about zen
bookstore
members area
zen journal
community service
links
MKZC
P.O. Box 270494
Dallas TX 75227-0494
Tel: 214-388-1122
zenhelp@mkzc.org
Zen Journal
Volume 12, Number 1 Winter 2007Articles
The Four Bodhisattva Vows
Zen and Hospice
Practicing Zen in Iraq
Our Undivided Way
The Grail Legend Part 1
Tale of Two Seekers
From the Center
Special Events & Occasions
The Four Bodhisattva Vows (Part 3)
By Ruben L.F. Habito
This is the third part of a continuing series on the Four Vows of the Bodhisattva, which we all recite frequently at the closing of our group sitting at the zendo. The first part addressed the notion of “Bodhisattva,” while the second explored the implications of living the first bodhisattva vow, “Sentient beings are numberless: I vow to free them.” (See the last two issues of this journal.)
The second vow proclaims:
Delusions are inexhaustible: I vow to end them.
The first response that comes up in hearing this is: “Yeah, right.”
Delusions are basically obstacles (collectively called kleśa in Sanskrit, bonnō in Japanese) to awakening. And needless to say, they are of different sorts, and keep coming up like wild grass all over the place. Even if we think we’ve gotten this or that one out of the way, pretty soon another one pops its head up.
The term bonnō is a Chinese-Japanese compound with two characters, both of which have the element of “fire” on the left-hand side. There is the image of burning, consuming fire, indicating turmoil, struggle, suffering. In the Buddhist tradition, the term “nirvana” refers to a state or condition likened to one wherein fire has been extinguished. Nirvana is thus a “place of peace” where all of fires of delusive passions have been quenched.
This is what we are saying when we recite the second vow: “Delusive passions and obstacles to awakening keep coming up, and are all over the place. I resolve to overcome them all, to arrive at that place of peace, where all of these have been extinguished.” The third of the Four Ennobling Truths, hallmarks of the Buddhist tradition, is an affirmation that “there is such a place of peace wherein all of those delusive passions have been extinguished,” and this offers us the assurance that our resolve is on firm ground.
The Lotus Sutra, a widely read and influential Mahayana scriptural text, describes our human condition as like children who are trapped inside a burning house, yet continuing to be preoccupied with our little toys and childish games, are still totally oblivious of the impending danger to our own lives. The Buddha is portrayed in this sutra as like a loving Father who keeps trying to call his own children’s attention to the danger, and takes all kinds of efforts and skillful means to get them out of that burning house. He coaxes them and says, “Come of the house and see what I have here for you!”
The Buddha offers an invitation to all of us to get out of that burning house of our own self-centered and miserable lives, saying to each of us, “Come, taste and see.” In other words, “come with me to the place wherein all of fires delusive passions have been extinguished, and taste and see how it is to live in that place of peace, wherein arise wisdom and compassion.”
We may recall an underlying theme of the Buddhist tradition as it developed through the centuries: “All sentient beings are endowed with Buddha nature.” This affirms that all living beings are children of the Awakened One, and that each and every one is endowed with the capacity to be fully awakened and to live accordingly. “To be awakened” is another way of expressing one’s arrival at that place where all delusive passions have been extinguished, that place of peace upon which a life of wisdom and compassion is grounded.
Now, putting things this way might give a misleading impression that one who has “attained enlightenment” has become a perfected saint all at once, some kind of angelic being with no more delusive passions, no more angry feelings, no more psychological issues, no more insomnia, no more irritations, no more sexual urges. Here it is helpful to be reminded of a Zen saying (taken from the Miscellaneous Koans used in our Sanbo Kyodan tradition) ---“Even if you have realized the Way and attained enlightenment, you have just put your head through the gate.” In other words, the experience of enlightenment, while it may be decisive in transforming one’s way of looking at the world and of oneself in relation to the rest of the world, is but an initial glimpse of a breathtaking vista that opens out to wider and wider horizons and deeper and deeper dimensions. It launches us into a venture that lasts throughout the course of our entire life on earth.
