everything is illuminated

A quick recommendation. I found a jewel tonight wandering from website to website: it is called Essential Buddhadharma (in under 10 minutes), a gardland of essential points for students, by His Holiness Dudjom Rinpoche. As the very website warns, “this title may appear a bit contrived”, but after less than 10 minutes you should conclude it isn’t at all. Those were undoubtedly the best 10 minutes I spent the whole day.

I believe that Zen, more than any other buddhist sect, makes a point of considering things such as preparing or eating meals, cleaning, etc. as very important parts of our practice. Here I would like to leave a few words on cooking in a Zen monastery or temple, which has come to be known as shōjin ryōri (精进料理) in Japan and zhāi cài (齋菜) in China and to which I have been recently introduced, by way of an afternoon class with a Zen monkess (forgive the neologism) this last saturday.

The word “shōjin” means a devotion to pursue a perfect state of mind banishing worldly thoughts and making efforts to keep striving for limitless perfection at each stage. That is to say, to prepare shōjin ryōri itself is a part of practice of Buddhism. “Shōjin” is the Japanese translation for the Sanskrit word “virya”, the fourth of the six paramitas, which means virility, vigor, strength or energy. “Ryōri” means simply cuisine.

Shōjin ryōri was brought to Japan through China and Korea along with the introduction of Buddhism. It has settled into the Japanese way of cooking, different from China or Korea, and developed its own unique cooking style with practical and refined skills. It is commonly said that Japanese cooking differs from Western cooking in the basis of “cooking with water” against “cooking with fat”. This was one of the many influences of shōjin ryōri on what is known today as Japanese cuisine.

All vegetables, except the five strong-smelling herbs of the lily family, are usable when they are in season, products of the regular cycle of the four seasons: in the spring, the new sprouts that shoot out; in the summer, the well grown green leaves; in the autumn, fruit and nuts; and in the winter, roots that warm the body from the core. In this manner, without going against seasonal ingredients, the menu is naturally made out.

Also used are edible wild plants such as warabi (fiddlehead fern), zenmai (flowering fern), tara - no - me (angelica buds) and kogomi (ostrich fern). Many kinds of edible roots and mushrooms are also prized. Beans are rich in variety (boiled beans are always stocked by temple kitchens). All these natural delicacies, including fruits and nuts, are ingredients that home vegetarian cooking shares with shōjin ryōri. The techniques of cooking, processing and preserving these ingredients could not have enriched ordinary household meals without the wisdom and guidance of the cooking priests of Zen and other Buddhist temples. In that sense, the history of the development of shōjin ryōri is also an integral part of the cultural history of Japanese people.

Typical of the processed ingredients used in Japanese vegetarian cooking are tofu and a bura — age (fried soybean curd). Numerous others include goma - dofu (sesame tofu), koya - dofu (dried tofu), yuba (soy milk film), fu (wheat gluten; fresh, dry, and fried fu), natto (fermented soy beans) and konnyaku (cakes or strips made from the starch of a rum root). Among the seaweed products used for vegetarian cooking are konbu kelp, wakame seagreens, arame, hijiki and the more famous nori.

Many practitioners of Mahāyāna also avoid eating strong-smelling plants such as onion, garlic, chives, shallot, and leek, and refer to these as wu hun (五葷, ‘Five Spices’). One theory behind this dietary restriction is that these vegetables have strong flavours which are supposed to excite the senses and, thus, represent a burden to Buddhists seeking to control their desires. Another theory is that these are all root crops, and harvesting them requires killing organisms in the soil. The latter explanation is accepted in the Jain religion that sprung up in India at the same time as Buddhism, and quite possibly influenced its practices.

In Buddhism, “retribution” is firmly believed and because of the conception that all things of nature have life, shōjin ryōri forbids eating meat and considers a virtue to make the most of vegetables and beans. The present-day perception of shōjin ryōri, in general, refers to a vegetarian diet, but this is only a narrow interpretation.

Up to the early twentieth century, the Japanese dietary habits have been unified with nature, and both vegetables and animal meat have been included in their daily food. However, the more the western style of cooking got popular in modern times, the more the idea of shōjin ryōri lost popularity. Nevertheless, Japanese cooking gets worldwide attention these days in terms of offering a healthy and well-balanced meal, and it partly ows shōjin ryōri for that.

Fujii Sotetsu, a Zen monk from the Heirin-ji temple, wrote about shōjin ryōri:

In the 13th century, Zen monks from China popularized a form of vegetarian cuisine in Japan known as shōjin ryōri. The practice of preparing delicious meals with seasonable vegetables and wild plants from the mountains, served with seaweed, fresh soybean curd (or dehydrated forms), and seeds (such as walnuts, pine nuts and peanuts) is a tradition that is still alive at Zen temples today. Stemming from the Buddhist precept that it is wrong to kill animals, including fish, shōjin ryōri is completely vegetarian. Buddhism prescribes partaking of a simple diet every day and abstaining from drinking alcohol or eating meat. Such a lifestyle, together with physical training, clears the mind of confusion and leads to understanding.

