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Amida Samadhi ~ Dharmavidya

Dharmavidya: 

INSIGHT AND CALM

In the approach known now as Insight Meditation, there are two phases to practise. The first is to calm the mind and the second is “looking into the true nature of things as they are”. In other words, calm is a basis for the development of insight. However, in our Amida Shu approach it is the other way around. First we enquire into the state of things and then we offer whatever insight we have to the Buddhas who then bestow their blessing of great peace. So in this schema, insight leads to calm, which is to say to peace of mind, for which the Japanese term is anjin, sometimes translated as “settled faith”.

SETTLING

Why does faith need to “settle”? Everybody has faith, or, in most cases, a variety of faiths, that are, much of the time, at odds with one another, all vying for priority. When we say “faith” here, for practical purposes we can say we are referring to what one puts one’s faith in. It might be financial security, or a political cause, or a relationship, or one’s own cleverness, or good health, or many other things. A little insight reveals all of these to be unreliable. they are all subject to conditions and therefore impermanent. None of them constitutes a true refuge, yet all of these things exercise us in ways that are stressful and demanding.

OFFERING

Insight, therefore, can be unsettling. Seeing into the state of things is challenging. The only reliable way to overcome this disturbance is to admit one’s own incapacity to solve the riddle. In Buddhism, one does this by offering all of this to the Buddhas. This is our prayer: “Oh Buddha, please receive my offering. Please receive all the complicated puzzle that is my life. I give it all to you in confidence that you alone know how to deploy it within your scheme of harmony.”

We do not have to use these words; in fact, it is better to use one’s own words and to be specific about what it is that one is offering today, which might be sorrow, or joy, or anger, or longing, or confusion, or whatever. It might be arrogance, or generosity, or stubbornness, or chagrin, or achievement, or defeat. It might be tears. It might be the unreliability of body and mind. It will be whatever one has discovered in one’s inner search. The point is that it is not a matter of offering the right thing, but rather of being honest about what one has found within and offering it unconditionally.

PEACE

The Buddhas are always offering their peace. Only when we turn toward them and unburden ourselves do we actually receive it. This receiving can be quite physical. One can feel peace and calm descending through one’s body as one offers one’s offering up.

Such peace comes because when we take refuge in Buddha, or, we can say, in Buddhadharma, all our faith is reunified. The reunification of faith is samadhi. This makes one into a suitable channel for the descent of the Buddha light into the heart. This, therefore, is the Amida Samadhi, the samadhi without measure, without limit, that is completely centred, yet boundless. This is what Honen means by “gazing upon the moon”. Here “the moon” represents the spiritual light. Standing outside on a summer’s night and gazing at the physical moon in the sky gives one a sense of peace. This, therefore, has become a way of representing the act of taking refuge. In taking refuge one gazes upon a moon that is eternally present, outside of time, always shedding its benign light.

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Performing the Ritual of Life ~ Dharmavidya

Dharmavidya:

This article is published by Tricycle magazine at

https://tricycle.org/magazine/dogen-and-enlightenment/

The Secular and the Psychological ~ Dharmavidya

Dharmavidya:

October 4th:

I have just come back from the conference of Buddhist teachers in Europe. While I was there I heard much discussion about secularisation and how it is necessary to secularise the Dharma in order to make it palatable to modern people. Personally, I am resistant to this idea. The Dharma is, in essence, a faith that lodges deeply in people’s hearts and that means that it is a religion. If you take the religion out what you are left with is a variety of techniques and protocols that can be intrinsically useful but is far short of real Dharma.

Furthermore, technique Buddhism takes up a lot of space in people’s already over full lives. A busy person who is hoping to get something from Buddhism does not really need telling that he should do an hour of medtation in addition to all the other things he has to do in a day. He is likely to try it for a short while and then find that it just gets squeezed out by all the other things that are on his agenda, whereas if he were to develop a sense of faith and gratitude for the Dharma, he can carry this with him wherever he goes. He can say a mantra or nembutsu while stopped at the traffic lights. He can gesture towards his heart anytime and this will help him to stay in touch with the wonderful sense of refuge that is the core of Buddhist faith. A less secular and more religious attitude is far more practical, apart from being the real thing.