Another koan also comes to mind, which can give us a helpful angle on how the Zen tradition understands an “enlightened person.” The koan goes, in translation, “How is it that in the perfectly accomplished saints, the crimson lines never cease to flow?”
In our Sanbo Kyodan Zen training program, we take these “crimson lines” to be the line of tears flowing out of an enlightened person’s eyes. The “perfectly accomplished saints” are those who have undergone assiduous and sustained practice for years and years, and who have attained the wisdom of awakening. The koan offers a glimpse of “the summit” of attainment, which consists in the full activation of a heart of compassion as an outflow of the wisdom of awakening. It is a heart that embraces all living beings in the universe, shedding tears of compassion, bearing in oneself the pain of all beings, and seeking to alleviate the sufferings of all in their manifold forms. It is the heart and mind of one who has become, to echo the Apostle Paul in the New Testament, “all things to all people (1 Corinthians 9: 20-22).” It is a heart and mind that takes on the sorrows and pains, as well as the joys and hopes of everyone in the world as one’s very own, so that one might be able to offer oneself toward the healing of the world’s pain and suffering.
However, the Chinese compound translated as “crimson lines” can also be rendered in another way, that is, as “red thread.” In East Asian literary contexts, “red thread” is taken to mean the sexual urge, sexual passions, or sexuality in general. The koan then can be read from a different angle and in entirely different light: “How is it that in the perfectly accomplished saints, the red thread is not cut?” In short, “in those who have attained the summit of wisdom and compassion, how is it that sexual passions are not extinguished?”
We must caution first that read in this way, the koan can easily be misunderstood as condoning sexual escapades in advanced practitioners and Zen teachers. This way of thinking, related to this reading of this koan, can be, and unfortunately has been, used as a rationalization for sexual misbehavior of those regarded as Zen adepts or tantric masters.
There is a book by Buddhist scholar Bernard Faure, entitled The Red Thread, which gives an account of how Buddhism has dealt with issues of sexuality in its 2500-year history. Anyway, to return to our point, the question of the koan is this: how is it that a perfectly enlightened person still has not extinguished that part of his or her humanity, namely, one’s sexual urges?
Here perhaps a look at the Tibetan tradition might help us understand how those delusive passions are addressed in spiritual practice. In the Tantric practices developed by Tibetan masters, delusive passions are taken and used as antidotes to the poison wrought by the delusive passions themselves. Practitioners are enjoined to turn them around, into skillful means that can be vehicles of compassion. An analogy from the medical world would be the vaccine. A vaccine is something that comes from living organisms, like bacteria that cause a disease which could kill you. But if you get a vaccination, you receive an amount of that kind of bacteria in a way that would activate your bodily immune system, and defend your body against any further assault by those bacteria. There is something marvelous and mysterious about this human body of ours, indeed, that enables these things to happen without our being aware of it! In any case, this wondrous way of our human body provides us with an example how something poisonous in itself can become an antidote against the same poison.
To translate the above example to our present concern, delusive passions, summarized in the three poisons of greed or lust, anger or ill-will, and self-centered ignorance, are to be extinguished, not by being avoided or suppressed or repressed, but by being transformed and transcended. Another way of putting it is this: passion is turned into com-passion. For more details on how this is done, you will have to turn to a Tibetan master, as our Zen tradition as such does not provide much guidance on this. There is however some kind of “guidance” for us, as we consider the negative impact brought about by the series of unfortunate events associated with sexual misbehavior by some reputed Zen teachers. Michael Downing’s book entitled Shoes Outside the Door, which many of you are familiar with, is one account of such negative impact, and should serve as a caution for us all.
Those delusive passions that we want to cut right at the root (“I vow to end them”) can be divided into three categories: greed, anger, and self-centered ignorance. Greed comes from a sense of anxiety and insecurity, that “I don’t have enough,” that is, enough to make me feel OK with myself. So, I am obsessed by the need to fill myself with all kinds of stuff, so I can say “I am better than you,” or “I have more than you,” and feel good about myself in this comparison.
