You Already Have Everything You Need to Wake Up!

I currently teach three courses at Buddha Dharma University. They are:

Dropping Ashes on the Buddha - Zen Master Seung Sahn

The Mirror of Zen - Zen Master So Sahn

The Sutra of Perfect Enlightenment

Here is the amazing thing: The source material for each one of these classes contains everything needed to wake up! That's right - any one of these texts is enough. Add the value of the lectures pointing to the most important parts and voila, people should start waking up left and right!

What I am saying is, when I first put these courses together and foisted them upon the students at Buddha Dharma University, I think I was a little naive. Being a mostly self-taught, self-practicing student of Buddhist texts (by far the most useful for those trying to wake up, IMHO), I thought it would be useful to pass along some of my experience along with the teachings of past masters who really knew how to help students wake up.

One of the things I find most interesting is many responses to homework questions comparing and contrasting different teachings that students have run into in their Buddhist quests. Another thing that is interesting is some responses will be pointing out how the teachings they have studied earlier in their quests are better than the teachings in the class. I have been told how Tibetan Buddhism is better. I've also been given the teachings of Dogen as answers to questions (along with reasons I should include Dogen in my lectures).

One of the reasons I am part of the Five Mountain Order is because of the teachings of Zen Master Seung Sahn. In one of the sections in Dropping Ashes on the Buddha, he says "If someone tells you that the words Coca-Cola have power in them and you really believe that, then Coca-Cola will work for you."

Does it mean we chant Coca-Cola? No, it means we do not need to attach to any dogma. We don't need to compare Soto to Rinzai to Korean Son to Dharma Punks to Yoga to Bobism. It simply means keeping the mind that is before thought, paying attention to Situation, Function and Relationship, to being here now, to clearing away everything that is preventing us from seeing reality as it is.

Zen Master So Sahn and "The Work"

There are some popular "Enlightened" people out there. One of them is Byron Katie. After her experience (maybe realizing Mind Makes Everything), she came up with a means of dealing with thoughts, which she called "The Work." Essentially it boils down to investigating individual thoughts with the following four questions (paraphrased here).

1. Is it true?
2. Can you absolutely be sure it is true?
3. How do you feel when you think that thought?
4. Who would you be without that thought?

Then there is the idea of a turnaround to point to a true thought based on the original false thought.

Ms. Katie has turned these questions into big business. Spending time on Oprah, selling many books, and charging people thousands of dollars to spend a weekend with her and/or her trained people. Does she have something? Something that could help people wake up?

In The Mirror of Zen, Zen Master So Sahn picked several bits from the Zen cannon that he though best summed up Korean Zen. A favorite of mine is:

If you know that the arising thought is itself unreal delusion, you are already free. pg. 51.

The passage continues with

What need is there for employing skillful means? Freed from any delusion, you are already enlightened.

Of course, there is always going to be need for skillful means. If all it took were reading those words to wake up, we wouldn't need any Zen teachers! Delusion runs deep. Delusion and Karma are astonishingly difficult to cut through.

Zen is waking up to our true nature, which involves cutting through delusion. The four questions are for investigating thinking and seeing how we delude ourselves. They also rely on thought. This is using delusion to cut through delusion. Which is also mentioned in the Sutra of Perfect Enlightenment. These ideas have been around for centuries, here they are being packaged in a different form.

Can "The Work" be useful for Zen students? It can be useful in a self-help kind of way. If we are hung up on money, relationships, other aspects of being a human being living on this planet. Just remember it is using delusion to cut through delusion.

Question four asks "Who would you be without that thought?" Zen Master Seung Sahn, and other Zen masters before him, asked students to keep the great question "What are You?"

What is Buddha?

Here is another Koan Study. It is a very old Koan and goes something like this:

Zen Master Dongshan was asked by a monk, "What is Buddha?" to which he replied "Three Pounds of Flax.
Sometime before Zen Master Yunmen had been asked by another monk, "What is Buddha?" to which he replied "Dry shit on stick."
Question 1: What is Buddha?
Question 2: What does three pounds of flax mean?
Question 3: What does dry shit on stick mean?
Question 4: Three pounds of flax, dry shit on stick, which is the best answer?

Let's look at question 1 - What is Buddha? How can we answer this? The story has two answers already presented. Is one of those the right answer? Are they both correct? Or is neither one correct? What does correct mean anyway?

Easy to get off track! So return to the question - it is asking What is Buddha? The story is a hook and could possibly lead us off track. Digging deeper, there are actually some hints in the answers. For Dongshan, we can assume three pounds of flax was something present in that very moment. Was the monk's clothing, perhaps, made from flax? For Yunmen, what could dry shit on stick mean? There are several stories about sticks and shit from the pre-toilet paper days. Perhaps within his vision was the bathroom area?

