Lifting the Veil

This is the second in a series of six talks on Wisdom given at the London Buddhist Centre in 2000

Many of us prefer to spend our time looking in any direction other than the direction pointed out by the finger of the Dharma. We may be content to ignore the finger and keep our gaze fixed on the ground of mundane concerns or we may become fascinated by the finger rather than what it’s pointing to, so that we become overly concerned with a sort of self-centred quest for happiness or strong experiences. But the moon of Reality shines on and sometimes we glimpse it out of the corner of our eye or when prostrated by the events of life.

People get a glimpse of the true nature of Reality in all sorts of ways. Sometimes it’s an experience such as a bereavement that stops us in our tracks and reveals to us a different vision of life and our relation to the rest of humanity. For some it may be a drug induced experience or others may have an intellectual breakthrough when reading or discussing. Great art can confront us with a new way of seeing or it could be meeting a person who has stopped playing the usual games of human interaction that shifts our viewpoint. There are many ways in which we may have a first glimpse of an alternative Reality to the mundane life of school, work, retirement and death. A Reality that puts everything we do into a much bigger perspective.

Usually this glimpse does not have any lasting effect and indeed many people put it out of their minds completely and just get on with the business of living in the accepted and expected fashion. But some people cannot rest easy with an ordinary life. They want to know more, they want to grasp the meaning. They are not satisfied. This was my own experience. At the age of eighteen I started work as an accountant and was training in that profession, but I became increasingly dissatisfied by the limited vision of a life that centred around possessions and procreation and I just could not continue. At the age of twenty two I gave up my career and most of my possessions and went wandering in search of the meaning of life. That may seem hopelessly idealistic, but I have never regretted that step and I do feel that I have found a larger vision. I have meaning and the perspective of the Dharma. Fortunately for people like me, there are ways of preparing oneself to have a more permanent and far-reaching vision of Reality. There is a finger pointing at the moon. There is the teaching of the Buddha, the Dharma, which enables us to set up the conditions that allow Insight to arise. One of the earliest and most popular teachings of the Buddha is what is known as the Noble Eight Fold Path. It is also a very comprehensive teaching. In fact, you don’t really need to look any further. If you practice the Noble Eight Fold Path and penetrate deeply enough into it, it will take you all the way to Enlightenment.

The first step of the Eight Fold Path is Right View. Briefly, Right View is the acceptance that the Buddha was enlightened and that we too can gain Enlightenment. It is the acceptance that higher states of consciousness exist and are possible to attain. It is also the acceptance that all things are impermanent including every aspect of ourselves and that everything arises in dependence upon conditions. Right View is an acceptance and understanding of these things; it is even a belief in them. It has an intellectual element, which is the understanding and an emotional aspect, which we could call shraddha, or faith. This first stage of the Eight Fold Path is the stage of vision; we see, we understand something of what life could be and we want to follow the path to greater understanding and vision. The rest of the Eight Fold Path is all concerned with transformation. We have to transform ourselves until we are refined and aware and receptive enough to have a direct experience or realisation of Reality. The steps of the Path are not linear. It is more a case of practising all the elements simultaneously. The path of transformation involves Right Emotion, Right Speech, Right Action, Right Livelihood, Right Effort, Right Mindfulness and Right Samadhi or Meditation. I am going to say something about each of these because they are all necessary to lifting the veil of ignorance and opening ourselves up to Insight into the true nature of Reality.

The first stage is Right Emotion. This is pointing to the fact that our emotional orientation is very fundamental to our progress on the Path. This stage is sometimes called Right Motivation. The spiritual path of its very nature requires an altruistic motivation right from the start. A narrow self-obsessed emotional bias is a great hindrance. This stage of Right Emotion encourages us to develop positive emotions towards ourselves and others. It is, of course, necessary to feel positive towards ourselves, to appreciate and value and care for ourselves, because otherwise it will be impossible to value, appreciate and care for others. The main positive emotions we need to encourage in ourselves are the emotion of Metta, loving kindness and the emotion of Shraddha, faith and devotion. Metta is the emotion we want to feel towards ourselves and others and all living things. Shraddha is the emotion we want to feel towards the ideal and its embodiments – the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas.

