Leo Rivers
2011-12-03 20:30:27 UTC
³The Buddha is a man²
There is a great and paralyzing inhibition to talking about some things.
My fellow Sangha members have evolved great powers of
passive-aggressively letting me know their disinclination to talk to me
about the things that cloy at my Reason.
For instance.
The Buddha is a man.
2400 years ago, (give or take a score of years), an 80-year-old man
died of food poisoning. Within a score and a century the great unifier
of his country, Ashoka, put up stone pillars ratifying the teachings of
that man who in his echoes was called ³the Buddha².
From the oldest literature of this sect we read that Siddhartha Gautama
obtained liberation halfway to his life. He accomplished this
liberation by a meditation which revealed the non-self of the person.
His sect went on to compose collections of writings called the Nikayas
which purport to report his teachings and those teachings are usually
placed in settings with a cast of characters and landscapes which were
obviously products of their routines of recollection and recitation.
While this is not history it doesn't mean that the Nikayas do not
reflect actual events and statements. My point is that we must remember
in the forefront that all of this, from then to now, has been the
composition by men and women generations removed from the events that
they were reporting.
Buddhist Paths
One of the reasons I have never had a problem with the Mahayana sutras
as being ³compositions² is that at root
they are identical in being the composition of men and women who were
the inheritors of a tradition of mental cultivation who used the
materials of legend and lore to express their own experiences of
putting those practices into effect.
Yes, the Mahayana did reflect an evolution in intellectual thinking and
meditation practice beyond That Buddha Guy - but the work of one man is
carried on by another. It is considered to be the further work of the
same man if it is sufficiently directly downstream to reflect the
original goal and insight of the founding genius and extend it in that
same spirit. To think otherwise is to be naive.
For either collections of literature to ³put on airs² towards each
other is disingenuous. You cannot imagine a way of thinking and
practice that is stagnant for hundreds of years as somehow being more
worthy than one that is interacted with the life of generations and by
that struggle maintained a grasp on the life force of the insight
within it.
In truth, BOTH the so-called ³old tradition² and the so-called ³new
tradition² are 2000 years old and counting. Both have evolved each in
their own distinctive manner covering 2000 years of hard won road by
self investigation and practice.
And in all cases we are talking about the works of men.
There is nothing in the actual practices of the Buddhist Tantras that
demand a externalist and substancialist belief in other worlds and
prodigies of magical power. When one actually pursues extended Buddhist
Tantric teaching on the paths of liberation one is introduced to a
series of meditations which all prove to be ³the practices of an
individual in meditation working with their own phenomena of mind².
In other words, all Buddhist practices are meditation practices which
take place on the meditation cushion in the ³here and now² relationship
between an individual and their own awareness performing a liturgy of
meditation.
The central thread of Buddhism remains a meditator in meditation. All
extraneous claims and prodigies are just extraneous claims and
prodigies.
And having myself been introduced to some of the highest practices of
Buddhism I can vouch that their effectiveness is based on meditation
and self transformation dependent only on concentration applied to
taming the mind by calming it and deepening in insight.
Deity yoga is in essence the meditation on a corpse.
In short, when you perform a Buddhist practice, you are walking in the
footsteps of a man or woman you respect and following their deeds to
reach an insight that granted them a transformation of character you
deem worthy. That is the honest way of dealing with a Buddhist guru.
Buddhist Scriptures
And as to Scriptures there is a great problem. Except for the short
³Heart Sutra² there are very few sutras that are not composite works of
a core and then accumulated modules of further insight and commentary
somehow presented as one singular revelation on a singular moment
bracketed by a mythological tale and put in the mouth of a symbolic
Buddha or bodhisattva.
This means that it is hard to deal honestly with a Buddhist Sutra the
way you deal honestly with a man.
When you want to deal honestly with a man you compare his words today
to words he said yesterday and then look at comparing both statements
to his deeds. You look for internal consistency. You look that his
deeds match his words. Then you can evaluate his way of thinking as a
system of looking at life.
