buddha transmitter, not the signal that animals or humans with no zazen training receive.

The “self” that practices zazen will be re-born as a self that resonates with the Buddhadharma. It will be drawn to it. If you are reading this now, you had affinities for the Buddhadharma in prior lives and that affinity has drawn you again to the Buddhadharma in this life. With ardent practice of zazen, those affinities will increase from lifetime to lifetime, from consciousness to consciousness. With neglect of zazen, those affinities will decrease.

And so it goes…Embrace zazen with great joy. It allows Buddhahood, our true nature, to appear. It is impossible to escape from consciousness, so we might as well choose a consciousness that transcends the illusion of individual life and death.

The concepts of individual life and death require the existence of a self that has a beginning and an end. But consciousness is all there is and, like time, it has no beginning and no end.

Time can’t end because it never started. Consciousness is the same. There is no creator that stands outside of time and there never was a moment of creation. Consciousness is not a self, not a being. It has no beginning and can have no end.

Nirvana is the annihilation of desire but not the annihilation of consciousness. We see every day that babies are born after old folks die. And every one of those babies is the effect of prior causes and conditions.

Sometimes the most obvious truth is hard to see. But every effect has a cause, and cause and effect have no beginning and no end. We are participating in the human dharma realm because every thing we’ve ever done, every thought we’ve ever had, every action we’ve ever performed, has led us to where we are now, to the consciousness of the human dharma realm.

And that beginningless and endless process is continuing and can never stop because it has no beginning. That is why we sit without moving and train our minds. Not to get future benefits, but just because there is a future and we can’t escape it. When we choose to sit in zazen, and to walk in Zen when not sitting, we choose to resonate with the Buddha dharma realm.

The Buddha dharma realm is just as real as the human dharma realm. The wise will sit in zazen and walk in Zen.

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Robert Aitken, Roshi

August 8th, 2010

I decided to visit my sister in Hawaii for the first time in ten years and was determined to visit the Diamond Sangha at the Palolo Valley Zen Temple while there. Roshi Aitken, 93, was living on the premises and I got to see him on Sunday, August 1, 2010. His attendant brought him to the zendo for the third and final sitting of the morning. After the sitting, he introduced and said a few words about a friend who was visiting from Maine. Although in a wheelchair, he seemed sharp and happy and his comments were witty. After the sitting, I stood in front of him and bowed with a gassho and said Thank You quietly.

The following Friday was First Friday in Honolulu, an event where artists set up booths in an effort to sell their works and to enliven the downtown after 5:00 PM. My sister took me there to meet her office mate at Leeward Community College; her office mate is a photographer who was one of the exhibitors. While chatting with her, I was introduced to two ladies who knew Roshi and one of them had been at the Palolo Valley Zen Temple the previous Sunday. They knew my sister’s friend, and had also been chatting with her. Small world!

One of them said to me: Did you know that Roshi died last night?

I had known of Roshi Aitken since the 1980s and had been a member of the Buddhist Peace Fellowship, an organization he started, for many years. He and Roshi Kapleau were the first two American Zen masters from the Japanese lineage of Harada Roshi and Yasutani Roshi (the founders of the Sanbo Kyodan). So to finally meet Roshi Aitken face to face was a thrill. To learn that he had passed away just a few days later made me feel strange. The death of a 93 year old should come as no surprise, but…

If you ever go to Oahu, please be sure to visit the Palolo Valley Zen Temple. They have a three hour orientation one Saturday per month. I attended it on July 31; the teachers were Clark and Kathy Ratliffe, who had known my teacher, Lawson Sachter, when they were studying Zen with Roshi Kapleau at the Rochester Zen Center. They were married in Rochester by Bodhin, the current abbot of the RZC (and Lawson’s brother-in-law) and had been in Hawaii since 1984.

The passing of Roshi Aitken reminds us that everything comes to an end. He worked out his salvation with diligence. The rest of us can follow his example and do the same. Thank you, Roshi Aitken.

