This is too obvious for the mind.
We know nothing but this.
There is no process of knowing though:
Only this
Spontaneous happening.
Zen
How spiritual teachings work
This is one of a series of introductory articles – please see the homepage of tomdas.com for more introductory articles.
Buddha’s raft
The Buddha likened his teachings to a raft that takes you from the shore of suffering (samsara) across the river to the shore of enlightenment (nirvana). When you get to the land on the other side, you do not carry the raft around with you – the raft would actually be an impediment on land.
The teachings are therefore provisional constructs and concepts and are not true in themselves. Ultimately we can let go of attachment both to the teaching and teacher once it has done its work.
If we fall in love with the teaching or teacher, this is not necessarily a bad thing. It can serve as a useful and positive motivation force, keeping our search and inquiry strong through both good and bad times, and may well continue after a genuine enlightenment. However I have often seen how the attachment to (and belief in) a teaching or teacher can impede a genuine realisation, as it can restrict our ability to freely inquire and see things as they really are.
‘Use a thorn to remove a thorn, then throw them both away’
In this Hindu saying, a thorn represents a concept that gives rise to suffering when it pierces our skin. The teachings are another concept/thorn that you can use to remove the first thorn from your body. However you must throw the teaching away too when it’s work is done, otherwise it simply becomes a thorn in your side that binds you.
Ramana Maharshi used to speak of his teachings as being like a wooden stick used to prod the burning carcass in the funeral pyre. Once the teaching has done its job of ‘burning the ego (sense of being a separate doer)’, the stick is also pushed into the fire and it too burns away.
‘Eventually, all that one has learnt will have to be forgotten’
Sri Ramana Maharshi
Kill the Buddha
There is a famous Zen teaching: “If you see Buddha on the path, kill him”. Don’t even let Buddhism and Buddha’s teachings get in the way. Let go of all concepts and liberation is there as it always has been.
This idea is similarly indicated in Hindu teachings such as in the Yoga Vasistha:
‘When you realise that which is indicated by the words, then naturally you will abandon the jugglery of words’
Yoga Vasistha
Expedient Means
In Mahayana Buddhism the term ‘expedient means’ (Sanskrit: upaya) is used to signify that the best teaching is the one that produces the result – ie. enlightenment. What is good for one aspirant may not be good for another, depending on where they each are. This is also why various teachings can appear contradictory and may not be true in themselves. The point is that the teachings are not necessarily true, but as long as they work that’s what matters.
Some of my analogies and thoughts on how teachings work
- The teachings are not themselves ultimately true. They are just words. But like a finger pointing to the moon, they point to something greater than themselves.
- Teachings use words and concepts to point to or indicate that which is beyond all words and concepts.
- The teachings are like a virus. Once you have heard them, they get to work within you, chipping away at false beliefs and in doing so the Truth is revealed.
- Like when matter and anti-matter collide, the teachings destroy false notions and then when its work is done, the teaching also self-destructs.
- We think we chose to read or hear the teachings and apply them. When we understand the teachings more fully, we realised that the teachings came to us, they were a gift to us, that they chose us, and they work their magic on us.
- If you cling to words of the teachings, it is a sure indicator you have not understood what they are pointing to. Eventually you have to go beyond the teachings. Excessive clinging to notions such as Absolute Consciousness or ‘You are the Witness’ or overly complicated metaphysics is a sure sign of not seeing the essence of what is being pointed to.
- The teachings are like a recipe – you follow the instructions and get the results. Until the food is made, you treasure the recipe for it is the gateway to your meal. Note that the cooked meal looks nothing like the recipe and you can throw away the recipe once you have mastered the cooking and are eating the meal. However, please don’t worship the recipe, please don’t (just) discuss recipes endlessly with your friends, and please don’t forget to do what it says!
Bodhidharma’s Zen: the Perfect Way, the Ultimate Truth
The following are excepts I’ve compiled from the Zen Teaching of Bodhidharma (the founder of Zen Buddhism) as translated by Red Pine. What do you think?
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The way is basically perfect. It doesn’t require perfecting.
The way has no form or sound. It’s subtle and hard to perceive.
It’s like when you drink water: you know how hot or cold it is but you can’t tell others.
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The ultimate Truth is beyond words.
Doctrines are words. They are not the Way.
The Way is wordless.