Greed is not necessarily to be conceived of as “wanting everything in sight,” though there are some individuals who may have that of megalomaniac kind of greed. Greed works in each of us in very subtle ways, more subtle than we can detect perhaps. That sense of wanting something in particular, because “if I don’t have this, then I am not OK,” can gnaw at us and propel us to act in greedy or needy kinds of ways. For example, a student may think, “I need to get an A in all my courses (or even just in this one particular course), for unless I do, I’m nothing.” This thought itself may work in a positive way, inspiring the student to study hard and do well in class to get that desired A. However, underlying this, there’s the good old ego, the deluded self, wanting to be affirmed by others and wanting to reap the results of its actions. Greed comes from an insecure ego that has not realized its grounding in the True Self, that which is of infinite value and worth just as it is. This deluded ego of mine thinks that my value and worth would come from things like recognition by others, or by having certain possessions, and so on.
Greed is that tendency for us to want to expand the deluded ego by accumulating things, absorbing or taking in things, gorging in “more and more stuff,” whether material, psychological, or even spiritual, into our little insecure selves. From the standpoint of our Zen practice, the way to extinguish this poison then, in the different forms that it manifests itself, is to take the opposite direction---to empty oneself. Concretely, we are advised to just breathe in and breathe out, and in the process, to let go and empty ourselves of anything that we tend to cling to. Just let yourself continue to practice this way of emptying, and at some point, you may be able to “see through” that which is behind your delusion, namely, that unsatisfied ego that craves this and that. Seeing through things in clarity can be a very liberating moment, enabling us to celebrate “what is,” independently of what one has or doesn’t have.
Such a glimpse can be described in different ways. It is to really “have no-thing” and “be no-thing,” and dwell in that realm of no-thingness, and thereby enter the gateway to a realm of infinite joy and infinite freedom. The simple awareness of just breathing in, and breathing out, is an experience of “just be-ing,” and one’s heart is filled with peace and joy and gratitude. If you ask, “how can I have that experience,” then it is that deluded ego again wanting “something” to fill itself. Just let go of that too, and just breathe in and breathe out, and taste that stillness that will open you to that infinite horizon. That infinite horizon is our True Self making itself manifest, right there, as we breathe in and out.
Once we are able to glimpse our True Self, that is, as we are opened to a glimpse of that infinite horizon, and realize that all that “I am” is a manifestation and embodiment of that infinite realm, we realize there’s nothing we lack at all. Just the fact that “I am,” is itself of infinite worth and value, as I am. This glimpse gives me true freedom and unfathomable joy, in “just be-ing as I am.” This is an experience that can really free us from the subtle and not-so-subtle manifestations of greed in our lives.
The second of the three poisons is ill-will, also manifested as anger. Anger comes from not getting what I want, not getting it “my way.” It comes also from the thought that somebody has slighted me or has thought ill of me, or treated me less than I deserve, and so forth. So what comes up is the desire, one way or another, is to “get even” with that person with whom we are at odds.
Anger can provoke an immediate response, like a biting retort, a resentful, spiteful, or sarcastic word or gesture. In a fit of anger, we tend to say things that we would regret having said at all once we get back to a serene state of mind. Anger makes us tend to lose control of our own words and thoughts and actions, and make us want to just retaliate against that one that has become the object of our anger.
Anger can also cause us to behave in destructive ways, not just as a momentary reaction to something that causes a flare-up in us, but over a protracted period of time. Sustained anger in this way can be described as ill-will (the opposite of “good will”). There are certain sets of actions that we can be led to doing, coming out of a deep-seated resentment, not realizing their destructive impact on others as well as on ourselves. I may be angry at the world, because I may have been deprived of the nurture and love I needed as a child growing up, and so I am led to resent my parents, or we those who did this or that to us since our childhood days, and so forth. So we may be carrying a chip on our shoulder all the time, and relate to the whole world, and everyone we meet, in this way.
As we look at these things that make us behave in destructive or resentful ways, we come to realize that ill will and its manifestations in anger are all rooted in a sense of “the other” as threatening or impinging upon my deluded and insecure egoic self. So I want either to fight back against that other, or get that other out of my way and out of anybody’s way. Anger thus breeds the conflict and violence that we have so much of in this world of ours. And it only continues to further reinforce the cycle of violence that is so much part of this world. In thinking and acting in ways that are motivated by anger, I just make myself unhappy, as I make everyone else unhappy. The fires continue to burn and spread as we think and act in these ways.