Even in preparing shōjin ryōri batter, we do not use unfertilized eggs as a binder; we use yam instead, which works quite well. Shōjin ryōri cooks also make sure not to waste any of the ingredients. We even sauté the greens and peelings of carrots and daikon radish, then simmer them in a little water, or we add them to soup. If there are any byproducts remaining after this, we mix them with leftover rice to make porridge for the evening. Followers of Zen try to eat all of the food prepared during the day, and throw nothing edible away. This “recycling” is easy if one minimizes seasoning, letting the natural flavor of the ingredients define the taste.

The Zen aversion to waste extends to dishware, too. When Japanese people eat deep-fried tempura, they use extra dishes for the dipping sauce. Followers of Zen, on the other hand, feel that sauces are extravagant to prepare and tend to drip and make a mess anyway, so we forgo using dipping sauces altogether. In fact, sauces are unnecessary with a little salt in the batter, or if one simmers vegetables in miso-flavored water before deep-frying them.

People ask me if I can maintain a balanced diet while eating only vegetables; the answer, of course, is yes. I have been following Buddhist training and eating only vegetarian meals for more than 50 years, yet have never even caught a cold in all that time. Life at a Zen temple is strict and demands much physical labor, but I can take it in stride because I have the power of seasonal vegetables on my side. Of course, shōjin ryōri is part of the Buddhist temple regimen, yet it is also my way of maintaining a sound mind and body.

Shōjin ryōri as it has been handed down and treasured in Japan today may be credited to a great extent to the discipline of Eisai, the founder of Zen in Japan. Eisai emphasized the first of the five precepts of Buddhism — to refrain from harming living creatures — a proscription that had been observed generally but not always applied to animals intended for slaughter. This resulted in a grand tradition of cooking and dining for religious enlightenment.

Eating in the shōjin style means much more than just eating. Food is approached as a vehicle, a part of a much larger daily practice that is the path to nirvana. The last of the five reflections uttered before eating — “I accept this food so that I will fulfill my task of enlightenment” — makes it clear that dinnertime is for more than just partaking of physical sustenance. It is an opportunity to reflect on how the food was prepared and brought to the table and whether one is truly worthy and deserving of accepting it.

Kanginshū (閑吟集), translated sometimes as “Songs for Leisure Hours,” is a Muromachi (period from 1336 to 1573) collection of poetry consisting of ko-uta, which were songs from the performing arts of the late medieval Japan. The compilation was made anonymously in 1518, but is believed to have been made by Sōchō, a renga (“linked-verse”) poet and chronicler of that period.

The collection comprises 311 songs of various forms, styles, and origins. Despite these differences, the anonymous compiler succeeded in creating a work of great coherence and consistency, through the use of subtle and varied - often playful - principles to link each poem to the next. In it, the shakuhachi flute plays an important, and even intimate part. In the preface, the compiler says “The shakuhachi is my friend. . .”

Though the collection has never been fully translated (and thus is widely unknown in the West), some of its songs appear in Christopher Yohmei Blasdel and Yūkō Kamisangō’s book titled ‘The Shakuhachi: A Manual for Learning’, published in 1988. Here are three songs that have the shakuhachi as its theme:

21 Dengaku
I take out the shakuhachi from beneath my sleeve,
to blow it while waiting and
The wind through the pine–
scatters flowers as though a dream
How much longer will I have to play
until my heart is quiet again?

177 Kouta
My shakuhachi is blameless yet
I toss it at the pillow.
It makes a sound, katari, as it hits the wood rim,
Yet even the sound
does not make it less lonely or less sad
to sleep alone.

276 Kouta
I blow you while I wait
I blow you later in my disappointment too–
Worthless Shakuhachi!

Other examples of poetry inspired by the shakuhachi can be found in Japanese literature. One of them comes from Ikkyū Sōjun (一休宗純), 1394-1481, a Zen poet and priest known as one of the most significant and eccentric figures in Zen history. To Japanese children he is a folk hero, mischievous and always out-smarting his teachers and shogun. In the Rinzai Zen tradition, he is both a heretic and saint. Ikkyū was among the few Zen priests who argued that his enlightenment was deepened by consorting with pavilion girls. He entered brothels wearing his black robes, since for him sexual intercourse was a religious rite. At the same time he warned Zen against its own bureaucratic politicising. But he is also known to have understood the beauty of both high and low culture, and gently celebrated the ironies of life in a series of poems and drawings as he practiced Zen Buddhism in 15th century Japan.

In an anthology of his poems titled ‘Wild Ways: Zen Poems of Ikkyu’, translated and edited by John Stevens, one finds the following poem, the most beautiful shakuhachi inspired poem I’ve ever read:

The dreamy sound
Of Bokushitsu’s shakuhachi
Awakened me from deep sleep
One moonlit night

A wonderful autumn night, fresh and bright;
Over the echo of music and drums from a
distant village
The single clear tone of a shakuhachi brings a
flood of tears–
Startling me from a deep, melancholy dream.