Except for some of the shorter sutras like the ³heart Sutra² in their
original form, you cannot compare a statement made in one part of the
sutra with the statement in another part of the sutra to find internal
logic. You cannot follow a series of statements in the Sutra to see if
the outcome of assertions made in it well match the observations that
lead to them.
You have to look at a Buddhist Sutra the way you do a political party.
You can like a general trend of thinking, but ultimately you have to
put together your own version of the politics and that party and
understand that it is your individual ³politics².
It is not just that we cherry pick those verses in Scripture that
flatter our own prejudices and agree with our own preconceptions, is
that each of us must build our own Buddhism because it is a path we can
only follow by ourselves and the wilderness were only wisdom is the
reward and a transformation of character when we look in the mirror the
only proof we have not wasted our lives.
Buddhist Gangs
When I look at the historical record of the Zen Buddhism of Japan and
the Tantric Buddhism of Tibet and Theravada Buddhism, (just what
actually happened to the Mahayana sangha in Sri Lanka?), I see
Catholic popes and the Vatican constantly petitioning medieval kings
with promises of spiritual ratification in exchange for the keys to the
public granary and the whorehouse.
I see other men.
The key seems to be to develop an ear for the tone of the honest man
and that honest woman and then to take their speech to heart.
In fact when I read a sutra I feel like I am going into a room in which
people are arguing about things that are of value to me. There I learn
a style of thinking from the form of argument that they have evolved in
debating with each other.
The arguments of one school of Buddhism with another and the arguments
of one political party with another are very interesting - but more
interesting is the argument within a political party or a spiritual
group with itself because that is the place in which a ³style of
thinking² like a style of music like Jazz or style of art like DADA -
is thrashed out as a struggle of mind to develop the tools of self
knowing.
The arguments between political parties and between spiritual schools
have already been transferred to an ³in group and out group² dialectic
with a Manichaean framework and a momentum to give substance to things
that displace embracing an idea with pummeling ideas.
When we wish to embody our mentor we are looking to embody a personal
style of being human. That is why I do not mourn that I cannot find the
official Yogacara behind any particular text or teacher. What I am
doing is rehearsing their personal style of approaching a reality - a
reality that always slips away like a wet tomato seed from our
fingertips.
Buddhist Respect
The whole issue of what actually constitutes respect in Buddhism is
daunting. I guess because I don't see any more hope for Buddhists
behaving well towards each other that I do the human race behaving well
towards itself.
Why can't we go to a Buddhist teacher and say ³here is this book
with 5 stages and 10 abodes and the individual steps of accomplishment
of this whole path are listed, just where are you on this path?²
In what other endeavor are you not permitted to ask the teacher just
how much progress they have made in their own learning so, as a
prospective student, you know what level they are equipped to teach?
Would you hire a tour guide to the Amazon who had only gone halfway up
the river if you are looking to find the place it began?
Why can't we compare teachers by looking at their students and
COUNTING to identify which teachers manufacture more good Buddhists or
the best Buddhists?
Is all of the Buddha Dharma a ³the king has no clothes² joke?
Buddhist Faith
The Buddha is a man. If he wasn't I couldn't walk in his footsteps.
The mystery of actually accomplishing a transformation in character is
the best of mysteries. And what prodigy of magic power or pomp of
praise is a higher good than simple goodwill?
Buddha mind may be non-conceptual but that doesn't mean stripping
concepts from our mind reveals Buddha mind. Yes, concepts are
extraneous. Still, dealing with them it is part of the job. Buddha mind
is beyond concepts, but that doesn't mean it is irrational. Rationally
approaching liberation is the disciplined relinquishment of emotional
poisons and prejudices of mind foreshortened to our own limits of
imagination.
Reason is bigger than rhetoric. The goal of wisdom is not the rarefied
quality of the air up there but the perspective of the world we want to
go back out into to benefit. And by the way - Faith isn¹t the
abdication of our responsibility to Strive.