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If you see your nature, you don’t need to read sutras or invoke Buddhas.
Erudition and Knowledge are not only useless but also cloud your awareness.
Doctrines are only for pointing to the mind. Once you see your mind, why pay attention to doctrines?
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People, though, are deluded. They’re unaware that their own mind is the Buddha. Otherwise they wouldn’t look for a Buddha outside the mind.
Buddhas don’t ferry Buddhas to the shore of liberation. If you use your mind to look for a Buddha, you won’t see the Buddha.
As long as you seek Buddhas outwards, you’ll never see that your own Heart is the Buddha.
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To find a Buddha, you have to see your nature. Whoever sees his nature is a Buddha.
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If you don’t see your nature and run outwards to seek for external objects, you’ll never find a buddha.
The truth is there’s nothing to find.
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If you attain anything at all, it’s conditional.
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Defilement and attachment, subject and object don’t exist.
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All phenomena are empty. They contain nothing worth desiring.
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A buddha is free of karma, free of cause and effect.
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To attain enlightenment you have to see your nature.
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It has never lived or died, appeared or disappeared, increased or decreased. It’s not pure or impure, good or evil, past or future. It’s not true or false. It’s not male or female. It doesn’t appear as a monk or a layman, an elder or a novice, a sage or a fool, a buddha or a mortal. It strives for no realisation and suffers no karma. It has no strength or form. It’s like space. You can’t possess it and you can’t lose it. Its movements can’t be blocked by mountains, rivers, or rock walls….No karma can restrain this real body. But this mind is subtle and hard to see. It’s not the same as the sensual mind.
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Everything that has a form is an illusion.
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Those who hold onto appearances are devils. They fall from the Path.
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All appearances are illusions.
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That which is free of all form is the Buddha.
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Wherever you find delight, you find bondage.
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I only talk about seeing your nature. I don’t talk about creating karma.
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The buddha is your real body, your original mind. This mind has no form or characteristics, no cause or effect, no tendons or bones.
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Detachment is enlightenment because it negates appearances.
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The appearance of appearance as no appearance can’t be seen visually, but can only be known by means of wisdom.
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All practices are impermanent.
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The sutras say, “Go beyond language. Go beyond thought.”
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Basically, seeing, hearing, and knowing are completely empty.
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Your anger, joy, or pain is like that of puppet.
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Trying to find a Buddha or enlightenment is like trying to grab space. Space has a name but no form.
It’s not something you can pick up or put down. And you certainly can’t grab it.
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Whoever realizes that the six senses aren’t real, that the five aggregates are fictions, that no such things can be located anywhere in the body, understands the language of buddhas.
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Not thinking about anything is Zen.
Zen: How should one approach enlightenment?
Two great Chan (Zen) masters speak:
Zhaozhou: How should one approach enlightenment?
Nanquan: If you try to head for it, you immediately turn away from it.
Tom’s comments:
So, what to do?
Dzogchen: Self-liberation in the fundamental nature
Here are some more verses from the Kunjed Gyalpo (The Supreme Source), one of the most important texts in Tibetan Buddhism and Dzogchen. These words point the reader directly towards Enlightenment. See my earlier posts on the Kunjed Gyalpo here and here.
In the except below the first section initially directs us to listen to these teachings and realise the inherent liberation that is already present ‘without needing to alter anything’.
The second section indicates there is no need for special practices, or to speak or act in a particular way in order to get this.
In fact, as per the third section below, in trying to find your ‘authentic condition’ (which is self-liberation), you deny it and prevent liberation manifesting itself.
Listen!
As I am in the authentic condition,
all phenomena self-liberate in the fundamental nature.
Without needing to alter anything,
the teacher self-liberates in the fundamental nature.
Without needing to alter anything,
the teacher self-liberates in the fundamental nature.
Without needing to alter anything,
the retinue of disciples, too, self-liberates in the fundamental nature.
Listen!
As all self-liberates,
there is no need to correct the body posture or visualise a deity.
There is no need to correct the voice or speech.
There is no need to correct the mind through meditation.
By correcting oneself,
it is not possible to find the authentic condition,
and without finding the authentic condition,
one cannot self-liberate.
In this way one does not achieve the state of equality of the fundamental nature.
Excerpt from The Supreme Source (Kunjed Gyalpo), Chapter 29
So, what are we to do? We are essentially told that ‘you are already realised’ or ‘you are already whole’, but perhaps we don’t feel realised or whole.