Click here to download a PDF-format sample of the anthology of Ikkyū’s poems.

Shōbōgenzō (正法眼蔵), lit. “Treasury of the True Dharma Eye”, is Dōgen Zenji’s collection of Zen Buddhist fascicles, written between 1231 and Dōgen’s death in 1253. Unlike earlier Zen writings originating in Japan, Shōbōgenzō was written in Japanese, not Chinese. Other works by Dōgen, notably Eihei Koroku (Dōgen’s extensive record), and Shōbōgenzō Sanbyakusoku (a collection of over 300 kōan), are written in Chinese.

The Treasure to which the title of this work refers to is the treasure that every human being has within him; the Eye is the eye of truth. Shōbōgenzō is widely considered as one of deepest and most important spiritual and philosophical works to ever be written in Japan, and is of course especially dear to the Soto school which derives its teachings from Dōgen, who in turn never aimed at creating a school, but at truly following the Buddha’s way.

Dōgen’s work contains the essence, and the most important points of Zen and Buddhism — probably no other Zen text can it. Dōgen describes in Shōbōgenzō how any human being can find his true self and reach Satori. It contains Dōgen’ ideas on the existential state of the human being and his relationship to the world and the immediate reality. Dōgen also writes about the destiny of every human being, the direct way to achieve Satori, and to understand time, life and death and many other subjects that might seem of little interest and importance to the untrained, like washing your face. The most celebrated chapter of Shōbōgenzō is probably the ‘Genjo kōan’ (realizing the fundamental law).

Modern editions of Shōbōgenzō contain ninety-five fascicles, though earlier collections in the Soto tradition varied in number (seventy-five, sixty, twenty-eight). Dōgen himself considered only 12 of these fascicles to be complete. The essays in Shōbōgenzō were delivered as sermons, some of the fascicles being recorded by Dōgen, while others likely being recorded by his disciples.

The Stanford-based Soto Zen Text Project, an ambitious project to translate Dōgen and other Soto texts, has completed several fascicles, and many other translations of individual fascicles are available. Their chapter-numbering in 75 fascicles will be the one used in this post.

Since not living in the US and having a limited income deprives me of being able to purchase the available translations of Dōgen Zenji’s works, and this is certainly the case for many other practicioners, I decided to put together a compilation of links to partial translations of the Shōbōgenzō. In this process I became very satisfied: though not all chapters are available online, many of them are, and this gives us plenty to read and learn from. For these online resources we are deeply grateful to the skillful translators and those who made the texts available. For short introductions to all chapters of the Shōbōgenzō, click here.

Available chapters from the Shōbōgenzō
1. Genjō kōan. The Present Issue (Myers)
1. Genjō kōan: The Question of Our Lives (Joshu & Hoshin)
1. Genjō kōan: Actualizing the Fundamental Point (Aitken & Tanahashi)
1. Genjō kōan: The Issue at Hand (Cleary)
1. Genjō kōan: The Actualization of Enlightenment (Nishiyama & Stevens)
1. Genjō kōan (Masunaga)
2. Maka hannya haramitsu: Great Transcendent Wisdom (Cleary)
9. Kobutsushin: Old Buddha Mind (Bielefeldt)
11. Zazen gi: Principles of Zazen (Bielefeldt)
11. Zazen gi: How to Sit (Joshu & Hoshin)
12. Zazen shin: Lancet of Zazen (Bielefeldt)
13. Kaiin zanmai: Ocean Seal Samadhi (Bielefeldt & Radich)
14. Kūge: Flowers of Space (Joshu & Hoshin)
20. Uji: Some Moments (Myers)
20. Uji: The Time-Being (Welch & Tanahashi)
20. Uji (Masunaga)
22. Zenki: The Whole Works (Cleary)
24. Gabyō: Painted Rice Cakes (Joshu & Hoshin)
28. Raihai tokuzui: Getting the Marrow by Doing Obeisance (Weinstein)
28. Raihai tokuzui: Bowing and Acquiring the Essence (Joshu & Hoshin)
29. Sansui kyō: Mountains and Waters Sutra (Bielefeldt)
29. Sansui kyō: Mountains and Waters Sutra (Kotler & Tanahashi)
31. Shoaku makusa: Not Doing Evils (Bodiford)
34. Bukkyō: The Buddha’s Sutras (Joshu & Hoshin)
35. Jinzū: Spiritual Powers (Bielefeldt)
36. Arakan: The Arhat (Weinstein)
42. Sesshin sesshō: Talking of the Mind, Talking of the Nature (Bielefeldt)
48. Hosshō: The Nature of Things (Cleary)
55. Jippō: The Ten Directions (Joshu & Hoshin)
66. Zanmai ō zanmai: The Samadhi That is Sovereign of Samadhis (Joshu & Hoshin)
73. Tashin tsū: Penetration of Other Minds (Bielefeldt)

Myōan Eisai (明菴栄西), 1141–1215, was a the founder of the Rinzai school of Zen Buddhism and is credited with bringing both Zen and green tea from China to Japan. He is often known simply as Eisai Zenji (栄西禅師), lit. “Zen master Eisai” and his most prominent disciple was Dōgen Zenji (道元禅師), the founder of the Soto school of Zen which is a recurring theme in this blog.