Leo Rivers, Saturday, December 3, 2011 11:47:16 AM
www.madimi.com
--
There is a great and paralyzing inhibition to talking about some things.
My fellow Sangha members have evolved great powers of
passive-aggressively letting me know their disinclination to talk to me
about the things that cloy at my Reason.
For instance.
The Buddha is a man.
2400 years ago, (give or take a score of years), an 80-year-old man
died of food poisoning. Within a score and a century the great unifier
of his country, Ashoka, put up stone pillars ratifying the teachings of
that man who in his echoes was called ³the Buddha².
From the oldest literature of this sect we read that Siddhartha Gautama
obtained liberation halfway to his life. He accomplished this
liberation by a meditation which revealed the non-self of the person.
His sect went on to compose collections of writings called the Nikayas
which purport to report his teachings and those teachings are usually
placed in settings with a cast of characters and landscapes which were
obviously products of their routines of recollection and recitation.
While this is not history it doesn't mean that the Nikayas do not
reflect actual events and statements. My point is that we must remember
in the forefront that all of this, from then to now, has been the
composition by men and women generations removed from the events that
they were reporting.
Buddhist Paths
One of the reasons I have never had a problem with the Mahayana sutras
as being ³compositions² is that at root
they are identical in being the composition of men and women who were
the inheritors of a tradition of mental cultivation who used the
materials of legend and lore to express their own experiences of
putting those practices into effect.
Yes, the Mahayana did reflect an evolution in intellectual thinking and
meditation practice beyond That Buddha Guy - but the work of one man is
carried on by another. It is considered to be the further work of the
same man if it is sufficiently directly downstream to reflect the
original goal and insight of the founding genius and extend it in that
same spirit. To think otherwise is to be naive.
For either collections of literature to ³put on airs² towards each
other is disingenuous. You cannot imagine a way of thinking and
practice that is stagnant for hundreds of years as somehow being more
worthy than one that is interacted with the life of generations and by
that struggle maintained a grasp on the life force of the insight
within it.
In truth, BOTH the so-called ³old tradition² and the so-called ³new
tradition² are 2000 years old and counting. Both have evolved each in
their own distinctive manner covering 2000 years of hard won road by
self investigation and practice.
And in all cases we are talking about the works of men.
There is nothing in the actual practices of the Buddhist Tantras that
demand a externalist and substancialist belief in other worlds and
prodigies of magical power. When one actually pursues extended Buddhist
Tantric teaching on the paths of liberation one is introduced to a
series of meditations which all prove to be ³the practices of an
individual in meditation working with their own phenomena of mind².
In other words, all Buddhist practices are meditation practices which
take place on the meditation cushion in the ³here and now² relationship
between an individual and their own awareness performing a liturgy of
meditation.
The central thread of Buddhism remains a meditator in meditation. All
extraneous claims and prodigies are just extraneous claims and
prodigies.
And having myself been introduced to some of the highest practices of
Buddhism I can vouch that their effectiveness is based on meditation
and self transformation dependent only on concentration applied to
taming the mind by calming it and deepening in insight.
Deity yoga is in essence the meditation on a corpse.
In short, when you perform a Buddhist practice, you are walking in the
footsteps of a man or woman you respect and following their deeds to
reach an insight that granted them a transformation of character you
deem worthy. That is the honest way of dealing with a Buddhist guru.
Buddhist Scriptures
And as to Scriptures there is a great problem. Except for the short
³Heart Sutra² there are very few sutras that are not composite works of
a core and then accumulated modules of further insight and commentary
somehow presented as one singular revelation on a singular moment
bracketed by a mythological tale and put in the mouth of a symbolic
Buddha or bodhisattva.
This means that it is hard to deal honestly with a Buddhist Sutra the
way you deal honestly with a man.
When you want to deal honestly with a man you compare his words today
to words he said yesterday and then look at comparing both statements
to his deeds. You look for internal consistency. You look that his
deeds match his words. Then you can evaluate his way of thinking as a
system of looking at life.