There are four main practices for developing these emotions which I want to mention briefly. Firstly, there is the Metta Bhavana, which could be described as the most beautiful and profound of all practices. In this practice, we encourage ourselves to form an intention and heartfelt wish for the well-being of ourselves, our friends, our enemies and all humans and non-humans throughout the universe. If we take this practice for enough and deep enough it can lead us to Insight into the interpenetration of all life. But initially, it is enough to wish ourselves well and wish others well as wholeheartedly as we can.

Then there is the practice of friendship, which takes the Metta Bhavana into the realm of actual human relations. This is one of the most powerful and effective practices we can engage with. We are trying to relate from the best in us to the best in others, while maintaining an awareness of all that needs to be transformed. The practise of friendship is really the practise of befriending; it is active rather than passive.

Thirdly, there is the practice of inspirational reading and study. The Buddhist scriptures and some commentaries are the product of minds that have attained Insight and, therefore, they can lift us up into that realm and give us a glimpse of that vision of existence. There are many texts to read; a couple of popular ones are the Dhammapada and the Bodhicaryavatara, both of which are full of treasures to be cherished and revisited often. A favourite book of mine is The Ten Pillars of Buddhism by Sangharakshita, which I find inspiring and encouraging. It is better to have one or two texts to return to repeatedly than to have something different every week. A mind permeated by Insight is subtle and deep and it requires careful attention for us to really come into contact with that subtlety and depth.

Fourthly, there is the practice of Puja and especially the Sevenfold Puja, which is of course based on the Bodhicaryavatara. The practice of Puja has a refining and uplifting effect on us and helps us to develop an emotional connection to a more expansive and even cosmic perspective on the spiritual life. It helps to bring the more imaginative and non-rational aspects of us into the work and play of spiritual transformation.

The practices of the Metta Bhavana and friendship help us to develop Metta, which is a heartfelt wish for the wellbeing of ourselves and others and the practices of inspirational reading and study and Puja help us to develop and strengthen Shraddha – our aspiration to awake to Reality.

The next stage of the Eight Fold Path is Right Speech. There are five elements to Right Speech. These are seasonable speech, truthful speech, kindly speech, meaningful speech and harmonising speech. Perhaps, to be a bit paradoxical, we could say that silence is another element of Right Speech.

Seasonable speech means being appropriate in our speech, speaking at the right time and not just blurting out whatever is on our minds, whenever we want to or wherever we happen to be. This demands awareness of the situation, awareness of other people and a certain amount of patience.

Truthful communication is essential to Right Speech, because there is no real communication without truthfulness. The reason we are tempted to deviate from truth is because we usually want to get our own way. We are tempted to exaggerate or diminish the facts or to omit some things altogether in order to get what we want. Being honest with others depends on us being honest with ourselves, and noticing when we are deliberately obfuscating the truth for selfish ends. Most of us do not tell outright lies but can be given to omission and inaccuracy in our communication and this is what we have to watch out for and try to correct. Another point about truthful speech is that we need to remember to be appropriate. It may not be the time or place to say something even if it is the truth. The positive emotion of loving kindness needs to inform our speech too.

That brings us to kindly speech. Kindly speech is the opposite of harsh speech. Speech is harsh which is crude and/or based in negative mental states such as anger, hatred, greed, resentment and so on. Swearing is harsh because it invariably expresses a negative mental state such as cynicism or ill-will. Sometimes humour is harsh because people can mix malice with their humour and use it to undermine others.

Kindly speech is the expression of kindness. If we cannot be kindly in our speech then perhaps it is time for us to be silent. Kindness treats other people as people; harshness treats other people as objects. Kindness is more in tune with the vision of the Buddha, the vision of a completely inter-related universe.

The next part of Right Speech is meaningful speech. Meaningful speech is speech which relates either directly or indirectly to the life of spiritual endeavour. This does not mean that it is talk about Buddhism. Rather, it is the communication of a meaningful person with a meaningful life. Frivolous, banal and meaningless talk is the product of meaningless, frivolous and banal lives. If we are in pursuit of meaning and depth, our speech will naturally become meaningful without any overtly, self-conscious effort on our part to be ‘deep’. However, there will always be a tendency for conversation to veer towards the trivial and even the unskilful when a group of people get together. So there is a need for awareness and a need to endeavour to change course if a conversation is veering too far into the fog of meaningless chatter.

