The Death of Buddha

Today, across Japan, The Americas and Europe many temples will ceremonially display large images like this one in memory of the death of sage of the Shakyas, Siddhārtha Gautama, the man most of us know by the title Buddha, which means "Awakened One."*  He was 80 years old when he died. If you click on the image to expand it, you'll see images of life - plants blooming out of season, animals bearing gifts of flowers, Buddhist monastics and saints bearing bowls filled with lotus blooms --symbols of eternity --and  look on with equanimity, while bodhisattva's, kings, queens, Japanese demigods, and even heaven itself with gods all are weeping.

15th Century Japanese painting on silk The Death of Buddha
(74 x 43 5/16 in.)  The Metropolitan Museum of Art

But in his death, Zen Buddhists celebrate and remember him not as a god, not as a being touched by some mysterious divinity or sainthood, but as a man who reached through the complexities of self -- memory, desire and fear -- to find a way forward out of the irreality we construct and construe as truth. This is actually how Buddhists traditionally call their practice: "The Way."

Siddhārtha Gautama was born a son of the ruling class of the Shakyas, a people living in the North East of the Indian Subcontinent in the 5th century B.C.E.. After a pampered and protected early life, he confronted the sorrows of his world at age 29. He then gave up his princely title to pursue wisdom rather than power. After a six year trek through the competing mystical and ascetic practices of the Vedic world, which then as today saw many spiritual teachers rise and fall, he found an alternative, what Buddhist's call "the middle way," that neither rejects life and experience, nor indulges transient pleasures and fears in an attempt to flee from suffering. This way is called the Eightfold Path:

1. Right seeing  - viewing as things are rather than as we wish them to be.
   
   
2. Right thought - understanding freed of the passions, desires and possessiveness that influences everyday thinking,
   
   
3. Right speech- communication freed from self-deception (passion, aggression, and stupidity)
   
   
4. Right activity - action freed from self deception (passion, aggression, and stupidity) which mean not only not killing, avoiding self indulgence, and sexual misconduct, but the just relations with the world around us: action as compassion and generosity.
   
   
5. Right livelihood - ways of living in the world that are not founded on increased distortions of reality, deception and theft of either goods or life.
   
   
6. Right effort - When we perceive clearly, think completely, talk, act and live in a way that recognises the world (and ourselves) for what it is, rather than what we desire or fear it to be, we are ready to make a leap, not of faith as Kierkegaard, the Christian theologian taught, but of our own effort and will to stay with the real, rather than within the piteous graspings born of desire or fear.
   
   
7. Right mindfulness - making the leap, having the will to stay in the world as it is, rather than the falsity of our own passion, needs, wants, and foolishness is to sense the world and our selves as it is - and having grasped this this, to remain there is right mindfulness, the way of awakening to real freedom.
   
   
8. Right practice - the methods, that strand of Buddhist teaching called Zen says are the surest path to genuine freedom from our passions, aggression, and foolishness or stupidity is through the practice of zazen and a cluster of related disciplines like koan study, and that these are not just tools to get to some other place or understanding, but are themselves liberation. 

Awakening or enlightenment doesn't remove us from the world. Like Siddhārtha Gautama, when we experience awakening we will continue to live, and will someday die. But in life and death alike we know the world and our lives with a beautiful and terrible clarity, that brings with it genuine benevolence, care, and love.

There are Zen monasteries, communities and sitting groups across North America, and I'd encourage all my readers to find and join one. There are, regrettably, a number of "fake" teachers, especially on the internet. If you're looking for a group or teacher and are unsure of how to distinguish the real from the fake, feel free to email or comment here, and I'll try to be of help.

You can find a series of brief lectures on the Eightfold Path here, given by Anzan Hoshin Roshi of the White Wind Zen Community in Canada.
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* Japan, whose Zen practice laid the groundwork for much of the growth of Buddhism in North America and Europe adopted the Western calendar in the late 19th Century, fixing religious and secular remembrances to dates in a 365 day calendar. Much of the rest of Buddhism ties these dates to a lunar calendar, so the date seems to wander in the eyes of the West.

Eihei Dōgen

Today is the birthday of Eihei Dōgen (永平道元) (January 19, 1200 - September 26, 1253) 

Roshi Dōgen* was a controversial and highly influential Buddhist teacher, philosopher, and the founder of Soto Zen in Japan, a school that is also one of the m0st widely practiced forms of Zen in America.

As a young monk he grew dissatisfied with the ritualism and academic forms of Buddhism then prevalent in Japan. He went to China seeking a new teacher, ultimately returning to Japan in 1228 where he founded a new form of Buddhist praxis that emphasised meditation not as a vehicle leading to enlightenment, but rather that meditation is itself enlightenment.