Except for some of the shorter sutras like the ³heart Sutra² in their
original form, you cannot compare a statement made in one part of the
sutra with the statement in another part of the sutra to find internal
logic. You cannot follow a series of statements in the Sutra to see if
the outcome of assertions made in it well match the observations that
lead to them.
You have to look at a Buddhist Sutra the way you do a political party.
You can like a general trend of thinking, but ultimately you have to
put together your own version of the politics and that party and
understand that it is your individual ³politics².
It is not just that we cherry pick those verses in Scripture that
flatter our own prejudices and agree with our own preconceptions, is
that each of us must build our own Buddhism because it is a path we can
only follow by ourselves and the wilderness were only wisdom is the
reward and a transformation of character when we look in the mirror the
only proof we have not wasted our lives.
Buddhist Gangs
When I look at the historical record of the Zen Buddhism of Japan and
the Tantric Buddhism of Tibet and Theravada Buddhism, (just what
actually happened to the Mahayana sangha in Sri Lanka?), I see
Catholic popes and the Vatican constantly petitioning medieval kings
with promises of spiritual ratification in exchange for the keys to the
public granary and the whorehouse.
I see other men.
The key seems to be to develop an ear for the tone of the honest man
and that honest woman and then to take their speech to heart.
In fact when I read a sutra I feel like I am going into a room in which
people are arguing about things that are of value to me. There I learn
a style of thinking from the form of argument that they have evolved in
debating with each other.
The arguments of one school of Buddhism with another and the arguments
of one political party with another are very interesting - but more
interesting is the argument within a political party or a spiritual
group with itself because that is the place in which a ³style of
thinking² like a style of music like Jazz or style of art like DADA -
is thrashed out as a struggle of mind to develop the tools of self
knowing.
The arguments between political parties and between spiritual schools
have already been transferred to an ³in group and out group² dialectic
with a Manichaean framework and a momentum to give substance to things
that displace embracing an idea with pummeling ideas.
When we wish to embody our mentor we are looking to embody a personal
style of being human. That is why I do not mourn that I cannot find the
official Yogacara behind any particular text or teacher. What I am
doing is rehearsing their personal style of approaching a reality - a
reality that always slips away like a wet tomato seed from our
fingertips.
Buddhist Respect
The whole issue of what actually constitutes respect in Buddhism is
daunting. I guess because I don't see any more hope for Buddhists
behaving well towards each other that I do the human race behaving well
towards itself.
Why can't we go to a Buddhist teacher and say ³here is this book
with 5 stages and 10 abodes and the individual steps of accomplishment
of this whole path are listed, just where are you on this path?²
In what other endeavor are you not permitted to ask the teacher just
how much progress they have made in their own learning so, as a
prospective student, you know what level they are equipped to teach?
Would you hire a tour guide to the Amazon who had only gone halfway up
the river if you are looking to find the place it began?
Why can't we compare teachers by looking at their students and
COUNTING to identify which teachers manufacture more good Buddhists or
the best Buddhists?
Is all of the Buddha Dharma a ³the king has no clothes² joke?
Buddhist Faith
The Buddha is a man. If he wasn't I couldn't walk in his footsteps.
The mystery of actually accomplishing a transformation in character is
the best of mysteries. And what prodigy of magic power or pomp of
praise is a higher good than simple goodwill?
Buddha mind may be non-conceptual but that doesn't mean stripping
concepts from our mind reveals Buddha mind. Yes, concepts are
extraneous. Still, dealing with them it is part of the job. Buddha mind
is beyond concepts, but that doesn't mean it is irrational. Rationally
approaching liberation is the disciplined relinquishment of emotional
poisons and prejudices of mind foreshortened to our own limits of
imagination.
Reason is bigger than rhetoric. The goal of wisdom is not the rarefied
quality of the air up there but the perspective of the world we want to
go back out into to benefit. And by the way - Faith isn¹t the
abdication of our responsibility to Strive.
Leo Rivers, Saturday, December 3, 2011 11:47:16 AM
www.madimi.com
--