However, some people say that I am in self-contradiction because I am in favour of a psychological perspective. Thus, for instance, I understand the life of Sidhartha Gotama in personal terms. His mother died giving birth to him. If you read the diary of the great 20th century Chan master Tzu Yun who had a similar beginning to life, you can see clearly how such a circumstance creates a deep personal and existential dilemma for a person and how one of the ways of dealing with this is to try to attone, which Siddhartha did by throwing himself into penitential practices, starving himself, going without sleep and trying all the extremes of yogic discipline. It then happened, when he was at an extremity, that Sujata showed kindness to him and I reason that this touched his heart and must have been a significant element in triggering his “one good night” of enlightenment.

Some Buddhists do not see the Buddha this way. They imagine that he was as he was as a result of many lifetimes of preparation and that he arrived in this life direct from the Tushita Heaven already equipped with all the knowledge that a Buddha needs; that he only went through the motions of being a human being in order to demonstrate the Dharma to us lesser beings. They do not, therefore, see the enlightenment as a result of a personal history or struggle. They think that if you psychologise the Buddha story in the way that I do, then you are effectively secularising the Dharma. I do not agree.

I do not agree because being religious does not imply that one has to be super human. Even if one does come into this life direct from Tushita, one comes as a human. To talk about Jesus’ passion on the cross does not make Christianity any less religious. Jesus and Sidhartha were human, but because they dealt with their humanity in a particular way they became channels for what is more than human to become manifest in the world. They became, as it were, mirrors for the light of the Dharma. In this way they are both fully human and fully divine. They are fully divine in that the ultimate truth shines through them. They are fully human in having the same instincts, the same human equipment, the same struggles that everybody has. They, however, took things further than most people do and, by doing so, revealed the highest truth.

Literally, "psychology" means the study of the soul and we shall not get far with religion if we do not study the soul’s perilous journey, both in the cases of the great exemplars and in our own lives. Furthermore, all psychological problems and obstacles are essentially spiritual and vice versa. To live a life of great compassion the Buddha had to understand the people who came to see him. He had to understand the mentality of Angulimala, the murderer. He had to understand that of Kisagotami who could not believe that her child was dead. He could only help by understanding and tailoring his response to that comprehension. Spiritual work is psychological and psychological work is spiritual. If it is not, it is not the real thing.

So I find a psychological understanding immensely useful and Buddhism provides me with a mass of psychological tools, but this does not mean that I am secularising the Dharma nor that the idea of doing so has any great appeal to me. For me the Dharma answers to my spiritual experience, search and struggle and the fact that the Dharma is full of wonderful psychological insights helps greatly. It all gives shape and expression to my faith and shows how unconditional grace operates in the midst of this conditioned existence.

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Homily To The Dragons ~ Dharmavidya

Dharmavidya writes: 

This morning my homily to the dragons was on kindness. After all, dragons must learn kindness too and they have their special contribution. The Dharma is not just about kind folk remaining kind nor just nice people being nice. Buddha nature will always be so in any case. Nor is it about beings changing their nature, really. It is about wisdom. With wisdom, the nature of the dragon can also perform acts of great kindness.

In fact, it is the dragons who hold the mani stone. They are the ones who protect the jewel. This is the key to enlightenment. Soft grass and tranquil waters are beautiful, but fire also has its place. Therefore, I seek friendship with the dragons. Welcome to my hall! Although they writhe and spit they have the energy of transformation. Innumerable are deluded passions; we vow to transform them all. Here transformation does not involve one gram of loss of substance.

When I do my prostrations, I am being a kind of dragon. My sinuous movement, so much more clumsy than theirs, imitates those who ride on the wind and never touch the ground. I may be touching the earth where they are gliding above it, but, nonetheless I can learn from them. To learn from the other is one of the greatest acts of kindness, is it not?

I hope to meet my dragon friends again tomorrow and we shall continue our mutual education.

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The Truth About Craving ~ Dharmavidya

Dharmavidya writes:

Much of what I have learnt as Buddhism over the years appears to be topsy-turvy. Although there is a well established idea of what Buddhism is, this is deceptive. There is a hidden meaning within Buddhism that most do not see. The hidden meaning is more obvious than the commonly accepted one, but as people are blind, they do not see what is straightforward.