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July 25th, 2010

I began this blog under the title “No Self” but changed it to Walk In Zen to better reflect what we are trying to do with the Walk In Zen Centers campaign to start multiple small Zen centers all over the world. (That may sound ridiculous, but the power of the Internet is awesome).

It’s easy to get up in the morning and to perform the six morning practices set forth in howtopracticezen.com, especially at the beginning level.

However, it isn’t hard to follow the six morning practices even at the advanced level. It takes me about four minutes to mentally recite Affirming Faith In Mind in its entirety each morning, and it is a great way to start the day. I feel that I learn a little more each time I recite it. Mental recital of the Ten Precepts and remembering the Six Paramitas takes less than a minute. Mental recital of the Repentance Gatha, renunciation, Taking Refuge, and recalling the Five Hindrances takes no more than a minute.

Then I sit for a half hour or more, depending upon how soon I have to get to the office. I do my 108 prostrations after sitting. I started that practice in 2005 and it takes me about 24 minutes at a relaxed pace. I have developed the habit of doing one Buddha Name Recitation with each prostration so I complete the fifth and sixth steps of the program in 24 minutes. That means the entire morning program takes only one hour.

I actually do 111 prostrations each morning because after the 108th prostration and Buddha Name Recitation, I do three more prostrations, mentally reciting the Three Treasures of Taking Refuge. So the Three Treasures are recited twice each morning but that’s fine with me.

I used to waste that time reading the morning paper. Now I scan it much faster; it is filled with garbage. Delusion is rampant in the human dharma realm.

I begin the evening program by chanting The Heart Sutra (less than two minutes), the very short Ten Verse Kannon Sutra several times for about a minute, the equally brief Sho Sai Myo Kichijo Dharani several times for about a minute, the difficult to learn but easy to remember if recited every day Dai Hi Shin Dharani (about two minutes), the abbreviated version of The Ancestral Line (one minute), Master Hakuin’s Chant in Praise of Zazen (just a little more than a minute), and conclude with the Return of Merit (less than a minute).

So all of the chants take less than 10 minutes and chanting is a good segueway into reading a sutra or a good book on Zen or Theravada practice. After an hour or so of reading I am ready for yaza.

There’s plenty of time for other stuff before beginning the evening program with ten minutes of mental chanting.

If you can’t wrap up the day’s mundane activities by 9:00 PM or so in time to get the evening program underway, you may need to re-organize.

The hard part of Zen practice is not the morning program nor is it the evening program. We can always find time to do what we want to do. It’s the middle of the day that is hard, i.e. the part of the day spent out messing around in the human dharma realm, after the six steps of the morning program and before the three steps of the evening program. That’s when we must learn to walk in Zen.

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Ignorance – The Tenth Fetter

July 12th, 2010

The last and final fetter that an arahat breaks in order to realize nirvana/nibbana is the fetter of ignorance of the Four Noble Truths. Funny, but among the first things we learn of when studying Buddhism are the Four Noble Truths. Yet these truths are the last things we learn. As the last of the fetters, ignorance of the Four Noble Truths is the only thing that stands between an arahat-to-be and nirvana.

It is quite obvious that to break this fetter we have to cultivate. No amount of book-learning, as the old folks say, will suffice. Cultivation is hard work and it can be painful but if we are to free ourselves of the last fetter, we have to cultivate.

What awaits us when this last fetter is broken and we are completely free of all ten fetters? There is no “us” to be free. What is nirvana like? It is unlike anything we know and every second spent pondering what it must be like is a second that would have been better spent in cultivation.

We need to study the ten fetters in order to become familiar with them. Only when we know what we are up against can we cultivate wisely. To recognize the presence of a fetter is to begin to overcome it.