Eisai was born in the Bitchu province (modern-day Okayama) of Japan and started his studies of Buddhism in a Tendai temple. Dissatisfied with the state of Buddhism at the time, in 1168 he set off on his first trip to Mt. Tiantai, the home of the sect, where he first encountered Ch’an (later known in Japan as Zen) practice. He spent only half a year in China this time, but returned in 1187 for a longer stay as a disciple of Xuan Huaichang.

In 1191 Eisai returned to Japan to begin the most sensitive and strenuous activities of his life. He immediately built the Hoonji Temple next to the Kashii shrine and dedicated it to Rinzai Zen. He deliberately rooted his more rigorous Zen methods in the relatively remote island of Kyushu because he knew that any significant innovation would be resisted by the establishment on Mt. Hiei, just as the early monks of Mt. Hiei had faced the bitter resistance of Nara.

Though Zen is a meditative school of Buddhism, far from encouraging passivity it attaches the highest value to action. There is nothing incongruous, therefore, in the fact that its leading exponents led a very active life and devoted themselves to practical entreprises such as commerce and diplomacy. Upon his return to Japan, Eisai made one of the most enduring of his contributions to Japanese life: the advocacy of tea-drinking. His interest in tea was shared by Dōgen, who when returned from China in 1227 brought with him many tea utensils, and gave instructions for tea ceremonies in the rules which he drew up for regulating daily life at the Eiheiji temple founded by him in Fukui prefecture. The preparation and imbibling of this common drink went on to become one of the most highly refined of household arts.

Eisai introduced tea drinking initially as an aid to monks sitting in the formal practice of meditation. He also believed that tea was generally health-giving, and thus he wrote the Kissa yōjō ki (translated as ‘Drinking Tea for Health’ or ‘Drink tea and prolong life’), which advocated tea as a general restorative. Since a translation of the Kissa yōjō ki is not to be found on the internet, I will present here a historically interesting excerpt of the text taken from Sources of Japanese Tradition, vol. I (New York: Columbia University Press, 1958):

Tea is the most wonderful medicine for nourishing one’s health; it is the secret of long life. One the hillsides it grows up as the spirit of the soil. Those who pick and use it are certain to attain a great age. India and China both value it highly, and in the past our country too once showed a great liking for tea. Now as then it possesses the same rare qualities, and we should make wider use of it.

In the past, it is said, man was coeval with Heaven, but in recent times man has gradually declined and grown weaker, so that his four bodily components and five organs have degenerated. For this reason even when acupunture and moxa cautery are resorted to the results are fatal, and treatment at hot springs fail to have any effect. So those who are given to these methods of treatment will become steadily weaker until death overtakes them, a prospect which can only be dreaded. If these traditional methods of healing are employed wihtout any modifications on patients today, scarcely and relief can be expected.

Of all the things which Heaven has created, man is the most noble. To preserve one’s life so as to make the most of one’s allotted span is prudent and proper [considering the high value of human life]. The basis of preserving life is the cultivation of health, and the secret of health lies in the well-being of the five organs. Among these five the heart is sovereign, and to build up the heart the drinking of tea is the finest method. When the heart is weak, the other organs all suffer. It is more than two thousand years since the illustrious healer, Jīva, passed away in India, and in these latter degenerate days there is none who can accurately diagnose the circulation of blood. It is more than three thousand years since the Chinese healer, Shen-nung, disappeared from the earth, and there is no one today who can prescribe medicines properly. With no one to consult in such matters, illness, disease, trouble and anger follow one another in endless succession. If a mistake is made in the method of healing, such as moxa cautery, great harm may be done. Someone has told me that as medicine is practiced today, damage is often done to the heart because the drugs are not used appropriate to the disease. Moxa cautery often brings untimely death because the pulse is in conflict with the moxa. I consider it advisable, therefore, to reveal the latest methods of healing as I have become acquainted with them in China.

[…] The five organs have their own taste preferences. If one of these preferences is favoured too much, the corresponding organ will get too strong and oppress the others, resulting in illness. Now acid, pungent, sweet, and salty foods are eaten in great quantity, but not bitter foods. Yet when the heart becomes sick, all organs and tastes are affected. Then, eat as one may, one will have to vomit and stop eating. But if one drinks tea, the heart will be stregthened and freed from illness. It is well to know that when the heart is ailing, the skin has poor color, a sign that life is ebbing away. I wonder why the Japanese do not care for bitter things. In the great country of China they drink tea, as a result of which there is no heart trouble and people live long lives. Our country is full of sickly-looking, skinny persons, and this is simply because we do not drink tea. Whenever one is in poor spirits, one should drink tea. This will put the heart in order and dispell all illness. When the heart is vigorous, then even if the other organs are ailing, no great pain will be felt.