This radical teaching garnered both rapid growth for this new school, as well as violent opposition from other Buddhists, schools that enjoyed a comfortable relationship with the harsh feudal political structures of 13th Century Japanese society. Dōgen was the author of a number of influential texts, books that are as fresh and effective today as when they were written. Here's a passage from one of two books he wrote titled titled Shōbōgenzō -  or in English, True Dharma Eye Treasury, a compilation of some 300 brief Zen teachings called Koans. The title itself was considered provocative, because it implies that the Buddha's teaching (the Dharma) are not bound to the tradition's Sutra's - formal teachings, many of which are attributed to the Buddha himself, but instead can be experienced in these jewel-like koans.  Among the central teachings of Zen is sudden enlightenment, that it is not easily realised through the study of the sutras, but more often directly in meditation or even from mind to mind through interactions with a Roshi, or even a monastery cook (as happened to Dōgen in China). The translation is by Kazuaki Tanahashi.

________

Zhaozhou asked Nanquan, “What is the Way?”
Nanquan said, “Ordinary mind is the Way.

Zhaozhou said, “Shall I try to direct myself toward it?” 
Nanquan said, “If you try to direct yourself toward it, you will move away from it.”

Zhaozhou said, “If I don’t try, how will I know it’s the Way?” 
Nanquan said, “The Way is not concerned with knowing or not knowing.  Knowing is illusion; not knowing is blank consciousness. If you truly arrive at the Great Way of no trying, it will be like great emptiness, vast and clear. How can we speak of it in terms of affirming or negating?”

Zhaozhou immediately realized the profound teaching.**

________

The themes  of this koan are familiar to any student of Buddhism: the Way of the Buddha, the role of the mind in entering or barring the Way, the realisation that enlightenment cannot be learned, but is always present, always available, pervading every experience, perception and thought, yet hidden by the deceptive nature of experience, perception and thought. The way of the Buddha is not the achievement of supernatural beings or even extraordinary efforts, but instead is known when we both embrace and release the ordinary, or everyday mind.

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*     Roshi is an honorific meaning teacher, and its use indicates that Dōgen received the
       Inka from his Roshi, testifying to his enlightenment and strength as a teacher, and
       becoming part of an unbroken line of succession, tracing back to the Buddhist patriarchs
       who established Buddhism after the death of Gautama, the historical Buddha.

** the term "realized" here means more than intellectual understanding. Rather, it implies
     that Zhaozhou was, at some level, transformed or enlightened by this teaching.

The Anniversary of Gautama Buddha’s Enlightenment 禅

A statue from a museum in Shanghai

 Today, December 8th is Rohatsu, celebrated in Zen Buddhism as the anniversary of Buddha’s enlightenment. In Zen monasteries all over the world, an octave of intense meditation ends today, completed with chanted ceremonies honouring the Buddha’s birth.

The historical Buddha, a man from northern India, was born in 563 BCE to a wealthy family. His name was Gautama, but he’s often called by the title Sakyamuni [sage of the Sakyas] or Tathāgata [thus-gone]. Sometimes one hears the name Siddhartha, but scholars suggest that’s not really a name, but another title,meaning “goal accomplisher.”

The stories told of his early life are varied but all offer one theme. As the child of a privileged family, he was shielded from the harsher aspects of life, but as a young man Gautama came to face the reality of suffering and strove to understand its meaning. Why is it that we exist, that we experience pain, that we die?

For years he tried finding answers in the already ancient Vedic religion and philosophies, in meditations under the tutelage of sages, and even in extreme asceticism, literally starving himself to the edge of death, but in the end Gautama realised his efforts were useless. So he sat beneath a great tree in silence. After 49 days in silence he came upon enlightenment, the shocking realisation that suffering (the Sanskrit word is dukkha) was not pain or death, but rather the struggle of consciousness grappling with pain and death, holding to the impermanent and conditional, grasping for a happiness that is always passing.

In his enlightenment, Gautama became known as a buddha, which simply means “awakened one.” His teachings are called the dharma and are thought to represent the actual structure of consciousness in the universe. Soon after his awakening great numbers of men and women began to follow his path. This community is called the sangha. In Zen, Buddha, Dharma and Sangha together are called the “Three Jewels,” and represent a kind of summary of both the method and purpose of Buddhism. To formally become a Buddhist, one simply says:

I take refuge in the Buddha.
I take refuge in the Dharma.

I take refuge in the Sangha.

Gautama lived to be 80 years old. His death is thought to be a finalisation or completion of his awakening. But from his experience in silence under the tree till his death, the sangha grew rapidly. Thousands learned the Dharma, and the community of practice spread from region to region — west to the edges of Europe and east through China to Japan.

There are many paths within Buddhism, many interpretations of the Dharma, and many versions of the Sangha. Contrary to what many Westerners believe, there are also many Buddhas. Gautama was not the first to achieve enlightenment, nor the last.  Zen is in fact part of a larger movement within Buddhism where every member of the Sangha vows to defer final enlightenment until every other living being is freed from suffering.