Harmonising speech is probably the highest form of speech. This is deliberately using speech to create harmony between people. Two ways to practise harmonising speech are, firstly, to rejoice in people’s merits when they are not present, speaking well of people behind their backs and, secondly, to pass on any praise you have heard. Harmonising speech is vitally important to the life of the Sangha and is one of the skilful means used by the Bodhisattva to bring about the unification of the Sangha.

Now we come to the stage of Right Action. With the stage of Right Emotion there is a transformation of the emotions and a development of positivity. Then, that positivity passes into our speech and here it passes into our actions. Now, usually one would speak of Right Action in terms of the precepts, especially the five precepts and that is as it should be. Right Action is all kinds of skilful action. But I want to simplify it somewhat and say that if you practice generosity of body, speech and mind, then you will be practising Right Action. Generosity is the basic Right Action. For many Buddhists this is their main practice, perhaps even their only practice and it is a practice that everyone can do. There is nothing complicated or esoteric about giving. You just give. It’s as simple as that. You give and you carry on giving. Simple as it is, however, if it is done in the right spirit, generosity can be a transforming practice, leading us to insights into the law of karma and the interconnectedness of life. The right spirit is to not expect anything in return for what we give. Ideally, we shouldn’t even expect acknowledgement. Just to give for the sake of giving is the practice. We don’t have to make it known that we are being generous, neither do we have to keep it secret. We simply give and let the consequences take care of themselves. So Right Action can be seen in terms of generosity and generosity is a practice open to everyone, all the time.

Next we come to Right Livelihood. Traditionally, Right Livelihood is seen in terms of ethical livelihood. It is livelihood that does not involve trading in living beings, trading in poisons, weapons or intoxicants or engaging in gambling or astrology. Basically, a Right Livelihood is one that causes no harm to other living beings and does not encourage spiritual ignorance. In the FWBO we have developed team-based right livelihood projects, which take the practice of right livelihood further. Rather than simply being a matter of abstaining from certain things, two new positive elements have been added. These are the practices of friendship and generosity. The project itself will be ethical in the traditional sense and the people forming the team will also be engaged in the practice of Sangha. They will be developing spiritual friendship and helping to create spiritual community. In addition, the project will be concerned to generate funds for the propagation of the Dharma, not just for the people working there. It is seen as important that people work in a context where they are serving something higher. By giving away profits for the sake of the Dharma the workers in a team are able to make a direct connection between their relatively mundane tasks and the bigger vision of making the Dharma available to as many people as possible.

Most people spend a lot of their time engaged in earning a livelihood and, therefore, it is important that their livelihood is helpful to their spiritual practice and not only helpful but even part of their spiritual practice.

Whether one works in team-based right livelihood or some other form of right livelihood, it is necessary that the work itself be part of one’s Dharma practice. One can work mindfully, with kindness, in a spirit of generosity, endeavouring to practise Right Speech and of course, one can donate ones surplus income to Dharma projects. In this way, our whole life gradually becomes Dharma practice and we progress on the Path.

This takes us to the next stage which is Right Effort. Usually, Right Effort is spoken of in terms of the four right efforts. These are the effort to develop positive mental states, the effort to transform unskilful mental states, the effort to prevent the arising of unskilful states and the effort to maintain skilful mental states.

I would like to leave those to you to follow up for yourself and speak instead about Right Effort in terms of the advice given by David Smith in his book A Record of Awakening. He says,

“I would say from my experience and observation that the great challenge we in the West face … is to develop the ability to stay with the practice. It is not difficult to observe people wandering around changing teachers and traditions, avoiding practice when they are not getting what they think they should be getting from their efforts, or just avoiding themselves with their restless wanderings. This willingness to stick with things is the most difficult aspect of practice that we face, because it is going against the current that has been carrying us along all our lives.”

