Four audio podcasts accompanying this course are available to download at http://cslsrpodcasts.blogspot.com.
The same content is also available as “Buddhist Meditation,”
a CD Audio Set available at Stepping Stones Books & Gifts
Center for Spiritual Living, Santa Rosa
Spiritual Enrichment Course
Written by Rev. Kim Kaiser
To study the Way is to study the self. To study the self is to forget the self. To forget the self is to be enlightened by all things of the universe. To be enlightened by all things of the universe is to cast off the body and mind of the self as well as those of others. Even the traces of enlightenment are wiped out, and life with traceless enlightenment goes on forever and ever.
—Dogen Zenji (1200-1253)
…the peculiarity of mystical language…is not that it is describing another reality, but that it is describing the same reality in another way.
…mystical experience is the experiential knowledge that, in one way or another, everything is interconnected, that all things have a single source.
—Mysticism: Its History and Challenge, by Bruno Borchert.
Interconnected
Our understanding is that there is one whole being that includes everything, and that the many things are found in one whole being. Although we say “many beings,” they are actually the many parts of one whole being that includes everything. If you say “many” it is many, and if you say “one” it is one. “Many” and “one” are different ways of describing one whole being.
—Branching Streams Flow in the Darkness by Suzuki Roshi
Single Source
There is One, and not two. Never forget that. Anywhere in the universe, just One. That one life is the substance of everything. It is one in unity but multiple in manifestation. It is one substance from which an infinite variety of different things come but every one of those things is made out of the one thing.
—Love and Law by Ernest Holmes, (p. 48.2)
I discovered that it is necessary, absolutely necessary, to believe in nothing. That is, we have to believe in something which has no form and color — something which exists before all forms and colors appear… but I do not mean voidness. There is something, but that something is something which is always prepared for taking some particular form, and it has some rules, or theory, or truth and its activity. This is called Buddha nature, or Buddha himself… It is one existence which has no form or color, and it is always ready to take form and color. This is not just theory. This is not just the teaching of Buddhism. This is the absolutely necessary understanding of our life.
—Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind (ZMBM) by Suzuki Roshi
Emptiness
Shunyata – no “marks” – no inherent character or quality
Emptiness, voidness—sunyata—is a central concept in Mahayana Buddhism, which explains that it is not just the self that is inherently empty, but anything—and everything. But do not become confused: This certainly does not mean that the world and everything in it doesn’t exist; it simply means that there is nothing behind appearances. It’s all surface, mere temporary appearances. It is all cause and effect. All things, by definition, are impermanent—like dreams, echoes, or mirages. We know, of course, that we dream, some nights peacefully, others chaotically; we also know that these dreams are not as real as we think they are while they are taking place. They, and everything else, are empty and relative—arising because of cause and effect, or interdependent origination. Everything arises as if from emptiness and is resolved back into the unborn nature of emptiness. We do not need to rid ourselves of these dreams, merely to understand and see through them, even as they vividly manifest in our perceptions.
In the non-dual Dzogchen-Mahamudra teachings, sunyata is viewed in positive terms as the supreme reality. This is not a nihilistic black void or vacuum, not an independently existing reality. It’s intangible, yet vividly dancing with sounds and colors—shimmering, fertile, and effulgent—a radiant, rainbow like display, not unlike a cinema projection. That’s why we call it the fertile womb of emptiness from which all Buddhas emerge. Sunyata, the mother of all the Buddhas, is the mother of all of us too. Buddhism is a very hearty spiritual tradition. The essential message is that each of us has the soul or spirit of a Buddha. It just doesn’t use those same words, because the word “soul” implies a fixed entity, which runs contrary to the laws of cause and effect, and the fact of impermanence. All beings have Buddha-nature. All creatures great and small.
—Awakening the Buddha Within: Eight Steps to Enlightenment by Lama Surya Das, p.122.
Dark Matter
Over 75% of the universe is not detectable using current scientific instruments. It is called dark matter but is perhaps more accurately described as “transparent” matter, meaning we see right through it and think nothing is there.
Shunyata is like space, clearly present but undescribable …
Shunyata (in Sanskrit) or suññata (in Pali). This word is often translated as Emptiness, but I propose the translation “Transparency.” Reality, according to the Buddha, is not an illusion, it certainly exists, but its thing-ness, essence, or intrinsic autonomy cannot be found when it is analyzed. Reality is real, but its reality is transparent to analysis. Reality is, for Buddhism, space-like rather than particle-like. A particle may be located in space, but space itself cannot be located. Space is non-locatable and non-referential: it does not have a beginning, a middle, or an end, an inside or an outside, it is not made up of anything or of nothing, and it cannot be packaged. It is that without which nothing could be, yet it is not itself a something or a nothing that causes anything to be or not to be. But, for all this indescribability, space indubitably and incontrovertibly is. Space exists, but how it exists is indescribable. In fact, questions about how, when, and where it exists are unintelligible and incoherent. So, says Buddhism, although things (like apples) exist, while other things (like unicorns) do not exist, upon sophisticated and sustained physical, mental, and spiritual analysis, the how, when, and where of that existence or non-existence cannot be found. This is shunyata: Emptiness, Transparency, or, as the Chinese translate it, Spaciousness (k’ung, “vacuity”).
