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From: david@star2.cm.utexas.edu (David Sigeti)
Newsgroups: soc.religion.eastern
Subject: Re: Buddhism and the reality of the phenomenal world (was Re: bloody Buddhists!)
Message-ID: <1990Dec23.005751.22831@nas.nasa.gov>
Date: 23 Dec 90 00:57:51 GMT
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	<1990Dec21.224123.27840@noose.ecn.purdue.edu>
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	<1990Dec22.061258.3644@noose.ecn.purdue.edu>
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In article <1990Dec22.061258.3644@noose.ecn.purdue.edu> 
muttiah@stable.ecn.purdue.edu (Ranjan S Muttiah) writes:

   In article <DAVID.90Dec21225643@star2.cm.utexas.edu> 
   david@star2.cm.utexas.edu (David Sigeti) writes:

   >[My comments deleted as not relevant to Ranjan's question]

   Another question that just croped is (and this is what I was trying
   to hit at) how one "knows" that one has reached nirvana or
   buddhahood or whatever ?  Is it by general agreement and consent by
   other fellow meditators ?

Traditionally, one presents one's realization to a recognized
Buddhist teacher, someone who has received "dharma transmission"
in some line of teachers that is believed to go back to the
Buddha, and accepts her judgement.  Sometimes, a teacher may
withhold judgement because she feels that she needs to get a
better idea of the student's level of realization.  Or she may be
concerned that, even though the student has had a genuine and
deep realization, he may be in danger of getting some inflated
sense of his own importance and abilities.  This really does
happen and a lot of the stories of Zen masters treating their
students to all sorts of abuse involve exactly this problem (on
the students' part).

I suspect that people who decide entirely on their own that they
are "enlightened" are in severe danger of falling into this
problem in some of its most hideous forms.  I think that this is
probably particularly likely to be true when the person has very
little zazen behind them.  The discipline of meditation really
can help one to see into the traps of egotism.

I don't mean to imply that the various experiences and
realizations that one has in the course of practice can't be
clear or that one doesn't know what one has experienced.  The
problem is really how one integrates one's experiences and
realizations into one's life.  Here, a teacher or even just a
fellow student can be a great help in avoiding all sorts of traps
and mistakes.

   >In the course of this observation, most people come to see that
   >there is really nothing in the body/mind process that corresponds
   >to a "self" or "ego".  Certainly, the mind in particular is a
   >wondrously complex process, full of sensations, perceptions,
   >emotions, and thoughts changing constantly and at almost dizzying
   >speed.  But, when observed closely and carefully, it really seems
   >to be pretty impersonal -- maybe almost mechanical.  Certainly,
   >it is difficult to see what in it would constitute a "self".  
   >
   >There is really nothing frightening about this realization.  In
   >fact, most people find it quite liberating.  This is part of why
   >I presented my own experience in almost frivolous terms -- "Good
   >Heavens, I really am *not* what I thought I was."  (I am speaking
   >here of an early stage of the practice.  Later on there are more
   >likely to be problems.)

   And this is the part that I don't understand.  When you come to
   this realization and find that you weren't what you were, are you
   also supposed to realize that *the method* by which you arrived at
   the observation isn't also what you thought it was supposed to be ?
   And if so would you find it to be false ?  [That was the point of
   my pervious post].

Three or four years ago, I might simply have answered, "No.  The
method is not faulty; it is just that, by careful observation,
one has seen that a certain impression that one had had was
mistaken."  I still think that this is true on a certain ordinary
level.  In one sense, one has just made a simple observation
about the operation of one's own mind.  As I said earlier,
David Hume became one of the most important figures in
Enlightenment (European, not Buddhist) philosophy on the basis of
this simple observation.  I also should say that this simple
observation has probably been the most helpful single thing that
I have gotten out of Buddhism, in terms of helping me in my
ordinary life.  Mind you, I don't think that it would have been
terribly helpful if I had gotten this far at too early a point in
my practice -- I think that the effort that I had to make in
meditation was critical to the fact that the observation was
actually helpful to me.  Nevertheless, this kind of observation
seems to sum up a lot of what I got out of Zen meditation in the
earlier years of my practice.

As I said in my posting, though, this kind of simple observation
is just the beginning of practice.  It certainly does *not*
correspond to even the shallowest "kensho" (often translated as
"enlightenment" but more properly "awakening").  If one continues
to pursue the practice of closely observing the body/mind, a kind
of contradiction *does* emerge and I think that you have intuited
something of its nature.  It has to do with the fact that the
mind being observed is precisely the mind doing the observing.
This, of course, is a problem of self-reference (as you have
intuited) but on the level of direct observation, rather than on
the level of intellection or conceptualization (as in
mathematics).