One thing can be said with complete certainty about Gautama: He is not a god. Because Buddhism is (erroneously) referred to as a “religion,” many Westerners assume it must be about God. It is not.

The metaphysical god of Christianity, Judaism and Islam, in reply to the philosophical questions of late antiquity was defined as immortal, all knowing, all seeing, etc.  It is widely assumed in the West that this kind of monotheism represents 000a more mature and sophisticated kind of belief than polytheism. This of course is patently self-serving nonsense. The idea that religions evolve out of primitive polytheism into a more complex and sophisticated monotheism is rooted in the unspoken dogma of European empires and colonialism where religious superiority functioned as a justification for racial and political bigotry. The missionary came hand in hand with a colonial administrator. The loving Gospel served as an inexpensive adjunct in service to the rapacious demand for resources needed by European and American factories.

In Zen Buddhism, gods are optional.  Japan, where American Zen has its roots, is a land of complex polytheisms. Gods (most are called Kami) are seen in places of beauty or starkness and in all sorts of events from the growth of a flower to great wind storms. Some kami are scary, some sublime. Japan’s major religion, Shinto, codifies these to a degree, but it’s a loose system that allows communities, families and individuals a great latitude in responding to perceptions of holiness. Buddhism in Japan isn’t allergic to these ideas, but its core teachings suggest that gods, if they exist at all, are caught up in the same suffering as the rest of us. The best that a god can do is offer a temporary shelter from suffering. In Japan, that’s a reasonable definition of heaven.

But for all the tomes written about the Buddha, here’s a single line from a 12th Century monk that captures the essence of Zen Buddhism’s message"

Within nothingness there’s a road out of the dust.
                        The monk Yuanwu Keqin (1063 - 1135 CE) The Blue Cliff Record 

The Hidden Meaning of Birds

truth is a residue
of unfettered habit

Enso

For the last the 10 years or so it has been my habit to often draw an ensō (円相 - Japanese for "circle"). This is a kind of meditation oft practised by Zen Buddhists. In Zen there is “stillness in motion” (dōchū no sei), a freedom that is accomplished through practice of meditations like zazen or the simple act of drawing a circle. We look at this image, and we know that it is composed of circles, each a complete gesture, even though the end result does not draw a line of points equidistant from a centre, the perfect slice of a sphere in Western geometry.

While the historical practice of drawing an ensō involves grinding pigment and applying this ink with a brush to rice paper in a single stroke, my spinal cord injury has led me to often use a digitising tablet instead. This double ensō drawing is something of an accident - I forgot to delete one stroke before painting another. I think that this was a happy accident, of a kind often stumbled across in Zen practice.

Debris

.

.

The detritus
of angelic copula
is as thin
as the beating
of the sparrow's wing.
It takes the shape
of a suspension
of rhyme.

.

.

Blue Cliff

The question raised: Why does the mute poet speak in our mouths?

David's answer: Arrayed in white, there is silence.

Commentary:

We speak of elder time

in influx rhyme

of other thans.

White dress, black dress and lime

so stillness spans.

Light

What kind of light?

What kind of light
can you hold in your hand?
Does it sparkle, coruscating
minute stars
it's hard to decide
whether God is are you

Grasses

Stepping foot

on a field that has gone to grass

untilled, unseeded

given back to it's past

It will be only a year or two

till the field can no longer be a field

till the grass lays down roots too dense

and the seeds of Quaking Aspen

take hold and throw up a sapling

too thick for the tiller's blades

If the farmer cared

he could fix the fences

and let his cattle pasture there

it's not quite too late

for grazing to cut back the grass

and a hatchet or ax

to take the sapling down

But, the farmer does not care

there will be no fence

no ax, no rumbling tractor

there will be no care

for this place that once was a field

and now is something different

Testimony

There was a time when “one” did not imply “zero.”   I’ve tried to imagine life without zeroes, a world of absolute presences and no possibility of absence. Imagine a world of gods without question, of angels that do not leave like dreams and demons that do not hide in the shadows. Of all that is sure and certain, not in hope of resurrection, but simply being.

The Babylonians, Chinese, and Mayans all invented something akin to the zero at various times in history, but it took Buddha to say “There is nothing” and close his index finger and thumb to make a zero. Did he mean to kill the gods?

Bataille tells us that most of what we do is a diversion from the zero, an insistence upon action that will save me from the zero. Can I, sitting here with pen in hand, deny the need for action, for activity, for words to save me from nothing?

Jacob answered the phone. The caller identified herself as God, and sought Jacob’s opinion: Was it true that she had died? If so, she wanted to know, would it have an effect on her time-share booking? She was looking forward to a little time off.

Jacob pondered all these questions in his heart. He looked to the phone and said “ah-nate-sa’ (which means “there is nothing”),

It would be clever to say that Jacob later suffered some nasty denouement for this offense, that God in her anger found a way to punish Jacob, but the truth is, nothing happened, zero.