OVERCOMING CRAVING

Take, for instance, the idea of overcoming craving or attaining freedom from craving. This is supposed to be the key to liberation and freedom from suffering. There is, however, a twist in the idea of freedom or liberation. On the one hand, it can mean an absence. Thus freedom from craving could mean that one no longer experiences craving, that it does not arise and is a sensation that has disappeared from one’s repertoire of feelings. On the other hand, freedom from craving could mean that craving continues but that it no longer dominates one’s life. In this understanding, one is liberated in the sense of not being enslaved by it, even though it is still present.

REAL PEOPLE

When I consider actual people, it does seem to me that there are no people who are free in the first sense, though the second sense might be possible. Craving is part and parcel of life. Everybody experiences at least a vague hankering that never goes away for long as well as intense feelings that occur occasionally in particular circumstances. It can be possible to convince oneself that one has banished the second kind, but when the circumstances come along, one still cannot sleep at night.

HANKERING

Regarding the first, more persistent, hankering, each person tends to interpret it differently and mostly people seek remedies for it according to their implicit interpretation. Many do so in sex and in relationships. Others in drugs, medical or non-medical. Then there are those who seek to smother it with food and, in the process, become obese; or, on the other hand, by seeking a kind of purity and extreme control and fall into anorexia.

Against Racism ~ Dharmavidya

Dharmavidya:

Buddha came from a “yellow” race, Jesus and Mahommet from a “brown” one. Nobody who claims to follow in the footsteps of these great teachers should be making decisions based on a hierarchy of skin colour. They didn’t. They gave teachings that were universal and gave openly to all.

That there are powerful countries in the world that seem substantially to be basing their policies on racist considerations is appalling and a blight upon our world. The most powerful should be giving a good example, not using rhetoric that encourages fascistic ideas or implies there is a master race or that land belong to people only of one colour. Countries whose history has been built on slavery and genocide should atone and become deeply conscious of their past sin so that the ancestors may be redeemed.

That the Brexit decision seems to have been in part based on a rejection of East European people is pathetic, especially so since it was Britain that campaigned strongly for the countries of East Europe to be included in the European Union. That we hear that antisemitism is on the rise in UK and in certain political groupings is deeply disappointing and makes one feel dismayed. Are we going backwards?

On Not Being In Control ~ Dharmavidya

Dharmavidya writes:

BUDDHIST PSYCHOLOGY

On the one hand, Buddhism is a broad church or umbrella under which many diverse ideas and methods can cluster. Currently there are many popular methods that have some Buddhist connection. Thus we have mindfulness, qi gong, and reiki, and there are a range of derivatives such as mindfulness-based stress reduction or other supposedly mindfulness-based approaches. Also Buddhist centres are often hosts to yoga, martial arts, Tai Chi and other groups. We have now also reached the point where almost anything can be included under the mindfulness rubric - after all, minds are always involved - mindful gardening, mindful eating, whatever. This is not very different from how, some years ago, just about anything was being labelled person-centred since, similarly, persons were always in there somewhere.

When we reflect upon this scene, we can see that some things are closer to actual Buddhism than others. So whereas it is true that Buddhism is broad and welcoming, it is also possible to discern that there is a rigorous core Buddhist teaching that is absent from most of the methods mentioned in the first paragraph. If one wants genuine Buddhist psychology it must be based on Buddhism, which is to say that its theory and aims must be Buddhist, and Buddhism is a different paradigm from popular Western psychology. Many of the people operating in this field are completely unaware of this.