Here’s a review of the ten fetters:

1. Sakkaya ditthi – the belief in an independent self;

2. Doubt;

3. Attachment to rites and rituals;

4. Sensual desire;

5. Ill will and hatred;

6. Attachment to meditative bliss arising from forms;

7. Attachment to meditative bliss arising from formlessness;

8. Conceit;

9. Agitation; and

10. Ignorance of the Four Noble Truths.

About the only way we can become intimately familiar with these ten fetters is to contemplate them every day. A true cultivator looks at these ten fetters every day and vows to break free of them. However, we do not need to think in terms of fighting to break free of ropes or other things that bind us. Instead, we contemplate the ten fetters and watch them evaporate into nothingness when confronted by the heat of cultivation.

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The Ninth Fetter

July 8th, 2010

The unenlightened mind suffers from agitation. A mind that is not agitated is a mind at rest. Although there are many techniques for quieting the mind, Buddha Name Recitation works for most people. The name Amitabha has a certain charm that brings feelings of peace and quiet to those who chant it.

Dharma Master Chin Kung says that hurricanes and tornadoes are caused by ignorance, i.e. sakkaya ditthi, floods are caused by greed, fires by anger and earthquakes by agitation, the ninth fetter. If it is true that our mental states create the world we live in, as the Dharma Masters say, then we would do well to chant Amitabha and reduce the agitation we create.

Perhaps millions of Californians will some day congregate along the extent of the San Andreas fault and chant the name of Amhitabha. But are they the only ones who can sooth the savage fault, created by agitated minds? Why can’t all of us practice Buddha Name Recitation for the benefit of everyone who lives near a fault line, anywhere on this planet and other planets? We can expand our Buddha Name Recitation to benefit sentient beings throughout the universe, and the parallel universes while we are at it.

As our benevolence expands to incorporate all that is, our agitation should diminish accordingly. As our agitation subsides, so will our ignorance, greed and anger. Then we can see the reduction and disappearance of earthquakes, windstorms, floods and fires, respectively.

The Dharma Masters teach that the agitated mind rushes towards every new thing that it encounters; it has the curiosity of a cat. It gets bored easily and then rushes off to see the next new thing. And that process never ends. New age people, ignorant of the Buddhadharma, are into flower essence one day, rainbow power the next, and pyramids after that. They find the never ending parade of new stuff to be fascinating. They never learn that the secret to enlightenment is never found in the external world of objects, health cures, self-help books and gurus. Their continuing interest in such things is nothing but evidence of agitation.

When we learn to stop paying attention to all the silly distractions that come our way, we loosen the ninth fetter. With nine of our fetters loosened, we are in the neighborhood of Nirvana.

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The Eighth Fetter

June 28th, 2010

The eighth fetter, conceit, seems at first to be a lot like the first fetter, sakkaya ditthi, the wrong view of self. The eighth fetter, however, is more subtle. We may acquire the right view of self yet still feel distinctiveness, i.e., we may compare ourselves with others and find ourselves to be superior, equal, or inferior.

It seems wrong that we could root out the feelings of ego, of a permanent abiding self, independent of others, yet still manage somehow to compare “ourselves” with “others.”

Perhaps a practitioner who has rooted out the ego will think as follows: Having overcome the fetter of sakkaya ditthi, I am distinct from those who haven’t. I am superior to those who still hold the view of a permanent, abiding self. I am now the equal of my teacher. But I guess I am still inferior to the Buddha.

I give this example of feelings of superiority, equality, and inferiority because that’s what the writers on this subject always mention. Those free of sakkaya ditthi still make comparisons  of superiority, equality and inferiority with “others.”

So we can conclude that even when we overcome sakkaya ditthi, our work is not yet done. We still have to root out a subtle tendency to compare ourselves with others, finding ourselves to be superior to some, equal to some and inferior to some.

Perhaps this eighth fetter is best thought of as being a residue of sakkaya ditthi. The Buddha said that conceit remains a fetter even when sakkaya ditthi is thrown off. He also said that only a fully awakened arhat or arahat is free of conceit, that the fetter of conceit is not broken until Buddhahood is realized.

I have resolved to throw off sakkaya ditthi and not to worry about its residue. I’ll throw it off so thoroughly that when I am free of that fetter, I won’t even need to compare myself with my inferiors.