The effort we have to make is the effort to endure, the effort to stick with our practice through all the ups and downs. We live in a culture of instant gratification and that influences every aspect of our lives including our approach to spiritual practice. However there is no short-cut to Insight and as we tread the Path there will be happy times, even blissful times and also difficult and desolate times. This is the terrain of spiritual practice and if we stay with it we will eventually win through to Insight. The Indian poet Tagore says, “no hurried Path of success, forcibly cut by the greed of result, can be the true path”. That is one way of looking at Right Effort.

Now we come to Right Mindfulness. There are two main aspects to mindfulness. These are called sati and sampajana. Sati is mindfulness of the present moment, being totally present to our experience. Sampajana is awareness of our purpose and direction, being aware of where we have come from and where we are going.

Mindfulness is perhaps the most important of all the spiritual qualities. The practice of mindfulness or awareness is what eventually takes us to Enlightenment. Awareness taken to the nth degree is Enlightenment. There are four dimensions to awareness. These involve awareness of self, things, other people and Reality.

Awareness of oneself includes awareness of the body, of thoughts and of emotions. It is easier to maintain awareness of our thoughts and emotions if we reduce input. If we read a lot of newspapers and magazines and watch lots of TV, it will be very difficult for us to be aware of our thoughts and emotions. Our minds will be too busy digesting other people’s, often not very savoury, thoughts and emotions.

We need to saturate our awareness of ourselves with kindness. When we become aware of the nastier aspects of our psyche, we don’t try to push them away nor do we need to berate ourselves for having faults. We just need to maintain awareness, accepting with kindness that that is an aspect of how we are at present. This sort of acceptance of our present state is not the same as indulging negative emotions. Indulgence is when we think or say, “that’s how I am, it can’t be helped, you’ll just have to like it or lump it”. Indulgence doesn’t want to change and has lost sight of the bigger picture, which includes all the positive emotions and aspirations. Positive acceptance of our unskilful thoughts and emotions maintains the bigger perspective that includes the skilful and is intent on allowing the light of awareness to transform us.

Awareness of things includes awareness of the environment in an ecological sense, as well as in an aesthetic sense. Awareness of others is primarily concerned with an awareness of the effect that we have on others. In other words, it’s an ethical awareness. Awareness of Reality involves staying connected with our spiritual Ideal, whether through reflection, mantra chanting, puja, meditation, study or whatever methods that work for us. Mindfulness is very comprehensive and extremely important. You can never have too much mindfulness.

The final stage of the Noble Eight Fold Path is Right Meditation or Right Samadhi. Samadhi is often translated as ‘concentration’ but that might give the wrong impression, because Samadhi is really “an experience of wholeness at a very high level of awareness”. To give a better idea of what this final stage of the Eight Fold Path is about I’ll quote Sangharakshita,

“In the first place Samadhi is not something that can be acquired forcibly or artificially by means of exercises or techniques. They may be of incidental help but fundamentally Samadhi represents a spiritual growth or evolution of the whole being. It is not enough just to concentrate your mind on an object for half an hour at a time if the rest of your life is pulling in the opposite direction. If ninety nine percent of your life is oriented in the direction of the mundane, it is no use spending just half an hour a day trying to orient it in a spiritual direction. … Meditation proper represents the spearhead of a basic re-orientation of one’s whole being. … Knowledge and vision of things as they really are arises when, in the state of Samadhi, we get our first glimpse of Reality itself, free from all veils and observations. It’s like the moment when you get to the top of a high mountain and the clouds roll aside to reveal the vast expanse of the horizon. Samadhi represents getting to the peak, the vantage point from which you can see Reality itself”. (The Meaning of Conversion in Buddhism, pp 44-45)

Right Samadhi is not just concentration or meditation in a narrow sense, it is the “transformation and integration of the whole psyche in all its sublimest heights and most abysmal depths”. That then is the Noble Eight Fold Path. That is the finger pointing at the moon. That is what we need to do to start to lift the veil of ignorance from the face of the moon of Reality.