These were respected Zen Masters answering students questions. They could have been messing with their students to confuse them. Or they could have been providing true, in the moment answers. I tend to favor the latter.

If you are sitting across from a person posing this question, in person or on-line, how can you answer? Please think about this for a moment. What is the truth of this very moment? Just seeing, hearing, etc. So there are many answers that will work for this question. They have to be in the moment answers, not speculation, philosophy or even things out of sight. What do you see right now.

Here are two similar answers, one is acceptable and one is not (which do you think is correct?):

1. I am Buddha sitting here talking to you
2. Buddha is sitting here talking to you

In number 1, there is the concept of "I". I immediately invokes opposites, you, them, not-I, so it cannot be correct. If you want to debate that point, maybe by saying that Buddha instantly makes not-Buddha - another acceptable answer is "Buddha is here talking to me!" So all truth is Buddha. All things have Buddha-nature. Wonderful!

If you want the answers to 2,3,4 feel free to email me your answers to mindmakeseverything@gmail.com. Koan teachers are also available at the Five Mountain Zen Order. Question 4 is the most interesting of the remaining questions. Based on the discussion above, how can you answer it?

Zen and Philosophy II

In an earlier post, we looked at Zen and some of the ideas and ideologies that have come out of past masters putting Zen and Buddhism to words. Let's look at philosophy in general.

Philosophy is made by thinking. Just as your entire life, actions, thoughts, and deeds can be summed up as Jim or Cathy. A complex treatise on the human condition can simply be dismissed as Existentialism or Modern Rationalism. In fact, there are people who simply dismiss Zen as Nihilism.

Elsewhere on this blog and on the web there is plenty of discussion regarding Koan practice. In which, a teacher will ask a student a question like "What was your original face before your parents were born?" If the student responds with a philosophical answer (such as "I previously did not exist"), the teacher will not accept it. Why is this? Because waking up is beyond words, beyond concepts, and beyond opposites.

In fact, everything involving words, language, and philosophical ideas can be debated. "Enlightened" teachers have tried to put things into words, but it quickly becomes limited. E.g. Describing reality as "everything is perfect as it is" or "everything is exactly as it should be" may be correct using our limited language abilities. Yet, to the thinking, discerning, comparing, judging, mind, this quickly becomes "So the plague, the holocaust, or even a dog getting run over by a car is perfect?"

Another example is: "There is only now". The mind can simply look at a photograph or an old movie and say "No, there was then." Looking at a building clearly shows a past, too! What about planning for the future? The mind is going, going, going.

And now we are off track. We are not in this moment. We are in a past that doesn't fit with our view of how things should be. We are in a future of how we hope things will be. Zen is keeping clear mind. Zen is living in this present moment. But what is this present moment? There is nothing to hang on to. So we put all this philosophy down. Put down all of our ideas of Shoulda, Woulda, and Coulda. Pay attention to what is in front of us to do in each moment. Just seeing, touching, hearing, tasting, smelling. What is our Situation, relationship, and function in this moment.

If we can put it all down. Return to this present moment without judgment. Maybe we will understand what is being pointed at instead of focusing on the the pointer.

Sudden Enlightenment, Gradual Cultivation

A new quarter has begun at Buddha Dharma University. This semester there are several students taking the class on the Sutra of Perfect Enlightenment.

The Sutra of Perfect Enlightenment is interesting for many reasons. One is because everything one needs to wake up is present in the first two chapters. These basically fall under the category of Sudden Enlightenment. The rest of the Sutra can sort of be categorized as Gradual Cultivation. Though really it is more like painting legs on a snake. It is almost as if each subsequent chapter could be started with "So you didn't quite get the previous chapters, so..."

That is not to put subsequent chapters in a negative light! How many people read the first chapter, get it, wake up and don't need any more reading? This is only anecdotal evidence - I haven't heard of any. In fact, what happens is upon different readings of the Sutra, different chapters hit home.

What is Sudden Enlightenment? Have you ever had a moment of before thought mind? Zen Master Seung Sahn used to ask questions like: You, me, this wall, same or different? Have you ever had a moment where, without thinking, that made sense? The Zen cannon is full of stories with the final paragraph being something about enlightenment. E.g. Wonhyo's enlightenment story:

He was super thirsty in the middle of the night, felt around with his hands, found some water and drank it - how refreshing. In the morning he woke up and saw it was the skull of a dead animal and very gross. He threw up. Upon seeing the power of the mind he was enlightened.

Of course, we have to take these stories with a grain of salt. Is it true as written? I've read several versions of the story, so most likely no. Did something like that happen? Possibly. Anyway, there are many stories like this and maybe you even have your own.