A practical way of addressing this second poison is through the practice of metta, or lovingkindness. In this practice, one takes on the mind of one who embraces all sentient beings in one’s own mind and heart, “as a mother would protect her only child at the risk of her own life,” (a passage from the Metta Sutta, or Scripture on Lovingkindness). One way of actualizing this practice is by simply repeating in one’s own mind, during sitting, or on different occasions whenever possible, the invocation, “May all beings be happy!” Taking on such a mind of lovingkindness toward all beings is a manifestation of “good will,” which thus overturns any “ill-will” in one’s own being. One may practice this in a way that is directed toward particular persons, such as the very ones who tend to provoke one to anger or to irritation. In doing so, one is responding to such persons not in a reactive way based on anger and ill-will, but in a way that extinguishes that poison, and instead cultivates good will and lovingkindness.
The Tibetan tradition, incidentally, includes forms of practice for overcoming anger and ill-will, and among these, the practice of tonglen can be a powerful way of unleashing the compassion latent in our true nature, and of contributing toward the healing of pain and suffering in the world. Here the practitioner visualizes the particular manifestations of pain or suffering being undergone by certain individuals, and as one breathes in, takes these upon oneself and offers oneself to bear these in one’s own being instead. As one breathes out, breathes out compassion and healing and the alleviation of pain in the direction of the individuals on behalf of whom one practices tonglen.
Moving on to the third poison, both the first and the second, greed and ill-will/anger, issue forth from this, namely self-centered ignorance. This is a state of mind whereby we do not understand the true state of affairs, we do not see “things as they are.” This is because our view of things is obstructed by a deluded egoic self, that sees others as entities separate from itself, and harbors a need to assert itself against those “others” whom it sees as threats to its existence. In other words, I am not able to clearly see a key feature of who I am, namely, that I am connected, right at the core of my being, with everyone and everything else that exists. We tend to think of ourselves as separate entities, distinct centers of selfhood (egos), living in this world trying to affirm our own existence, trying to prove our sense of worth as someone “better than those others,” and so on. This then generates greed and anger/ill-will, as described above, and keeps us in the cycle of unhappiness and dissatisfaction and suffering that is so much a part of our daily fare in this world.
Once we see that these two, greed and anger/ill-will, are rooted in our ignorance of who we truly are, namely, as connected and intimately bound in destiny with one another, then we have a key, a master key toward cutting the source of that greed and anger. This key, in other words, is in overturning that self-centered ignorance, and shedding light on “the true nature of things,” coming to see things “as they really are.”
As we open our eyes to that reality that we are all interconnected, that my True Self embraces each and everyone in this universe, I also awaken to the fact that each and every sentient being in this universe is constitutive of who I am. I will thus be able relate to each and everyone precisely in a way that enables me to feel the pain, share in the joy. I then come to realize that there is really nothing that I lack, and nothing that I need to regard as a threat to me, because that which I thought of as an Other is really simply an aspect of my own True Self. Thus I am able to relate with everyone based on the wisdom of seeing things as they really are, and grounded in compassion that is an outflow of this wisdom.
So when we say “Delusions are inexhaustible. I vow to end them,” we are not just expressing an impossible dream, or taking a foolhardy vow to undertake some kind of heroic action. No, we are simply expressing our deepest aspiration to get to the heart of the matter, to uncover that ignorance that causes all of those delusions, and to enable ourselves to live free of such ignorance and delusion, in a life characterized by peace within myself, peace with the entire universe, suffused with wisdom and compassion.
Once my true eye is opened, I am able to see that the “I, me, mine” which governs my thoughts and actions is itself only a delusive thought, and that at the core, it is empty. Once I truly “see” this dimension of who I am, I also am able to see that all the myriad things in the universe are likewise manifestations of that realm of Emptiness. Such a view of this realm of Emptiness cuts through the barrier between myself and everything else in the universe, and this barrier of separation having been set aside, my way of behaving and relating to everyone will be transformed accordingly.