But that is, of course, not the only approach to our realisation of the Wisdom of the Buddha. Another traditional method, which focuses especially on Wisdom, is what is known as the three levels of Wisdom or the three Wisdoms. These three are sruta-maya prajna, cinta-maya prajna and bhavana-maya prajna; listening, reflecting and meditating. These can be seen as a progression from listening through reflection to meditation or each one can be seen as a path in itself. In his lecture entitled ‘Standing on Holy Ground’, Sangharakshita speaks of these three as three separate paths for the three types of individual. The three types of individual are the faith follower, the Dharma follower and the body witness.

The faith follower is predominantly devotional, the doctrine follower is predominantly scholarly or intellectual and the body witness is predominantly meditative or mystical. These types indicate that temperament plays a part in spiritual life and must be taken into account. As the parable of the Rain Cloud in the White Lotus Sutra indicates, the rain of the Dharma falls equally on all but everybody grows according to their own nature.

The listening wisdom (sruta-maya prajna) is the practice best suited to the faith follower. Listening involves an active receptivity to the Dharma, whether in the Sutras or in talks and lectures and someone who is predominantly devotional is likely to be very receptive and able to respond creatively to the guidance received.

The wisdom of reflection (cinta-maya prajna) is suited to the doctrine follower who will be able to emotionally engage with the analysis of concepts and the intricacies of the different formulations of the path and goal. Reflection involves turning over the concepts of the Dharma in one’s mind, until one has reached a level of understanding where one has made the teachings one own. One knows what it means for oneself.

The meditative wisdom (bhavana-maya prajna) is best suited to the meditative type, the body witness. This wisdom involves a direct realisation of the Truth unmediated by concepts and demands an ability to sustain concentration and plumb depths of the psyche until Reality is revealed like a vision.

Although the three wisdoms can be seen in this way as pertaining to different types of individual, it is probably best for most of us to think of them as a progression. Most of us will not be so clearly of one definite temperament and, therefore, it is best for us to practice these as three levels of wisdom. We start by listening to the Dharma, reading scriptures and commentaries, taking part in discussion and study and in this way familiarising ourselves with many different teachings. Then we begin to reflect on perhaps just one teaching which particularly appeals to us and we keep coming back to it for months and years, remembering David Smith’s exhortation to ‘stay with it’. In this way we go deeper into the Dharma and gain greater understanding. Then, when on retreat, we can bring our contemplation into our more concentrated mind and gradually we will begin to have little flashes of realisation, glimpses of what the Dharma is really saying, until eventually the flashes get brighter and our glimpses become a clearer vision, even a Perfect Vision and we move from treading the mundane path to treading the Transcendental Path. The veil of ignorance will have lifted and we will have united all the teachings and perspectives in our own being.

The View From The Top

This is the first in a series of six talks on Wisdom given at the London Buddhist Centre in 2000


“Have you not seen, O have you not seen,
that billions have lived in China, in Japan
None have been immortal, from time immemorial:
Ancient sage kings or tyrants, good subjects or bad.
Fair ladies and homely – who could enjoy eternal youth?
Noble men and lowly alike without exception, die away;
They have all died, reduced to dust and ashes;
The singing halls and dancing stages have become the abodes of foxes.
Transient as dreams, bubbles or lightening all are perpetual travellers.
Have you not seen, O have you not seen,
This has been man’s fate, how can you alone live forever?”
(To a Nobleman in Kyoto – Kukai. From ‘Major Works’)

Everybody dies. This is one thing all human beings have in common. It is the one great momentous fact of life. Death is quite an amazing thing; so amazing that we cannot really believe it. We cannot really take in the fact of death – our own death, the death of our good friends, the death of our families, the death of our children. It is too enormous to comprehend. And yet it is a fact – indeed the only fact of life is death. I sometimes ponder as I am out and about in London that not one single person I see in the street will be alive in, say, 100 years time. Not a single person on the Tube is going to live forever. I imagine all the people passing by as dying or dead – and it does seem truly astonishing, hard to believe. We live life in the shadow of Death. We could say that our lives are a response to death. How we live our lives is our answer to the problem of death.

