Real Life with Ryuei

The Limits of Loving-Kindness

Hi everyone,

David Halverson made a comment on my last entry that I think deserves a whole new entry in response. Thanks for bringing that up David, because you touched on a topic that I've discussed with other people before offline and I would like to share my views about it here.

To begin with, my approach to Buddhist practice on the practical level is to just start people off with Odaimoku - not even an explanation of it. At Faithful Fools the very first thing anyone does after taking their seats is to chant Odaimoku three times and to bow in respect to each other. Now we additionally sit in silent meditation (because the type of people I am hoping to gather there are those looking for Buddhism and who associate Buddhism with silent sitting), discuss the Dharma and how to apply it in a practical way to daily life, and we do gongyo (reciting the Lotus Sutra and Odaimoku). I do recommend to people that they try to find time during the week to chant Odaimoku or at least to do silent sitting, ideally for at least 5 or 10 minutes in the morning and evening. I almost never recommend that people study any Dharma texts, unless they specifically ask me for recommendations or they are already reading things and I think of something that might help them. So for me practice is primary, and abstruse study of Dharma theory is secondary or even tertiary.

Having said that, I will now say in addition that for myself I have richly benefited from studying the Buddhist canon, not just the sutras but also the Vinaya (monastic rules and procedures) and the Abhidharma (Buddhist pyschology). This has given me a bird's eye view of Buddhist training both in principle and in practical application. It has also given me a look under the hood at how Buddhist practice can and should develop psychologically. I am convinced that this material is not theoretical but are the compilation of notes based on actual spiritual cultivation and left as a trail blazed for those of us who are now taking up the practice.

What I have learned is that the Buddha did indeed encourage the cultivation of lovinig-kindness both in terms of a series of meditations in order to cultivate that attitude in our hearts and also in terms of our actual conduct in daily life - whether we are householders or monastics. But, they Buddha also saw this as limited, and the Abhidharma points out specifically the limitations. Loving-kindness can and is cultivated by most religions, not just Buddhists. So this is something Buddhism shares as part of the common heritage of world spirituality. What is unique to the Buddha's teaching is insight into the unconditioned wherein there is nothing to grasp and nothing to reject. In other words, insight into what is called the unborn or the deathless or sometimes nirvana or emptiness. This is the true nature that cannot be defined or delimited by words, but must be experienced and seen for oneself. It is seen when all the hindrances and afflictions are, at least for a moment, dropped or seen through. Such a moment is characterized by selflesness and a breakthough into a non-dual realization wherein there is no longer subject and object.

It is clear to me from reading the sutras that the Buddha taught that the cultivation of loving-kindness could generate the kind of mental and emotional states and subsequent conduct that would cause a person to have an affinity for the heavenly realms. In other words, they would be ina heavenly state of mind and after death would, on the strength of this, be reborn in the heavenly realms. Loving-kindness, like the "I and Thou" philosophy or Martin Buber, also presumes at least a modicum of subject-object relations. It is a very beautiful and refined state of mind, but holds back from non-dual realization. Certainly those who have non-dual realization are characterized by loving-kindness and compassion and so on in terms of their conduct and attitude, but this is encompassed by a perspective that goes way beyond loving-kindness alone. So the upshot is that if one wants to enter the four higher worlds of "Learning", "Realization", "Bodhisattvahood", or "Buddhahood" that one must gain insight into the true nature of reality (Shoho Jisso in Japanese) and not just rest content with the loving-kindness that characterizes the heavens. Loving-kindness is then not abandoned but subsumed into a higher non-dual perspective. This is an area where most religions do not go - though perhaps Rumi (in Islam), or Meister Eckhart (in Christianity) or Abulafia (in Judaism) did "go there" so to speak.

I would add that Buddhism itself tries to account for those who will realize such things who are not Buddhists. On the one hand there are the "private-buddhas" (pratyekabuddhas in Sanskrit) who characterize the so-called world of Realization. By definition the private-buddhas attain enlightenment outside of the Buddha Dharma, but they do not teach the Dharma themselves. Also, the bodhisattvas are supposed to appear anywhere and everywhere they are needed, including places and times where the Buddha Dharma has not been taught or has been forgotten. These bodhisattvas will then teach or communicate by their activities what they can of the Dharma in such situations - including the teaching of loving-kindness and compassion and so on.

Now to get technical, the Abhidharma teaches that the cultivation of loving-kindness, compassion, and sympathetic joy will only get you so far in deepening one's experience of meditative concentration. The deepest level of concentration (or dhyana) is characterized by equanimity and one-pointedness alone. At that stage, all other forms of affect have dropped away to leave nonjudgemental clear awareness alone. That form of mental clarity is then the optimum condition from which to observe the nature of phenomena and to realize their ungraspableness and thus the true nature which is the unconditioned. To see this for oneself is insight in the liberative Buddhist sense.

However, one need not develop the deepest form of concentration in order to get insight. Access concentration is sufficient, for at that level one has suppressed greed, anger, agitation, sleepiness, and doubt and has instead realized a certain level of sustained attention to a meditation subject, and a sense of bodily and mental relaxation and ease. One could use the cultivation of loving-kindness to get into such a state. But, in order to then observe true nature of phenemona in order to directly see their true nature, one must switch from concentrating on loving-kindness as a focus to a more unfocused but still mindful awareness of physical and mental phenomena as they arise and cease interdependently. Loving-kindness, then, can be a help, but it can also be a hindrance if fixated on because its deliberate cultivation interfores with the kind of open mindfull awareness that is needed for insight in the Buddhist sense.

Does one need to be a Buddhist to cultivate loving-kindness? Certainly not. There are many ways to cultivate this quality and they seem to be the common heritage of all people.

Does one need to be a Buddhist to go beyond the affect of loving-kindness to direct insight into the true nature of phenomena? Apparently not according to Buddhism because the private-buddhas and bodhisattvas are not necessarily Buddhist when they do so. However, I do believe that the method the Buddha described in terms of right concentration and right minfulness (and the eightfold path in general) do need to be followed whether one does them as a self-conscious practice or just happens to follow through on that way of living, whether one calls them Buddhism or not. I think the eightfold path is like the law of gravity - that is the way spiritual maturity works. The Buddha taught it clearly and explicitly, but that does not mean a Calvinist or an Orthodox Jew or a Sufi or a secular humanist or whoever might not follow such a procedure either knowing or not-knowing that the Buddha taught it. In the Mahaparinibbana Sutta of the Digha Nikaya the Buddha specifically states that only those who follow the eightfold path will become liberated. To me, this is not sectarianism but merely the stating of a scientific principle. Gravity works whether you've heard of Newton or not.

Now I know someone is going to whine that in Nichiren Buddhism we do not follow the eightfold path because it is Hinayana or because Nichiren forbade the cultivation of mindfulness or the following or precepts (which is NOT how I read him btw - I give Nichiren more credit than that and his writings are much more nuanced and contextualized than that). But the fact is that if you listen to anyone who has practiced Odaimoku with sincerity and has had breakthroughs in their life you will hear them start to talk about how they realized how to stop making certain bad causes in their life and how they were inspired or empowered to make certain good causes. And when you analyze these bad causes that are avoided and good causes that are made, you will see that they are (perhaps uknowingly and unselfconsciously) following the path described by the eightfold path and/or the description of enlightened conduct in the six perfections (which is really a Mahayana expansion of the eightfold path). So the eightfold path is unavoidable if one is really enlightenment. Oh, and right intention very much includes loving-kindness and compassion.

Namu Myoho Renge Kyo,
Ryuei

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Posted by Ryuei at December 18, 2006 11:06 AM