We are told that no practice can take us to where we already are, but then what do we do?
The Kunjed Gyalpo exhorts us to listen to these teachings, absorb them, and see their truth directly!
But how to do this, the spiritual seeker asks.
There is no how, for in asking how you have already posited and given reality to the separate self that is looking for answer, that is looking to get somewhere. By asking how, there is already the implication that this is not it. But this is it!
The Supreme Truth and the way to it cannot be described. Only wrong ways can be described, hence the language is of negation – ‘no need to correct’….’By correcting oneself…one does not achieve’. The scripture tells us what not to do, not what to do.
The ancient method is to first listen (sravana) to the teachings repeatedly, then secondly to contemplate them and think them over (manana). This helps to develop an intellectual understanding of the teachings first, following which meditation and integration of the teachings (nididhyasana) can occur. This can occur gradually, or perhaps suddenly, without warning, a moment of clear seeing arises and the teachings that were once theoretical suddenly spring to life.
The nature of Awareness
This aware principle,
Is already always aware.
Without lifting a finger,
It is effortlessly present.
Within this awareness,
A multitude of phenomena spontaneously arise and fall.
Conceptually we say ‘multitude of phenomena’,
But in reality there is just One Seamless Experience.
Whatever phenomena awareness is aware of,
We can call ‘objects’.
No object is this aware principle,
No object is awareness.
There are no actual separate objects,
Just the appearance of separate objects.
The mind, using concepts like a sword,
Carves up our Seamless Experience into apparent parts.
Let us examine this awareness,
Which is not separate from the objects it observes.
Where does it come from?
What is its nature?
Observe, no particular object of awareness is awareness itself:
An object itself cannot be aware,
The perceived cannot perceive.
Therefore awareness is not an object.
There is no knowledge of awareness:
Awareness cannot be seen, touched, smelt, heard or tasted.
In this sense it cannot be known,
But awareness’s existence is self-evident.
What is this awareness?
– I don’t know!
But I know awareness exists. How?
– Because I am aware!
Observe, there is no awareness of awareness itself,
Only awareness of objects,
(Or in Deep Sleep or Samadhi,
the awareness of the absence of objects),
The existence of awareness,
Is inferred from the presence (or absence) of objects.
So what is awareness but an idea,
Based on the assumption of a subject, a seer?
Awareness is a merely a concept,
Indistinguishable from the objects it is aware of.
Objects are awareness,
Awareness is simply the presence of objects
(or the presence of an absence of objects,
as in Deep Sleep or Samadhi).
‘Objects’ and ‘awareness’ are two names for our One Total Seamless Experience.
See this at once!
All these words,
Simply trying to describe,
What is already our direct experience of life,
Right now.
Words simply point,
To the simplicity of this,
This which is so simple:
It is just our direct experience.
Truly,
What we conceive to be awareness.
Is nothing other than our everyday experience of objects,
This.
Truly,
What is conceived to be the Absolute (ie. the Subject)
Is none other than the relative (ie. objects),
This.
In this,
There is no object or subject,
No relative or absolute,
Just this, beyond words, beyond opposites.
There is only this,
Completely obvious,
Self evident,
Alive,
And elusive of conceptualisation.
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Unknowing
All I know is I don’t know.
I don’t even know what doesn’t know.
Just all this,
Happening by itself:
No knowledge of a knower,
And never understanding any of it.
Mystery is an apt label,
For this unknowing.
Nisargadatta Maharaj: In reality there is no person
The person is merely the result of a misunderstanding. In reality, there is no such thing.
Feelings, thoughts and actions race before the watcher in endless succession, leaving traces in the brain and creating an illusion of continuity.
A reflection of the watcher in the mind creates the sense of “I” and the person acquires an apparently independent existence.
In reality there is no person, only the watcher identifying himself with the ‘I’ and the ‘mine’.
Taken from I Am That by Nisargadatta Maharaj
Being fearless
Being fearless,
The body becomes wide open,
The heart sensitive and vast:
All thoughts, feelings and sensations are welcome here,
Even fear.
Completely open
We truly feel.
Willing to feel,
We are truly alive.
Not resisting,
We feel whole, connected.
Not knowing what will happen next,
Isn’t this true freedom?
Tom Das 