—The Vision of Buddhism by Roger Corless
One Being/One Mind
Mystics report: …a realization – with one’s whole being – that all things are one, a universe, an organic whole into which the self fits…
Our understanding is that there is one whole being that includes everything, and that the many things are found in one whole being. Although we say “many beings,” they are actually the many parts of one whole being that includes everything. If you say “many” it is many, and if you say “one” it is one. “Many” and “one” are different ways of describing one whole being. To completely understand the relationship between one great whole being, and the many facets of that one great whole being is kai. Kai means to shake hands. You have a feeling of friendship. You feel that the two of you are one.
—Branching Streams Flow in the Darkness by Suzuki Roshi, p. 28
…the big mind…is always on your side…is always with you…(it) is not just your mind, it is universal mind, always the same, not different from another’s mind. It is Zen mind. It is big, big mind…this mind is…everything.
—ZMBM, p. 134
There is but One Mind; It is Omnipresent – It is all there is. Everything, visible and invisible, is but a manifestation of this One Mind – the result of Its Creative Action and the becoming of that which It creates.
—The Basics of Science of Mind by Ernest Holmes, p. 15.3
The true understanding is that the mind includes everything; when you think something comes from outside it means only that something appears in your mind… If your mind is related to something outside itself, that mind is a small mind, a limited mind. If your mind is not related to anything else, then there is no dualistic understanding in the activity of your mind…Big mind experiences everything within itself. Do you understand the difference between the two minds: the mind which includes everything, and the mind which is related to something? Actually, they are the same thing, but the understanding is different, and your attitude towards your life will be different according to which understanding you have.
—ZMBM, pp. 34-35.
We must treat things as part of ourselves, within our practice and within big mind. Small mind is the mind that is under the limitation of desires or some particular emotional covering or the discrimination of good and bad… the Buddhist way is to try hard to let go of this kind of emotional discrimination of good and bad, to let go of our prejudices, and to see things as it is.
—Branching Streams Flow in the Darkness by Suzuki Roshi, p. 29
Trusting In Mind
(Third Patriarch of Zen, Seng-Ts’an)
A New Translation of the Hsin Hsin Ming, the classic poem by the Third Chinese Patriarch of Zen, Seng-Ts’an.
Seng-Ts’an was the third Chinese patriarch of Zen, who received transmission from Bodhidharma’s successor, Hui K’o. The poem attributed to him, the “Hsin Hsin Ming” (lit. “Trust Mind Inscription), is one of the earliest and most influential Zen writings, blending together Buddhist and Taoist teachings.
The translator, Zen Master Hae Kwang, teaches Zen at the Kansas Zen Center and Classics at the University of Kansas.
The Great Way is not difficult,
Just don’t pick and choose.
If you cut off all likes or dislikes
Everything is clear like space.
Make the slightest distinction
And heaven and earth are set apart.
If you wish to see the truth,
Don’t think for or against.
Likes and dislikes
Are the mind’s disease.
Without understanding the deep meaning
You cannot still your thoughts.
It is clear like space,
Nothing missing, nothing extra.
If you want something
You cannot see things as they are.
Outside, don’t get tangled in things.
Inside, don’t get lost in emptiness.
Be still and become One
And all opposites disappear.
If you stop moving to become still,
This stillness always moves.
If you hold on to opposites,
How can you know One?
If you don’t understand One,
This and that cannot function.
Denied, the world asserts itself.
Pursued, emptiness is lost.
The more you think and talk,
The more you lose the Way.
Cut off all thinking
And pass freely anywhere.
Return to the root and understand.
Chase appearances and lose the source.
One moment of enlightenment
Illuminates the emptiness before you.
Emptiness changing into things
Is only our deluded view.
Do not seek the truth.
Only put down your opinions.
Do not live in the world of opposites.
Be careful! Never go that way.
If you make right and wrong,
Your mind is lost in confusion.
Two comes from One,
But do not cling even to this One.
When your mind is undisturbed
The ten thousand things are without fault.
No fault, no ten thousand things,
No disturbance, no mind.
No world, no one to see it.
No one to see it, no world.
