Hi everyone,
I was just ruminating on these things this morning (inspired by my new attempt to read the Wilhelm translation of the I Ching in connection with my Confucian studies in connection with my Rissho Ankoku Ron commentary) and decided that I better write them down here as they need to be developed and I don't want to forget them. These thoughts were also prompted by a critique of my presentation on Demythologizing Buddhism (see Ryuei.net for that paper) by Paul Numrich at the AAR. Paul said that in attempting to enlist the ideas of Rudolf Bultmann in demythologizing the Dharma while avoiding the reductionism of mere psychologizing, I had only discussed the ten worlds in terms of their social and ecological dimensions but had not touched upon the transcendent as Bultmann had. This reminded me of the observation of my friend Alex that I did not seem to believe in enlightenment (I have written about that previously).
So I was thinking that Dharma can be approached in three ways:
1. First people need to appreciate reality in terms of causes and effects. This is the moral or ethical awareness of realizing that the actions we take do have consequences and that we must take responsibility for our actions. This is very challenging in its own right. We all may say we know about and believe the law of cause and effect, but how many of us really act like it? How many of us, myself included, act as though the law of cause and effect will make an exception or buy into our rationalizations of what we are doing. The wheel of karma grinds slowly, but it grinds exceedingly fine.
2. If we have gotten simple responsibility and ethics under our belt we may (I stress "may") have spiritually matured to the point where we can begin to think not so much in terms of cause and effect but causes and conditons. In other words, we begin to appreciate the contingent nature of all phenomena and therefore their impermanence. This includes our own "selves." This is where things get scary and uncomfortable. Where the ground shifts under our feet. In fact, here is where the rug is pulled out from beneath our expections of a happy, secure, stable existence. But here also is where we learn real letting go, real grace, real selflesness. Hopefully it will also lead to a sense of oneness with all other things and compassion stemming from the realization that contingency is also interdependence. Maybe this is a whole other level of apprecation but I will leave it here for now.
3. But beyond cause and effect, beyond causes and conditions, is the uncaused the unconditioned. Here is where the transcendent enters in, though really it was there all along. Uncaused and unconditioned means that it can not be circumscribed in terms of time or space or any of the ways or minds conceptualize, relate to, and deal with the things of common experience. This seems to be something else altogether. And yet the "things" that are causal and conditioned are not really "things" when viewed without the overlay of our conceptions. They open up into emptiness of any set "thingness." And even this emptiness is not some-thing apart from things. Here is where our ideas and forms of expression run out of steam. This is the "you have to be there" experience of awakening. But one can only "arrive" by coming to appreciate the contingent nature of everything and thereby learning to let it all go so that only the unconditioned is there - what can not be grasped or let go of.
So there you have it, I see in myself the need to:
1. Deeply appreciate causes and effects and then to act like it by being more mindful and responsible and, yes, ethical.
2. To move on to a deep appreciation of the causal and conditioned nature of my "self" and all things. To see them from the perspective of universal contingency. In this way I can better accept and let go. And from there to see contingency as leading to an awareness of interdependence and thus compassion. And then the contingecy opens up into...
3. An openess and hopefully increasing awareness of the unconditioned nature that we usually do not see because the conditioned apearances we live and work within are so entrancing. But here is where the transcendent really lies and here is the "source" of boundless love, creativity, and infinite skillful means at work in the first two levels of appreciation and awareness.
Too often, I have seen myself use Buddhism as a kind of stop-gap. A way of manipulating causes and effects so that I can get a more favorable outcome. But this is not even on the level of taking responsibility for my causes and effects. In fact, it is an avoidance of it. A way of saying, "despite my bad causes and lack of good causes, let me bribe the universe by paying lip service to the Dharma and hopefully that will cover up the bad and create a stock of good causes." This kind of practice can even hinder the development of the first of these three stages of spiritual maturity. Insofar as it involves avoiding bad "things" and getting good "things" it most definately prevents the realization of the second state, and there is no need to even think about the third. That is totally obscuted by entancement with mundane events and outcomes approached unethically and in terms of magical thinking.