We may be able to glimpse that dimension of our True Self as empty in certain moments of lucidity, as we sit in silence and come to a point of transparency. We will sooner or later come to a certain breakthrough in our practice, seeing directly, and exclaim, “Aha, yes, now I come to realize that this is what I have been all along.” Now I know, by direct experience, that I am indeed everyone, and everyone is me.
But then as the song goes, “old habits die hard.” So as we go on in our daily mode of consciousness in our ordinary life, what we may have glimpsed for a brief shining moment in our spiritual practice may again become covered with clouds. So there again we go back to our old habits of living under the control of the self-centered ego. We thus need to keep shaking off the dust that comes in without ceasing, as our egoic self keeps asserting itself and tends to mark us off from everyone else. This is why returning to this practice of silence, just breathing in and breathing out, and just finding our home in that silence, is so crucial for us.
To summarize, the vow of “putting an end to our delusions” involves not so much a great act of the will to “change my behavior once and for all,” and thus “arrive at perfection and sainthood.” Rather, it is an expression of intent to continue my spiritual practice in a way that would lead me to awakening. The moment of awakening, which can range in intensity from a slight glimpse to an explosive opening with the power of a lightning-bolt, is a direct experience of that realm of Emptiness that leaves no room for doubt as to “who I am.” Such an experience inevitably transforms my view of things, my view of who I am and what everyone else is, breath by breath, step by step, one day at a time.
To awaken to my True Self is to recognize that this “I, me, mine” that governs my thoughts and actions, which itself at the root of my delusions, is actually empty. In seeing this “I, me, mine” as empty, I also am able to see that all myriad forms in the universe are likewise empty. And in experiencing Emptiness, I am now able to see each everyone as my kin, truly, not just because somebody told me or because it sounds very nice as a philosophical principle or religious ideal, but as I experience that fact right here, as I sit in silence, or in some unguarded moment when I least expect it, the source of all delusive passions, namely that self-centered ignorance, is cut at its root. This self-centered ignorance, crystallized in that thought of “I, me, mine,” which leads me to behave in greedy or lustful, angry or hateful ways toward those who are actually my own kin, and who are part and parcel of my own being, and thereby bring about my own unhappiness as well as causing unhappiness and suffering in others, becomes like mist that vanishes in the warm sunlight shining in the Empty Sky.
This is the way our shared practice of sitting in silence empowers us to actualize that vow, “Delusions are inexhaustible, I vow to end them.” The Chinese-Japanese character used here to express this vow it “to cut.” In reciting this vow, I am resolving to cut the source of these delusive passions at the root. This refers to that self-centered ignorance, the “I, me, mine” that makes me think that I am a being separate from others, that sets my egoic little self apart from or as against everyone else. In cutting that root of all delusions, I come to realize that there is no separation at all, and that each one’s welfare is my own. The well being of all sentient beings is what my own well being consists in. Thus, I am able dedicate my whole life towards the realization of the well-being of all, and will thus be able to order my priorities and my goals based on that perspective.
There is more to be said but I’d like to stop here and just invite everyone again to come back to that silence and stillness in sitting practice. There, in that stillness, truly, we can find all that we are looking for from the depths of our hearts. All of the issues that we may be struggling with in our daily life can be seen in a different light, as we look at them from the standpoint of that stillness. Let these particular elements of our life be seen in greater and greater transparency, from within that stillness. That stillness will open out to that infinite horizon of WHO I TRULY AM. For those whose practice is just sitting (shikan taza), let yourself “just sit,” and let this infinite horizon manifest itself each moment. For those on koan practice, just let this thought of “I, me, mine” dissolve into your koan, and this infinite horizon will open up.
Let us continue our walking together in this path, simply coming home each time to the breath in each here and now, and realizing that everything we have and everything we need is being offered there to us, if we would only look and partake of it. Come, taste and see!
Click the links below to access the journals as printable pdf files..
Zen Journal 2007 (1.2 Mb)
Zen Journal Winter 2004 (2.7 Mb)