[…]The heart is the sovereign of the five organs, tea is the chief of the bitter foods, and bitter is the chief of the tastes. For this reason the heart loves bitter things, and when it is doing well the other organs are properly regulated. If one has eye trouble, something is wrong with the liver and acid medicine will cure it. If one has ear trouble, something is wrong with the kidney and salty medicine will cure it. [And so forth.] When, however, the whole body feels weak, devitalized, and depressed, it is a sign that the heart is ailing. Drink lots of tea, and one’s energy and spirits will be restored to full strength.

However much this text represents a treatise of medieval Japanese medicine and is obviously obsolete in some aspects, tea is still considered by many physicians to be the single best thing you can add to your diet to ward off serious illness. This conviction doubtlessly raises a few hackles among those who give that honor to fresh fruit and vegetables. As evidence, proponents point to numerous studies suggesting that tea — which made its way slowly to the west after originating in China more than 4,000 years ago — can help prevent cancer and heart disease.

Whatever the result of discussion of the physiological consequences of tea drinking may be, I endorse it completely, not only for the good effects it has on health, but also on the spirit. I have drank tea from quite some time now, but gave up coffee just recently, and elected strong black teas such as Twinings English Breakfast for the times I need a little push (it has as much or more caffeine, but doesn’t irritate your stomach). Otherwise, I drink mostly green teas, my favourite being Jasmine-flavoured sencha. If you still need more excuses to drink tea, click here and here for texts on the benefits of green and black tea respectively.

The doctrine of Buddha-nature (called originally “Buddha-dhatu” in Sanskrit, also translated as “Buddha Element”, “Buddha-Principle”) is important for many schools of Mahāyāna Buddhism. The Buddha-nature is taught to be a truly real eternal potential or principle, present in all sentient beings, for awakening and becoming enlightened. The doctrine relates to the possession by sentient beings of a innate buddha-element, which is, prior to the full attainment of buddhahood, not fully actualized, or at least not clearly seen and known in its full radiance. Buddha-nature is considered to be incorruptible, uncreated, and indestructible. It is eternal Nirvana indwelling Samsāra, and thus opens up the immanent possibility of Liberation from all suffering and impermanence.

One of the many Indian Mahāyāna sūtras that teach that all sentient beings possess the nature of Buddha is the Lotus Sūtra, which proclaims that the historical Buddha is not a man who attained awakening but rather is a manifestation of the universal buddhahood that is available to all. It rejected schemes that differentiated levels of potential in beings and that excluded the lowest level from eventual enlightenment. Saichō, a Japanese monk credited with founding the Tendai school in Japan, advocated universal buddhahood, based on the language of the Lotus Sūtra. Universal buddhahood and ‘becoming Buddha in this very body’ are ideas based on the notion of hongaku, the Chinese doctrine that all beings are ‘originally or inherently awakened’. Inherent enlightenment, in contrast to ‘acquired enlightenment’, is timeless and independent of spiritual development. For some contemporary scholars such as Tamura Yoshirō, the hongaku idea is definitive not only of Buddhism in medieval Japan but of Japanese culture in general, since it underlies the ideals of equality, harmony and conformity.

The ideas of inherent and acquired enlightenment do not form logical contraries, since both depend upon the buddha-nature in all beings, but rather pose a practical question: how is this innate enlightenment related to practice? Legend has it that Dōgen encountered this question in his boyhood Tendai training and made it an existential problem: why undergo rigorous practice when we are endowed with ‘dharma nature’ by birth? Dōgen’s answer is thought to be a criticism of the hongaku idea, but can also be seen as its limit. He proposed ‘the unity of practice and realization’: “The dharma is not manifested unless one practices; it is not attained unless there is realization”. The practice of concentrated mind-body, epitomized in zazen, is a way to actualize our inherent nature. He thus collapses the distinction between practice as means and enlightenment as end. Instead, zazen, the practice of awakening, becomes the manifestation of enlightenment. This means that in Dōgen’s view, the Buddha-nature is neither a potential nor a natural attribute, but a state or condition of body and mind at a present moment. Therefore, he saw the Buddha-nature neither as something that we might realize in the future, nor as something that we have inherently in our body and mind.

Like Dōgen, other Kamakura Period Buddhist reformers reacted against the complacency encouraged by the idea of original enlightenment, but modified rather than rejected it. For Hōnen and Shinran, the only ‘practice’ that counts is the nembutsu or invocation of the Amida Buddha. In his form as the Bodhisattva Dharmakara, Amida enunciated a primal vow that made his enlightenment contingent on that of all sentient beings. Those with sincere faith in Amida’s vow were assured of rebirth in the Pure Land, where final enlightenment will be possible. In the original story, countless lifetimes elapse before Dharmakara becomes Amida Buddha, but the logic of the conditions may suggest a non-dual, timeless relation: since Amida Buddha is indeed here to save us, our liberation need only be actualized in this moment. Some writings of Shinran explicitly suggest that to recollect Amida Buddha with a believing mind (shinjin) is already to actualize buddhahood, without waiting to be reborn in the Pure Land. Moreover, this entrusting invocation is strictly speaking not a practice at all; that is, it is not accomplished through one own efforts or ‘self-power’ but rather is a gift of Amida, a result of Amida’s ‘other-power’. Ippen, a Pure Land itinerant preacher, stated that “the nembutsu is what recites the nembutsu.” Although faith in personal effort is considered futile, as in some interpretations of inherent enlightenment, true reality must be activated by personal faith.