Because the problem occurs on the level of direct observation, it
was, for me, very disturbing.  It "got me where I live," as they
say.  I found myself getting into a kind of infinite regression
-- the mind observing the mind observing the mind observing the
mind(...).  The image that comes to me when I think of this
process is of a pair of nearly parallel mirrors (as you often
find in dressing rooms in clothing stores) and the series of
images of oneself and the room that seems to stretch off into
infinity.

As I said, I found this very disturbing.  It left me terribly
perplexed.  It seemed to me to imply some fundamental question
but -- practicing a simple mindfulness meditation as I was -- I
found it impossible to come to grips with this question or even
to get any sense of it at all.  This was when I took up a "koan",
one of the strange stories or sayings that Zen Buddhists
sometimes use as objects for meditation.  It was precisely in
order to focus this perplexity into a profound questioning that
koan meditation was invented by the Chinese Zen teachers during
the Song dynasty.  The koan that I took up was "What is this?"
which can also be phrased as "What is this, right here?"  or
"What is this very mind?" or even just "What?"  This koan allowed
me to focus my perplexity into a deep process of questioning, a
questioning that constantly questions the questioner itself.

The questioning is not conceptual -- it is observational.  It is
not like asking oneself intellectually "I wonder if I am really
my train of thoughts."  It is more like

     "Am I this?" 

     "No, that's not it.  What about that over there?"

     "No, not that.  What about this here?"  

It's not really frantic like this -- I just want to give the
sense that the questioning is observational rather than
conceptual.  Of course, this little monologue doesn't involve any
questioning of the questioner either so please don't take it too
seriously.

I don't want to try to say too much about how one "solves" such a
question.  I certainly don't think that I have solved "What is
this?"  The one thing that I think I should mention is that I
have found that, in questioning the questioner, it is impossible
to operate entirely on an observational level.  One has to go
deeper -- "closer to the hardware" in computerese.  One has to
begin dealing with the process of observation on an *affective*
level.  In particular, one has to begin dealing with the problem
of *grasping*.  One quickly finds that the mental process
involves a kind of continual and very rapid grasping at the level
of perception.  But, in order to fully see into this mental
process of grasping, one has to give up the grasping involved in
the process that is observing the mind.  Sorry about the twisted
syntax -- it really *is* like the series of images in a pair of
mirrors.  The upshot is that the two processes, grasping and
observation, are all tangled up with each other in such a way
that one has to give up grasping in order to see into the mental
process and one has to see into the mental process in order to
give up grasping.  In order to "see" one has to "let go" and in
order to "let go" one has to "see".

I think that this is why "enlightenment" has to be "sudden".  If
one is to really "solve" the problem, one has to simultaneously
see into the grasping involved in one's own mental processes and
give up the grasping involved in the process of seeing itself.
One without the other just won't do the trick.  And doing both at
once is only going to happen at a single moment, a "set of
co-dimension 1 in time" as a mathematician would say.

I realize that all this is nowhere near as simple and
straightforward as the simple process of observation that I
discussed in my previous posting.  I have tried to give as down-
to-earth an account as I can.  In any case, I doubt that anyone
gets to a point like this until they have at least several years
of practice behind them.  It sure took me long enough!

   >That said, I am going to imitate him after my fashion and ask you
   >where *you* are coming from.  It would really help me to
   >understand your postings if I had a better idea of what *you*
   >think about this stuff.  Are you and atheist, an agnostic, a
   >Hindu, a member of another religion?  I have tried to be as open
   >as I can be about what I believe.  How about you?

   Here's what I think:

   Life is miserable; life is a challenge; <add your favorite
   superlative>.  People sometimes refuse to take responsibilities,
   assuming that one isn't control of what one does (remember all
   those religious wars ?).  Some people find a way out of this by
   taking on a religion.  Don't get me wrong, some people do need
   religion, but the basis for doing so should be made evident.  In my
   case, I learn to take charge of whatever it is that I decide to
   think and do; I try to make things as self evident to myself as
   possible.

This strikes me as an excellent basis for approaching life, or
for starting Zen practice.  Certainly, Zen should never be a drug
that we use to avoid seeing the pain and suffering of life.  The
only admonition that I would add is that, just as the pain and
suffering is not yours alone, even so your "taking charge of
whatever it is that you decide to do," and your "making things as
self evident to yourself as possible," should not be for yourself
alone.  Several times each day, Zen monks take the "Four
Bodhisattvas' Vows".  The first one is

    "Although the beings are numberless, I vow to save them all."


--
David Sigeti    david@star2.cm.utexas.edu    cmhl265@hermes.chpc.utexas.edu