This becomes this because of that.
That becomes that because of this.
If you wish to understand both,
See them as originally one emptiness.
In emptiness the two are the same,
And each holds the ten thousand things.
If you no longer see them as different,
How can you prefer one to another?
The Way is calm and wide,
Not easy, not difficult.
But small minds get lost.
Hurrying, they fall behind.
Clinging, they go too far,
Sure to take a wrong turn,
Just let it be! In the end,
Nothing goes, nothing stays.
Follow nature and become one with the Way,
Free and easy and undisturbed.
Tied by your thoughts, you lose the truth,
Become heavy, dull, and unwell.
Not well, the mind is troubled.
Then why hold or reject anything?
If you want to get the One Vehicle
Do not despise the world of the senses.
When you do not despise the six senses,
That is already enlightenment.
The wise do not act.
The ignorant bind themselves.
In true Dharma there is no this or that,
So why blindly chase your desires?
Using mind to stir up the mind
Is the original mistake.
Peaceful and troubled are only thinking.
Enlightenment has no likes or dislikes.
All opposites arise
From faulty views.
Illusions, flowers in the air –
Why try to grasp them?
Win, lose, right, wrong –
Put it all down!
If the eye never sleeps,
Dreams disappear by themselves.
If the mind makes no distinctions,
The ten thousand things are one essence.
Understand this dark essence
And be free from entanglements.
See the ten thousand things as equal
And you return to your original nature
Enlightened beings everywhere
All enter this source.
This source is beyond time and space.
One moment is ten thousand years.
Even if you cannot see it,
The whole universe is before your eyes.
Infinitely small is infinitely large:
No boundaries, no differences.
Infinitely large is infinitely small:
Measurements do not matter here.
What is is the same as what is not.
What is not is the same as what is.
Where it is not like this,
Don’t bother staying.
One is all,
All is one.
When you see things like this,
You do not worry about being incomplete.
Trust and Mind are not two.
Not-two is trusting the Mind.
Words and speech don’t cut it,
Can’t now, never could, won’t ever.
Bodhisattvas
The heart of the Bodhisattva Resolve, which the Mahayana practitioner makes in a formal liturgical ceremony, is the determination that one will lead all other sentient beings without exception into final and complete enlightenment, into the end of all suffering forever, before one allows oneself to attain complete enlightenment and the final end of suffering. This means, in effect, putting off one’s own nirvana, even though one has become pure enough to attain it, for anything approaching the imaginable future. The bodhisattva dedicates his or her practice, in this and all subsequent lives, for the good of all sentient beings, “until samsara is emptied.”
Certain bodhisattvas are identified by Mahayana as “Great Bodhisattvas.” They function essentially as Buddhas and are accorded regular worship. Some of the best known are as follows.
1. Avalokiteshvara: The bodhisattva of perfect compassion, who takes a variety of forms, and (in Sino-Japanese Buddhism, though not in Tibetan Buddhism) may be female, and may have eleven heads and a thousand arms. Always he/she “listens to the prayers of the world” (hence the Chinese and Japanese names Kuan (shih) yin/Kan (ze) on) and “always has his eyes open” (hence the Tibetan name Chenrezig) so as to be able to assist in any difficulty. As the servant of Amitabha Buddha (the Buddha of the Western Paradise—see the sections on Vajrayana and Pure Land Buddhism in chapter 10), he has a representation of Amitabha in his crown, but, even when he has this feature, he sometimes appears as an independent figure. The Dalai Lama is a Nirmanakaya (Tibetan: tulku) of Avalokiteshvara.
2. Mañjushri: The bodhisattva of perfect wisdom, who holds a book, from which he teaches, and a sword, with which he destroys ignorance, and rides a lion, whose voice silences all other animals. He is popular as a patron of the Zen meditation hall (wherein the wisdom of insight is sought) and of Dharma study (that is, of the wisdom aspect of Buddhist practice) in general.
3. Samantabhadra: The bodhisattva of perfect conduct, whose Bodhisattva Resolve focused especially on acts of devotion to all the Buddhas and the other Great Bodhisattvas, and pledges of untiring liberative action. He rides an elephant, which symbolizes the mind, as it is considered to be the wildest of all animals when out of control but the most docile of all when trained.
4. Achala: The bodhisattva of perfect stability. He symbolizes the eighth bodhisattva level. Surrounded by flames and standing firmly on a rock, he glares fiercely at the evil in and around his worshippers and prepares to snare the demons with his noose. In Japan, where he is known as Fudo Myo-o, “Immovable Wisdom King,” he was popular with the samurai, who prayed to him that they might be able to stand their ground and fight bravely. Many ordinary Japanese today seek his protection in the cut and thrust of rush hour traffic by hanging his amulet in their cars.