Khyentse Rinpoche, one of the last of the generation of great lamas who completed their education and training in Tibet, who spent over 20 years in retreat and became a holder of countless transmissions in all the major schools of Tibetan Buddhism, particularly in the Nyingma (the “early transmission” school founded by Padmasambhava in the 8th century) writes beautifully on the subject of the Buddha-nature. He says:

The person who has realized the nature of mind is freed from the impulsion to reject Samsāra and obtain Nirvana. He is like a young child, who contemplates the world with an innocent simplicity, without concepts of beauty or ugliness, good or evil. He is no longer the prey of conflicting tendencies, the source of desires or aversions.

It serves no purpose to worry about the disruptions of daily life, like another child, who rejoices on building a sand castle, and cries when it collapses. See how puerile beings rush into difficulties, like a butterfly, which plunges into the flame of a lamp, so as to appropriate what they covet, and get rid of what they hate. It is better to put down the burden, which all these imaginary attachments bring to bear down upon one.

The state of Buddha contains in itself five “bodies” or aspects of Buddhahood: the Manifested Body, the Body of Perfect Enjoyment, the Absolute Body, the Essential Body and the Immutable Diamond Body. These are not to be sought outside us: they are inseparable from our being, from our mind. As soon as we have recognized this presence, there is an end to confusion. We have no further need to seek Enlightenment outside. The navigator, who lands on an island made entirely of fine gold, will not find a single nugget, no matter how hard he searches. We must understand that all the qualities of Buddha have always existed inherently in our being.

In a few words, the Buddha-nature is the potential to attain awakening. It may be exemplified by an image of a lotus flower, which is an ugly flower when it is a bud, but that when in blossoms it shows the form of the Buddha, which has always been there. Similarly, full Buddha-nature is in everyone’s mind, yet its radiance and presence is covered up in most cases.

Saigyō (西行), 1118-1190, was a Japanese poet and monk of the late Heian, early medieval period. Born in Kyoto to a warrior clan, Saigyō lived during the traumatic transition of power between the old court nobles and the new samurai warriors. After the start of the Age of Mappō (1052), Buddhism was considered to be in decline and no longer as effective a means of salvation. These cultural shifts during his lifetime lead to a sense of melancholy, often called sabishisa, in his poetry. This was a very important aspect of Japanese poetry, sometimes arising out of solitary sadness, a state of empathy, of interpenetration, with all things. This was actually sought by the poets.

As a youth, Saigyō worked as a guard to retired Emperor Toba and studied with the most renowned poets of his day, producing relatively conventional poetry; however, at age 22 he quit worldly life to become a Buddhist monk, taking the tonsure in 1140, when the priesthood seems to have afforded him the physical and spiritual freedom reflected in his mature work. Saigyō’s extensive travels inspired verse on the pull of the secular world, old age and death, and the beauty of nature. The Sankashu (meaning “collection of a mountain hut”), his major work, contains poems on love, as well as seasonal and miscellaneous topics.

His birth name was Satō Norikiyo (佐藤義清). He later took the pen name “Saigyō” which means “Western Journey”. This was a reference to Amida Buddha and the Western paradise. He lived alone for long periods in his life in Saga, Mt. Koya, Mt. Yoshino, Ise, and many other places, but he is more known for the many long, poetic journeys he took to Northern Honshū that would later inspire the great poet Matsuo Bashō in his Narrow Road to Oku [the Deep North]. Some main collections of Saigyō’s work are in the Sankashu, Shinkokinshu, and Shikashu. He died in Hirokawa Temple, Kawachi, Osaka, at age 72.

Saigyō’s style, the Shinkokinshū, didn’t focus on subjectivity, had few verbs and more nouns, was not interested in word play, allowed for repetition, had breaks in the flow, was slightly colloquial, and was markedly somber and melancholic. Due to the turbulent times, Saigyō focuses not just on awaré (sorrow from change) but also, as exposed before, on sabi (loneliness) and kanashi (sadness). Though he is known to have been a Buddhist monk, Saigyō shows attachment to the world and the beauty of nature.

One of my favourite pieces by Saigyō is the following:

Let the sun and the moon revolve by themselves!
When I have time I read the sutras,
When I am tired I sleep on my straw bed.
If you ask me, “Who do you see in your dreams?”
I would answer, “No one special.”

Though I’m aware this may not be the most proper piece to represent the whole of his poetical works, I am particularly fond of it because it summarizes beautifully the simplicity of spiritual practice. Our practice consists of constant purification and that’s all that can be done. If we follow the right path, eventually we will arrive at a point where our thought processes and feelings are not only kind and loving but also full of wisdom, bringing benefit to ourselves and others.