So actually I have discerned within myself five levels:
1. The raw stage of magical thinking and trying to get something for nothing and avoiding what is actually due.
2. The stage of really taking into account cause and effect and acting ethically and responsibly.
3. The state of really taking into accunt causes and conditions and thereby learning to let go and keep a broader perspective.
4. The stage of understanding that contingency is also interdependence and thereby realizing not just selflesness but compassion as well.
5. The state of realizing the uncaused and unconditioned true nature that is there when one is no longer entranced by causes and conditions. Here is the actual source of perfect wisdom and infinite compassion.
So I wonder, as we babble in Sino-Japanese to our scraps of paper with sumi squiggles, which of these levels are we approaching our practice from?
Namu Myoho Renge Kyo,
Ryuei
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I have been reading online the expressions of outrage and despair coming from some in regard to the outcome of the elections. For now, I am not going to refrain from commenting on the election itself. Rather, I would like to address the despair by sharing the perspective I have been reflecting on over the past few days.
Lately I have been wrestling with Rissho Ankoku Ron and in order to understand parts of it, it has become necessary to gie myself a crash course in Confucianism. So I have been doing nothing but reading about and thinking about Confucianism for a couple of weeks now. In reading various translations of the Analects, Mencius, the Great Learning, and the Doctrine of the Mean one thing has become apparent to me - Confucius and Mencius lived in a political and social climate the "sucked beyond the telling of it" (as Buffy once said about her life). There was actual anarchy and chaos, with the fuedal princes constantly fighting each other, the ministers fighting to control the princes, every clan and even every man (the women didn't count at all) out for himself. People suffered in numbers that would still make the front page of the news even today. No one was interested in even paying lip service to good government. And despite all this, Confucius and Mencius never gave up but persisted in believing that people were perfectable, that Heaven had endowed people with a good nature, and that virtue would eventually triumph over selfishness and shortsightedness. Hundreds of years after their deaths China was united by the tyranical Shih-huang-ti who followed one of the most evil philophies the world has ever seen - Legalism. He and his men slaughtered and tortured any who stood in their way in order to unite China and bring an end to the fighting. They brooked no rivals and killed and banished all the Confucianists and burned all their books. But in the end, just as Confucius or Mencius would have predicted, this dynasty sowed the seeds of its own destruction and didn't even last two decades. It was replaced by the Han dynasty. Under the Han, Confucianism became the ideology of the state and the classics that had been burned were more or less recovered. Civil service examinations were set up to create a meritocracy to replace the law of the fishes which had governed China until then (e.i. the biggest eats the smallest, might is right). So in the end, their efforts paid off even though they did not live to see it, and their optimism and emphasis on benevolence at least tempered those who ruled in the future even if their ideals were never fully realized. I think, like Confucius and Mencius, we should cultivate the same optimism and big picture outlook and never stop striving to create at least within ourselves and among our own friends and family a Way of living that will set a standard for the future - even if it means a lot of soul searching and reformation on our own part.
Here is a quote from the Analects that I find relevant here:
14.38 Zilu spent the night at Stone Gate. The morning gatekeeper asked him, "Where are you from?" "From the residence of Confucius," replied Zilu. "Isn't he the one who keeps trying although he knows that it is in vain?" asked the gatekeeper.
In the first episode of the fourth season of Angel, here is what Angel told his wayward son Conner: "Nothing in the world is the way it ought to be. It's harsh and cruel. That's why there's us. Champions. It doesn't matter where we come from, what we've done or suffered, or even if we make a difference. We live as though the world were as it should be, to show it what it can be."
I think Confucius and Mencius would have approved of the vampire-with-a-soul's words.
Namu Myoho Renge Kyo,
Ryuei
This is in response to the ignoramus spamming various Nichiren newsgroups with out of context passages from the Pali Canon in his efforts to denigrate Mahayana Buddhism. Sorry if it sounds a little authoritarian, but I want to strongly make the point that when it comes to the Buddhist canon I am not a mere dabbler or armchair Buddhist whose closest proximity to the sutras is through some off hand comments in Tricycle. Anyway, on to my latest diatribe:
I'm a little tired of people either dismissing the Pali Canon as "Hinayana" or of using it to bash Mahayana Buddhism.