So maybe something is attained. There are a couple of issues here. The first is that experiences pass fast. Trying to hold on to them is like trying to hold water in your hands. The second is the mind instantly starts to create a story about what happened. After a time, is the experience remembered? Or the story about it? Again, something is attained. Maybe we begin to see we are all one. (Please don't make this into a concept - it is easy to chew this up with the mind.)

So maybe we see the folly of our selfish ways. Even dropping the mind's idea of a separate self. Wonderful! Do our actions change all at once? Are we suddenly calm, peaceful, considerate drivers? Are we happy for others when they get what we want? These are broad examples, it could be more subtle. Do we give freely of our time? Gossip about others? Listen to the thoughts going on and continue to believe them? Think that we have some spiritual weight now?

Maybe. Maybe not. Instead of focusing on any experience or event. We return to this moment. What is in front of us? Can we help someone? We return to the practice. We may have fundamentally changed. Yet, more work is likely necessary. Be it more practice, changing our actions, breaking our habits, breaking our addiction to the mind. We must cultivate our experience.

Doing it Later

As we all know, the mind is going, going, going. The big ball of energy (or whichever metaphor you prefer) never stops. As spiritual seekers, the mind is always trying to "help." It might do so by trying to explain things that we may find beyond thought. It might try to explain reality using philosophy. It might try to help comfort us, telling us things will be better later.

What about spiritual procrastination? Things like:

• Tomorrow I am going to meditate for several hours
• This weekend I am going to have a day long silent retreat
• I had some realization, I need to sit and let it soak in
• Tonight, I am not going to watch TV - I will meditate and do yoga until bedtime

There are countless ways this can manifest. Ultimately, it boils down to thinking. Planning for some future that may or may not even remotely resemble our plans. So how do we combat this - with more thinking?

Among the many definitions of Zen attributed to Zen Master Seung Sahn, one is "Zen is how you keep your mind, moment to moment." This moment. Not a future moment. The practice is here and now. In all situations, we return to this moment. If we are listening to the thoughts, giving them weight and importance, we cut them off and return to the present. That is the practice. It is not there and then. It is not limited to some cushion by candlelight. It is right where you are.

If Enlightenment isn't in this very moment, where is it?

Baizhang's Wild Duck - Answers

In the previous two posts, I proposed a set of questions to turn this Dharma exchange into an exercise that can be used to help people gain some insight.
Once again, here is the story:

Zen master Baizhang was walking with Mazu and saw a wild duck fly by.
Mazu said "What is that?"
Baizhang repiled "A wild duck."
To which Mazu asked "Where is it going?"
Baizhang said "It is flying away."
Mazu twisted Baizhang's nose and said "When did it ever fly away?"

The first question is: "What was Baizhang's mistake?"

This could also be asking, why did Mazu twist Baizhang's nose? The answer is in the story. Cutting right to the heart of the matter, the answer is - "It is flying away." Why is this the answer instead of something like:

• If form is emptiness and emptiness is form how could there even be away?
• He made a difference between himself and the bird
• Away from what, is Baizhang is the center of the universe?

So my question to you would be - How can you be sure that is the reason Mazu twisted Baizhang's nose? If the story was recounted correctly, his mistake was "It is flying away!"

This is useful because we spend much of our time adding a layer to reality. In Zen, we are working to get clear mind, to cut through the illusory world that we make up. Here we practice putting down our ideas, our concepts. We don't just think of it as good in theory, we practice it.

The second question is: If you were Baizhang, how could you answer "Where is it going?"

A little role playing. We try to put ourselves in this situation, walking with a Zen teacher who is asking us about the duck. Even if we think this is a silly question, we cut through that thought and try to answer the teacher. Answers to try might include:

• North for summer
• Point in the direction of the bird
• Birds fly, it is just flying

A Zen teacher wouldn't accept any of these answers. All these answers are filled with concepts. We are Zen students, how do we get beyond thinking? The answer I would accept for this is for the student to flap their arms like a flying duck.

This is useful because we spend much of our time lost in concepts, which we often substitute for reality. We put them all down and answer without words.

The third question is: When did it ever fly away?

The answer to this one is a little more difficult. In fact it is tempting to give the same answer as above - this time the question is not about the duck! What is it that is referred to? In the idea of Sunyata, form is emptiness, emptiness is form - how could anything fly away? It turns out, this is similar to questions such as "Why did Bodhidharma come from the West?" So we put down all concepts, like when, fly, away, and return to this very moment. Any truth answer will suffice. Just seeing, hearing, what ever is going on this very moment. Or anything that is truth: Spring comes and the grass grows by itself.

This is helpful because we spend much of our time lost in concepts. We want to explain Buddhism, or reality, or what we've discovered. But again, Zen is beyond words, so how can we express truth? Koan practice actually helps us to realize this through practice. It is amazing that during Koan study, someone will pass several Koans, only to jump right back into philosophy and concepts on the next Koan. Not good, not bad. Practice, practice, practice.