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The Sixth and Seventh Fetters

June 26th, 2010

These two fetters are so closely related that they need to be considered together.  When we realize what these two fetters are, it can be quite shocking. Most of us feel that we are making progress in our practice when we experience delight or bliss during a period of formal meditation. To learn that such feelings are fetters that block our awakening is a surprise.

The Pali texts typically define the sixth fetter as craving for the world or plane of archetypal forms and the seventh fetter as craving for the world or plane of formlessness. Some sources identify the sixth fetter as simply attachment to form, and the seventh fetter as attachment to formlessness.

Webster defines “archetype” as the original pattern or model of which all things of the same type are representations or copies. So we have to avoid craving for original patterns or models.

A far more helpful description of the sixth and seventh fetters is that they are desire for the bliss associated with the various stages of concentration on form and desire for the bliss associated with the various stages of concentration on formlessness, respectively. The seventh fetter is said to be more subtle than the sixth, but for all practical purposes, both of these fetters arise when we become addicted to the joy or bliss associated with meditation. It is like any other addiction; we like candy and ice cream so we want more candy and more ice cream.

The enjoyment is “our” enjoyment. It reinforces sakkaya ditthi, the belief that our body and mind is our self. It takes an “I” to say: “I enjoy ice cream. I also enjoy meditation. I get into blissful mind states and I wish I never had to get up and leave the zendo and go back to the office to do mundane work.”

So we have to let go of our attachment to the mental pleasures of meditation. Does that mean that we renounce happiness if it appears during a sitting? No, it just means we recognize it, understand that it is based on our wrong view of self, and allow it to pass without clinging to it. The Buddha tells us that there is something (nirvana) that is beyond mere bliss, and that we have to drop our false sense of self in order to experience what lies beyond the sixth and seventh fetters of craving for bliss.

The seventh fetter is considered more subtle than the sixth because it arises from meditation or full concentration on emptiness or vast empty space, i.e., on objects other than forms. Such meditation reportedly produces a high degree of tranquility that is somehow more blissful than meditation on forms. Accordingly, it is even harder to let go of than ordinary bliss!

Most of us are not so advanced as to know the difference between bliss arising from concentration on forms and bliss arising from concentration on formlessness. If we can just recognize all forms of happiness as being rooted in a false view of self, we will be able to start letting go of our attachment or craving for the pleasant experiences “we” encounter during meditation.

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The Fourth and Fifth Fetters

June 16th, 2010

Sensual desire is the fourth fetter and ill will or hatred is the fifth. According to the Pali canon, if we can break the first three fetters and at least weaken the fourth and the fifth, we become a “once returner.” That sounds better than a mere “stream enterer” who still faces seven lifetimes!

One who has completely broken each fetter of the first five fetters is a “non-returner.” I guess that means that a deluded self is then experiencing its last sojourn in the human dharma realm. However, there are still five more fetters to break before one becomes an Arhat or Arahant.

And, according to the Mahayana sutras, even the Arhats have more work to do. They have transcended the human dharma realm, only to arrive in the lowest of the four heavens because they obtained enlightenment for their own benefit, not the benefit of others.

That seems unfair. To break the ten fetters obviously includes breaking the first and most powerful fetter, that of sakkaya ditthi. So to become an Arhat requires a Right View of self, i.e., understanding the First Noble Truth. One who has understood the First Noble Truth does everything for the benefit of others. To assert that an Arhat attained enlightenment for a selfish reason doesn’t hold water.

So let’s work on at least weakening the fetters of sensual desire, which includes everything from wanting to go to Disney World, wanting a big fat sandwich, to wanting to have babies and raise children. Master Hsuan Hua said that when he overcame sensual desires, he was a walking dead man. As Mary Poppins would say, that doesn’t sound at all attractive to my way of thinking. But he just meant that he was happy and desired nothing.