I have read English translations of the Pali sutras. In fact, I have read just about everything included in the Sutta-pitaka. Some many times over. I am still in the process of reading and commenting on them. And the Vinaya too for that matter (which I have also read more than once). I have even delved into classical commentaries and summaries of the Abhidharma. So I have a working familiarity with the Pali Canon that is rare even among Western Buddhists - excepting those who are actually scholars, translators or graduate students.
I have also read the major sutras of the Mahayana - some many times over. I have read the Flower Garland Sutra (twice now from front to back and I made coious notes), the Lotus Sutra many times over in various translations (and I made notes), the Large Perfection of Wisdom Sutra, the 8,000 Line Perfection of Wisdom Sutra, the Diamond Sutra and Heart Sutra (these many many times over), the Vimalakirti Sutra several times in various translations, the Queen Srimala Sutra, the Nirvana Sutra (and I made copious notes), the Surangama Sutra, the Lankavatara Sutra, etc...
I have pondered these texts without stop since the mid-1980s. I have constantly been thinking about them, writing about them, obsessing about them. And one thing has become very clear to me - I do not see any fundamental conflicts between the worldviews or values of the Mahayana sutras and the Pali Canon. There are far more overlaps than contradictions. Even Theravadin scholar-monks like Walpola Rahula, Bhikkhu Bodhi, and Silak Sivaraksa have admited that there are many such points of overlap and agreement, and have even at times cited Mahayana sutras and teachers approvingly. The translator and teacher David Kalupahana has even put forward the claim that Mahayana teachers like Nagarjuna were even more faithful to the teachings found in the pre-Mahayana canon than even the 5th century Theravadin teacher Buddhaghosa whose commentaries have become authoritative in the Theravadin traditon. So I am not even the only one who sees the Mahayana and Pali Canon as overlapping and complimentary in many respects. This is not to say that there are not differences and even a few contraditions - but it is to say that those who actually take the time to study and ponder these things do not see them as fundamentally at odds.
Nichiren Buddhists should realize that if they want to approach the Buddha of history the Pali Canon is the closest one is going to get without moving into the realm of pure baseless speculation. Likewise, the Mahayana canon takes for granted the material in the Pali Canon and/or the Agamas. It takes these teachings as its jumping off point. The Mahayana, in other words, is the middle and not the beginning of a conversation about awakening that lasted for more than a thousand years in terms of the development of the canon. To cut off the Pali Canon or dismiss it as irrelevant is to deprive yourself of the root of that conversation and to abolish the context of what is said later in the Mahayana. To cut off the Mahayana is to cut off the full flowering of that conversation and not just the flower but even the seed of awakening itself (a point argued at length in the Perfection of Wisdom Sutras). The Buddha of faith in his full glory is what the Mahayana sutras convey. Why deprive oneself of the wisdom, compassion, and beauty of that Buddha? So I for one believe that we should view the canon as a complimentary whole just as Chih-i and Miao-lo did.
When it comes to faith and practice, I certainly take my side with Nichiren - the seed and flower of the Dharma is in the five characters of Myo Ho Ren Ge Kyo. But the fullest expression of the Dharma in terms of our understanding of its meaning and implications, helpful advice and guidance, the full vision of human development and spiritul maturity and the interrelated grandeur of the Dharma-realm requires an appreciation for the canon as a whole - at least on the part of those who take it upon themselves to teach the Dharma. On the part of those who wish to just practice it - my advice is to simply chant Odaimoku, support that practice with gongyo and other beneficial practices centered on the Lotus Sutra and realizing its spirit, and to respectfully listen to and consider ALL the Buddha's teachers as shared by those of us who have taken the trouble to learn it so that it can be applied appropriately. And as for those who would use the canon in a divisive or dismissive way - they are slanderers and should be avoided as one avoids a river of molten lava.
Namu Myoho Renge Kyo,
Ryuei