A CONVERSATION

The other day I was in a conversation with a person that I respect who has many years of experience in Western psychology. We were talking about a medical problem that I have. He was telling me how to keep exact records of what happens - when there is pain, when other symptoms occur, what I eat, when I rest, and so on. All these things can certainly be interesting. Then he said, so if you do this you can get to be in control, so that, in relation to the illness, you control it rather than it controlling you. This was said with some passion and obvious conviction and with a sense that this was the reason for all that had gone before. I thought about this for a moment and asked, “Why would I want to be in control? I have never wanted to be in control.” The conversation continued but this small interaction stood out as the pivot that revealed our difference of thinking. If I collect all the data, it will possibly enable me to see the nature of the natural phenomenon that currently has a grip on my body, and doing so might be very interesting, but in Buddhism body and mind fall away. In Buddhism we learn, "This is not me, this is not mine, this is not myself." This or that process is passing through. I cannot be in control of birth and death, loss or fortune. Furthermore, if I am always striving to be in control, then when inevitable things happen I am likely to experience them as a frightening and as defeat, rather than meeting them with peace in my heart.

THE BIG OBSTACLE

Buddhism is not about self and its power or enhancement. It is not about making the self stronger. It is not about developing a self before you let it go. It is not about self-esteem, self-love, self-anything. The Buddha regarded the conceit of self as the biggest obstacle to spiritual emancipation. It is very difficult for a Western educated person to take this teaching in. We Westerners have been, in the past half century especially, saturated by the idea that wellbeing is all about looking after oneself and one's own wellbeing is all important. We need time for oneself. We need to love ourselves. We even feel guilty when we do not love ourselves enough. Many forms of malaise are nowadays attributed to failure to love oneself sufficiently or in the right way. From a Buddhist perspective, this is all nonsense.

How to Choose a Teacher ~ Dharmavidya

Dharmavidya writes:

I am often asked how one can select a good teacher. How is one to know if somebody is genuine or not? This seems to be a big worry for some people. They are wary of being tricked. For Western people to give up even a smidgen of their independence is such a big thing they may want cast iron guarantees in advance. Unfortunately there are none.  Of course, some wariness is wise, as not all who present themselves as spiritual guides are up to the job and not everything wrapped in a fancy robe is the genuine article.

Some teachers are erudite, some are illiterate. Some teachers have many disciples, some have only one or two. Some are monks or nuns and some are not. None of these features tell you whether the person has got the Dharma or not. We can think of historical examples. Hui Neng, one of the greatest Ch’an teachers in history was illiterate. Honen and Dogen were both extremely erudite. Bodhidharma, of great fame, is said to have only had four disciples and Jesus Christ only had twelves - and one of those no good.

Some things can give you some clues. If the teacher only really regurgitates the teachings of others, then one might wonder. There is much to be said for loyalty to one’s own teacher, and it may well be that one’s teacher often says, “Well my teacher would have said…” and there is nothing wrong with that, but it is important that the person you choose as a teacher does actually inhabit the teaching, not merely deliver it. The same applies in the case of people who deliver the teaching in a highly intellectual or philosophical way - doing so is not wrong in itself and might be brilliant, but one needs to be able to see how the teacher could answer the question, “And how does this apply to you?” There are plenty of people around who can speak endlessly about rarefied spiritual states that they actually have no first hand experience of and such a person does not make a good teacher in the spiritual sense of the term. A Spiritual guide is not like a school teacher or university lecturer.

 

Anjin Makes The Path Easier ~ Dharmavidya

Dharmavidya:

In Buddhism there is a theory of conditioning. All conditioned things are impermanent. Buddhism is a religion that is about transcending impermanence and reaching the Deathless - nirvana. However, by definition, one cannot reach the unconditioned simply by changing conditions.

A fire depends upon a supply of fuel - let’s say firewood - to keep going. Without the firewood the fire could not be. However, the firewood is not dependent on the fire. Without the fire the firewood would continue to be. Most conditional relations are of this one way, non-reciprocal nature.

The firewood instance is very relevant to Buddhist thinking. Fire represents passion. For a person’s passions to keep burning, there has to be a supply of fuel. We feed the fires of passion. If we cease to feed them, either by not having the fuel or by reconstruing what had previously been fuel so as to see it in a new light, then the passion cannot be.