—

Click here for a selection of poems by Saigyō in the original japanese, with romanizations and English translations.

On the prologues to the Opus tripartitum, Eckhart presented the thesis “Esse est Deus” (”Das Sein ist Gott”, Being is God). By this Eckhart means that all transcendental perfections belong to God alone. Creatures themselves, insofar as they are limited and conditioned, cannot be the source of these perfections; they must derive them directly from God. Insofar as it is this or that existent, the creature has nothing of existence, oneness, truth, or goodness in itself. These perfections can be predicated of it only in the same way that “health” can be predicated of food: not formally, but by imputation. As Eckhart himself remarks, his doctrine of analogy serves the sole purpose of underscoring the weakness of the creature over against the sublimity of God, the sole purpose of demarcating the nullity of the creature in itself. Thus, the creature always “hungers and thirsts” after God precisely because it lacks within itself any of the transcendental perfections: Eckhart asserts that the creature’s very analogically delimited “being” is the desire and not the possession of the fullness of existence.

The doctrines of analogy, univocity, and unity that Eckhart develops really describe and are rooted in moments in the inner life of the soul and its union with God. It is thus no accident that Eckhart takes as his leitmotif the Augustinian injunction: “Do not wander far and wide but return into yourself. Deep within man there dwells the truth.” Thus, insofar as the soul has “let go” of all creatures, it moves from subsisting in its analogically differentiated being, to being univocally related to God, “adding nothing” to God by being without any attachment to creatures or creaturely ideas. What Eckhart calls the “spark” of the soul is precisely this possibility to be conformed to God not analogically but in a unity that gives birth to a univocal relation between the soul and God. In particular, and in marked contrast to Albert the Great and the entire German Dominican School including Dietrich of Freiberg, Eckhart sees the possible intellect (as opposed to the agent intellect) as the basis of the divine image within the soul, because the possible intellect is both all things and none of them: it does not receive the divine being in an analogically differentiated way but is able, due to its own inherent “nothingness,” to be conformed univocally to the divine in-working.

That is why, for Eckhart, John was closer to the truth than Paul when he said that we were no longer “servants” (Titus 1:1) but “friends” (John 15:9-17) of God: As a servant (according to Paul), the spark of the soul, or the ground of the soul, is subject to the relation of analogue dependence; as a friend (according to John), it is characterized by univocal correlationality, and is to this extent beyond the created being of the soul, being uncreated and uncreatable. This innermost part of the soul is univocally related to transcendental being. This transition from analogically differentiated to univocally related being is made not through theory but through spiritual praxis — the praxis of detachment and letting go whereby there is actually “nothing” in the innermost ground of the soul to be analogically differentiated: He is supposed to have nothing, not to be a place in which God can act analogically, but instead to let God act in himself and to be God’s acting in himself.

The entire doctrine of the soul developed by Eckhart could, then, be summed up by in a short aphorism, one of his sayings condemned in the bull ‘In agro dominico’: “Aliquid est in anima, quod est increatum et increabile; si tota anima esset talis, esset increata et increabilis; et hoc est intellectus.” (My translation would be: “There is something in the soul which is not created nor creatable; if the whole soul was like this, it would be not created nor creatable, and thus it would be the intellect.”) As creatures, human beings are analogically related to the pure being of God; but intellectually, we can come to share univocally in the life of the divine unity.

From this strong appreciation of mind, Eckhart works out in a Neoplatonic yet highly original manner his own Christian theology, being concerned both with explaining Christian doctrine in such a way as to preserve its orthodox sense (though this may be disputed) yet to render it intelligible in the Neoplatonic categories which he has chosen as his tool of systematization.

Last night, shortly after leaving the zendō, I developed a headache (something which I hadn’t had for months on end). When I arrived at my home the pain had evolved even more, and so far I hadn’t had any complains, but now I realized it was going to be a serious headache and that the only thing I could do is go to my room, lie on my bed in the dark and let it go away by itself. While in much pain, I began thinking of concentration.

In Zen, the word often used for “concentration” is joriki. It refers to the power or strength which arises when the mind has been unified and brought to one-pointedness in zazen concentration. However, this is more than the ability to concentrate in the usual sense of the word. Yasutani Hakuun Roshi defined it as a dynamic power which, once mobilized, enables us even in the most sudden and unexpected situations to act instantly, without pausing to collect out wits, and in a manner wholly appropriate to the circumstances. One who has developed joriki is no longer a slave to his passions, neither is he at the mercy of his environment. Always in command of both himself and the circumstances of his life, he is able to move with perfect freedom and equanimity. The cultivation of certain supranormal powers is also believed to be made possible by joriki, as is the state in which the mind becomes like clear, still water.