It is not difficult to weaken the fifth fetter of ill will and hatred, except when in the society of Tea Party idiots or other right-wingers with nasty views that only the mean-minded can embrace. Just try to remember that they see the world through paranoid, fearful eyes, and be glad that your own world view, although admittedly still deluded, is at least more holistic.

When thoughts of self and other have evaporated under the dint of daily practice of the Buddhadharma, even the most racsist and mis-informed members of the body politic will be seen differently. They are incredibly mean, out to dominate everyone, and unable to see their own stupidity because they are trapped, as once were we, by ill will and hatred arising from the strong sense of self, the power of sakkaya ditthi.

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Stream entry

June 15th, 2010

Sometimes we try to learn too much, too fast. That’s why it’s good to let the concept of sakkaya ditthi sink in for a long time. We need time to ponder the thought that we are not what we thought we were. How many people can hear the teaching of no self and grasp it right away?

Sakkaya ditthi, the wrong view of self, the belief in a permanent, independent self, is the first of the ten fetters that bind us to delusion. If it takes forever just to break through sakkaya ditthi and to acquire the right view of self, how long will it take to break all ten fetters?

Obviously, if we try to break all ten at once, we’ll probably make a mess of it.

So let’s look at the next two fetters, just to see if they are as difficult to break away from as is sakkaya ditthi.

The second fetter is doubt, doubt that the Buddhadharma is really true. If one doesn’t doubt the Buddhadharma, one must be brain dead. Of course we doubt that all of our thoughts prior to encountering the Buddhadharma were the thoughts of a deluded individual. Just to be told that we are not independent entities living in an external world is enough to set off the doubt bells in any thinker.

So it is comforting to know that doubt is normal, and is indeed the second of the ten fetters. That sure makes the first two fetters easy to remember.

But the third fetter is bizarre. It’s a fetter that most of us 21st Century people just don’t have. It must’ve been a problem in the Buddha’s time. It’s attachment to rites and rituals, for crying out loud, the belief that performing rituals will lead to enlightenment. For those of us who have performed virtually no rites or rituals and hardly know what they are, this doesn’t seem to be a major fetter.

Interestingly, one who breaks the first three fetters is deemed a “stream enterer,” a person who is down to their last seven (7) lifetimes, each of which will be a human lifetime. That assurance certainly sets the doubt bells a’ringing again.

We can spend a few days or weeks or months or years contemplating these first three fetters. With daily practice, maybe the doubts will go away and we will find ourselves entering the stream. After all, daily practice is not a rite or a ritual, is it?

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Sakkaya Ditthi speaks

June 14th, 2010

This is a copy of an email I received today from the Contact Us page of the How To Practice Zen.com website,  and my reply.

I am not balanced, yet seek to be. I am torn between two worlds-so it seems. But I am searching for truth in purity and inner peace to live the rest of my life. It seems these practices fit my life. People around me tell me that it appears that I am what is taught in Zen, but I have no idea what that really means. I know the definition, but not what it is to be.

Reply:

You are not your body, you are not your mind, you are not a self with other people around it. You are not separate from pure awareness that has no beginning and no ending.

No amount of thinking will lead to that understanding of who “you” really are. All we can do is to practice daily, creating the conditions that allow awakening to pure awareness to occur. Daily practice is all we can do; pure awareness appears when the belief in self as an independent entity that has a lifetime in a world disappears.

When it appears and you see it for the first time, you will understand that it was always there, covered up only by your belief in a self as an independent entity. That wrong view of self, sakkaya ditthi, is the source of all unbalance, all suffering.

Practice daily and you will wake up from the dream of self. Pure awareness is real, the self is just an illusion. There is no mind and body within, no world without; no two worlds. There is just pure awareness.

Enjoy daily practice; it dissolves the wrong view of self and reveals pure awareness, the perfectly balanced pure awareness that is all there is. There is nothing for you to be.

Just practice and let pure awareness reveal itself. You don’t have to be anything. Even the thought: “I am practicing Zen” strengthens the illusion of self, so just practice.

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