We become Buddhist by taking refuge. Most Western people have only a hazy idea of what taking refuge is. Often they see it as a formality that must be passed in order to get on to the real stuff which they take to be meditation. However, refuge is Buddhism. To go deeper into Buddhism is to go deeper into refuge. Meditation is not Buddhist unless it is itself a deepening of refuge. When we realise the real meaning of refuge, our perception of the world changes. We can say that everything becomes refuge, or, in the style of Pureland, nembutsu. Washing the dishes is nembutsu. Sweeping the floor is nembutsu. Welcoming guests is nembutsu. These things are no longer mundane chores, they have become holy acts. As they have become precious treasures, they are no longer capable of feeding the fires of passion. Thus arises a deep inner peace.

We can note that in this condition of anjin, we are still subject to conditions, but we perceive those conditions in a new way since our faith transcends ordinary human passion. This awakening of anjin is an important step on the Buddhist path. It makes everything else so much easier. We might not have yet entered nirvana; we might still be foolish beings with all kinds of errors and foibles, but we have a faith that is a precious jewel that will keep us going on the path and help us overcome many obstacles.

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Some Points about Self Power and Other Power

Dharmavidya writes:

SELF POWER LEADS TO OTHER POWER

The objective of self power is to extinguish itself. Self power Buddhism is a kind of extinction Buddhism: by the power of the self to bring the self to a zero condition. When the self is zero, all that is not self (i.e. other) is infinite. Thus, in principle, success on the self power path would lead to other power and this is often the case in the lives of actual saints. Many of the great Pureland masters began on a self power path.

EASY AT THE BEGINNING

Self power practice is easy at the beginning, but becomes more and more difficult as one proceeds, tending to infinite difficulty as one approaches the goal. Thus self power ultimately leads to a crucially important experience of despair. On the other side of this despair one discovers other power.

Self power is relatively easy at the beginning because it is possible to train oneself and to give up unwholesome habits. Thus one sees some results. One also learns to bring some balance and stability to the mind and this is useful in a host of situations, keeping panic at bay. One learns some wisdom and it stands one in good stead. All of these gains and benefits are, however, essentially, worldly and still serve to support the self-ego. In a way the ego is polishing itself rather than diminishing itself. The practitioner is encouraged by seeing benefits but, if he or she has a sincere spiritual intention, feels an unease that they are perfecting self rather than getting beyond it. Others simply settle for a package of practices that benefit worldly life.

EGO STRIKES BACK

Furthermore, the ego strikes back in subtle ways, ways that we generally call spiritual materialism. One becomes attached to and proud of one’s practice - the practice that supposedly is about giving up attachment and pride. Issues and patterns of compulsiveness that one thinks one has dealt with reemerge in new guise. This may be experienced as a great struggle with temptation, or, more commonly, the practitioner starts to run on two tracks, taking time out from practice for indulgence.

When one is relying upon oneself to overcome oneself things get increasingly difficult as one proceeds. In order to get free of the self there has to be a fulcrum point outside the self. To break the domination of the self complex it is no good relying upon constructions derivative from it. One needs something other. This is why the great religions turn us to the spiritual world that is beyond.

IS ONE'S OTHER TRULY OTHER?

Whether one’s conception of other power is called God or Buddha or Tao does not matter very much. It has been there all along, will always be and does not mind what you call it.

The challenge here is whether or not one’s other power is truly other and truly pure. The ego will play its tricks on the other power path too, trying always to bring the other power under its control.

For the spiritual practitioner this can take the form of the belief that if one adopts this or that practice one can thereby force other power to give one what one wants. This is manipulation - the path of magic. On both self power and other power paths, the adage “Don’t manipulate” has widespread application.

To fully accept that other power is OTHER defeats the ego. This is a matter of entrustment or refuge. “I entrust myself to the Buddha; I entrust myself to the Dharma. May they do with me as they will.”

NATURALLY

In the far eastern understanding, this is all closely associated with the idea of naturalness, that the Taoists call wei wu wei, which we could translate as “acting without posing”: to respond to the miscellaneous occurrences of daily life in a manner that involves spontaneously acting but not putting on an act. In other words, we are back to not manipulating again.

The truth will set us free. This is true in a variety of ways. Self is illusion and distortion. To live without that distortion is simply to respond to the objective situation, which is to act naturally. To do so is to move within the infinite world of otherness whose parameters are beyond one’s comprehension: a life of awe.

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