—The Vision of Buddhism by Roger Corless
________________________
Dogen certainly speaks of relying on the cosmic Buddhas and Bodhisattvas for assistance, and even in totally entrusting them. In the undated Shobogenzo essay Shoji, Dogen says simply, “Just set aside your body and mind, forget about them, and throw them into the house of Buddha; then all is done by Buddha.”
http://www.ancientdragon.org/dharma/articles/dogens_zazen_as_other_power_practice#_ednref15
Bow to Everything
When everything exists within your big mind, all dualistic relationships drop away. There is no distinction between heaven and earth, man and woman, teacher and disciple. Sometimes a man bows to a woman. Sometimes a woman bows to a man. Sometimes the disciple bows to the master; sometimes the master bows to the disciple, a master who cannot bow to his disciple cannot bow to Buddha. Sometimes the master and disciple bow together to Buddha. Sometimes we may bow to cats and dogs.
In your big mind, everything has the same value. Everything is Buddha himself. You see something or hear a sound, and there you have everything just as it is. In your practice, you should accept everything as it is giving to each thing the same respect given to a Buddha. Here there is Buddhahood them Buddha bows to Buddha, and you bow to yourself. This is the true bow.
—ZMBM, p. 43
A research study done in the 1970s, compared the response of longtime Zen Buddhist meditators with graduate students who had never meditated. A bell was rung while they were meditating at random intervals. The brain wave patterns at first were identical, there was an initial period of recognition, and then a settling back down into the meditative state. After a short while, the graduate students began to learn to ignore the bell and their brains hardly registered it as they very quickly resumed their meditative state. Zen meditators never became habituated to it. It was as if the bell was being heard for the first time every time.
Readiness of Mind is Wisdom
Just to see, and to be ready to see things with our whole mind is Zen practice…This is called mindfulness. Mindfulness is, at the same time, wisdom. By wisdom we do not mean some particular faculty or philosophy. It is the readiness of the mind that is wisdom. So wisdom could be various philosophies and teachings, and various kinds of research and studies. We should not become attached to some particular wisdom, such as that which was taught by the Buddha. Wisdom is not something to learn…the point is to be ready for observing things, and to be ready for thinking. …this is called emptiness of your mind
—ZMBM, p. 115
We must treat things as part of ourselves, within our practice and within big mind. Small mind is the mind that is under the limitation of desires or some particular emotional covering or the discrimination of good and bad… the Buddhist way is to try hard to let go of this kind of emotional discrimination of good and bad, to let go of our prejudices, and to see things as it is.
—Branching Streams Flow in the Darkness by Suzuki Roshi, p. 29.
Study Buddha’s words through some activity that you face moment after moment.
—ZMBM, p. 89
Bodhisattva vow
However innumerable sentient beings are,
I vow to save them.
However inexhaustible the passions are,
I vow to extinguish them.
However limitless the dharmas are,
I vow to study them.
However infinite though Buddha — truth is,
I vow to attain it.
—Dogen Kigen: Mystical Realist by H. J. Kim, p. 263.
Heart Sutra
Avalokitesvara Bodhisattva
when practicing deeply the Prajna Paramita
perceived that all five skandhas in their own being are empty
and was saved from all suffering and distress.
Oh Shariputra , form does not differ from emptiness;
emptiness does not differ from form.
that which is form is emptiness;
that which is emptiness, form.
The same is true of feelings, perceptions, impulses, consciousness.
Oh Shariputra, all dharmas are marked with emptiness;
they do not appear nor disappear,
are not tainted nor pure,
do not increase nor decrease.
Therefore in emptiness, no form,
no feelings, no perceptions, no impulses, no consciousness;
no eyes, no ears, no nose, no tongue, no body, no mind;
no color, no sound, no smell, no taste, no touch, no object of mind;
no realm of eyes until no realm of mind consciousness;
no ignorance and also no extinction of it
until no old age and death and also no extinction of it;
no suffering, no origination, no stopping, no path;
no cognition, also no attainment.
With nothing to attain
the Bodhisattva depends on Prajna Paramita
and his mind is no hindrance.
Without any hindrance no fears exist;
far apart from every perverted view he dwells in Nirvana.
In the three worlds all Buddhas depend on Prajna Paramita
and attain unsurpassed, complete, perfect enlightenment.
Therefore know the Prajna Paramita
is the great transcendent mantra
is the great bright mantra
is the utmost mantra
is the supreme mantra
which is able to relieve all suffering,
and is true, not false.
So proclaim the prajna paramita mantra
proclaim the mantra that says:
Gate, Gate, paragate, parasamgate!
Bodhi! Svaha!
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