What I wondered in my pain was: Can we expect to develop concentration (joriki) without physical discomfort? How can discomfort become “a friend” in meditation? Rather than fighting pain, or trying to suppress it, one can take it as an object of meditation, watching it change with steady attention, and watching one’s own emotional reactions to it with the same kind of attention. The courage to sit with pain (or meditate while in pain), and not to turn away, actually lessens our suffering. Easy to say, you’ll argue. But pain does not need to be at all bad. It is simply pain. If we spend our lives running away from painful moments, we shut out a great deal of what life brings us, both the pain and the joy. We can neither laugh when we’re happy nor cry when we’re sad.

In Zen, you learn how to feel and accept painful moments, to become larger than your pain. When we are willing to accept our experience, just as it is, a strange thing happens: it changes into something else. When we avoid pain, struggle not to feel it, pain turns into suffering. And there is an enormous difference between pain and suffering. Pain often cannot be avoided. Suffering can. As we learn the difference between them, many fears subside.

As we practice, thought subsides and we become one with the sound of the birds, the heat of summer, the smile of a friend, the feeling of the water running in our hands. Thinking of other things is what takes us away from that. But direct experience will bring us all the healing, joy, and strength needed for everything.

This subject also came up in my mind a few days ago when I heard of a relative’s husband who had taken his own life while in pain because of a cancer: he threw himself out of the hospital’s window. As much as I and no one else short of someone who has felt that kind of pain or an omniscient buddha, am in position to judge such a person, I was reminded that for a practitioner, this is the time the concentration you developed in your practice is really tested. A good practitioner will die meditating. So don’t avoid pain: rather be one with it and let it go as it came, as it were a thought, or memory, or idea.

How I came to be interested in the notions of “agent intellect”, as exposed by Aristotle on his De anima and abditum mentis (i.e. the hiddenness, or hidden place of the soul), as exposed by St. Augustine on his De trinitate, was by getting acquainted with how Dietrich of Freiberg, and Meister Eckhart after him, used those notions to develop their theories of the mind (or soul — the terms mean the same in this context).

Briefly put, the theory of the agent intellect means to say that in knowing, the mind is not merely passive: it has to work on producing a conception of its object, a conception which is then received and retained by the passive part of the mind. The abditum mentis in turn is the ground of the soul in which God’s image is imprinted, a spiritual apex of man’s being by which he transcends space and time.

Dietrich of Freiberg, who was approximately 10 years older than Eckhart and influenced him deeply, mainly via the treatises De visione beatifica and De intellectu et intelligibili, was a man that, as well as Eckhart, made extraordinary contributions to medieval philosophy, theology, and in his case, natural science.

Dietrich of Freiberg was remarkably original when addressing questions such as Does the disassociation of man from his intellect mean that human beings have knowledge of which they are unaware? and How is this possible given that the intellect has the property of consciousness? Intuitively, people will argue that it does not make any sense to say that one knows something of which s/he is totally unaware. However, this is precisely what Dietrich claims. In identifying an equation between Aristotle’s notion of agent intellect with the abditum mentis of St. Augustine, Dietrich establishes a distinction between what can be called “transempirical consciousness” and “empirical consciousness”. Dietrich held such a position because it is the agent intellect itself that grounds empirical consciousness. Since empirical consciousness is the function of the “possible intellect” according to Dietrich, and since in his Neoplatonic hierarchy the agent intellect being the cause of the possible intellect must be superior to it, it follows that empirical consciousness is due to the causal action of the agent intellect.

His position seems to fit the facts of common sense and is concordant with some contemporary theories of mind. We surely maintain that we know things that we are unaware of when we are, for example, asleep or simply not thinking of them at the moment but could recall them from memory. The agent intellect needs not always and everywhere be completely operative upon the possible intellect. Indeed, it can remain a “hiddenness of the mind” for the entirety of a person’s life and still be a reality about the person.

For Dietrich, the soul of man, living in time, only participates in its agent intellect. It acquires the universe of beings only a little bit at a time as it were. More and more with each act of understanding it approaches the understanding of the universe of beings, a universe that is its universe, which it possesses as a capacity of its own nature. Thus, the agent intellect is a perfect way to define the image of God in the soul as well because of the emanation of its principle as because of its reduction to it.

Here it becomes easier to start feeling Dietrich’s influence on Eckhart. Particularly important is the concept of the causa essentialis developed by Dietrich, by which he says that the way God is all things is in the mode of an essential cause, meaning that whatever is in the effect, even the being of the effect, is in the cause in a more eminent mode. In other words, in the fashion of the Neoplatonic Proclus, Dietrich argues that there is a hierarchy of essential causality in which each essential effect is contained immanently in the essential cause above it. To the extent that an effect is independent from its cause, it is related to its cause analogically; but to the extent that it is still in its cause, it is related to it univocally. Eckhart’s insight was to apply this notion of causa essentialis to the nature of the intellect, which both essentially is and is not what it knows. Eckhart develops this insight in the first two Parisian Questions, explaining that beings are not beings in their cause, since the cause, insofar as it is in itself, is thought as a causa univoca, which does not effect something in the manner of a “causa analoga”, but instead founds it in the manner of a principium . As a causa univoca, God is not a being, since as such a cause he is reason and not the cause of beings. Solely as a causa analoga does God make it possible for being to be beings at all.