Some people respond by ignoring death and hiding from it. They proceed as if they will live forever. This, strange to say, is probably the majority response to death. Priority is given to creating a secure future, materially secure at least. Others respond to the fact of death with despair, despondency. This can lead to addiction, suicide, depression, even insanity. In some ways, this is a more reasonable response. At least it recognises that there is a problem. Because the problem of death is the problem of life. It poses the question, what is life for? or, what is the meaning of life? Some of us turn to religion or philosophy for answers to this dilemma – if life culminates in death, what is the point of life?

Some religions point to an afterlife state of either bliss or torment. The answer to the problem is to live a good life, obedient to the commandments of the deity and after death you will be rewarded and sent to a place of happiness for all eternity – no more worries. This is obviously a very attractive option and many people adopt this belief very sincerely and wholeheartedly. Depending on the degree of their sincerity and wholeheartedness, the emphasis will not be on security and wealth and happiness in this life but on doing what’s necessary to attain eternal bliss in the next life. Some philosophies deny the existence of a deity or an afterlife and suggest that this life is all we have. Progress and happiness will be measured in scientific and material terms. Marxism is an example of this. Or on a more everyday level the credo is ‘eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die’. The first of these views of existence is known as eternalism and the second as nihilism.

Buddhism is neither eternalist nor nihilist. Buddhism says that when we die, when the body ceases to function, consciousness continues. The momentum of habits and tendencies – the volition, the willing, that has taken us through life carries on and finds rebirth in another body, assuming we have not obtained Enlightenment. The Enlightened have more choice. The unenlightened are at the mercy of habitual forces that take them round and round in circles over and over again. The Enlightened can be creative and move from better to best – from life to more life – from Wisdom to greater Wisdom.

According to Buddhism, what we experience at death is the result of our actions. This is true during our lifetime, it is true at death and it is true for future lifetimes. How we behave, how we speak and how we think determines the whole tendency and momentum of our consciousness and we experience consequences in the form of suffering or happiness, ignorance or wisdom.

Everything arises in dependence upon conditions. What we experience upon the dissolution of the body, when we breathe our last breath, depends upon the conditions we have established in our lifetime and in previous lifetimes. Buddhism says that it is possible for consciousness to evolve and to keep on evolving to the point of Enlightenment, which is not a point at all but a word to indicate a state of continuous evolving creativity in Wisdom and Compassion. When consciousness evolves, when we make the effort to evolve, then eventually we experience an Insight into the true nature of Reality. The nature of this Insight is such that we are no longer attached to self, no longer attached to our ego-identity. There is no longer the strong sense of ‘I’ and ‘mine’. This means that there is no longer death for us. Death is death for us because of our attachment to self and because we associate our self so strongly with the physical. Enlightenment is known as the 'deathless' because it is not something that comes and goes but the underlying reality of the universe. And we could also say when there is no attachment to self there is no death for us.

For Buddhism, both eternalism and nihilism are wrong views ( micchaditthi). They are wrong ways of seeing life and death and they lead to wrong ways of thinking and behaving. Eternalism is a wrong view because it posits an eternal, unchanging self that persists whether under conditions of torment or bliss. There is in some theistic religions the notion of the soul being cleansed or purged, which might be seen as change, but strictly speaking the soul doesn’t change, it is simply either more or less blemished.

The main problem with eternalism is that change isn’t possible. Buddhism specifically denies the existence of a fixed, unchanging soul – this is the doctrine of annatta (or anatman in Sanskrit). This is usually rendered into English as the doctrine of Insubstantiality or No-Self. It states that there is no fixed, unchanging substance whether physical or mental, that could be called a soul or a self. This applies also to any notions of God as creator. One thing that can follow from an eternalist view that relies on obedience to God, is that people don’t take enough responsibility for themselves – too much is left to or seen as the ‘will of God’. Another outcome that has often manifested is intolerance. Because so much is at stake, it is more than a matter of life or death – it’s a matter of eternal happiness and security, a huge amount of fear can ensue, fear of incurring the displeasure of the supreme authority and so nobody can be allowed to rock the boat and, if necessary, people must be forced into line. This is perfectly understandable really – if your security and comfort for
all eternity is at stake, you don’t want to end up with a raw deal because of someone else’s wrong-doing or disobedience. So the main practice for a sincere eternalist must be obedience to the instructions and demands of the supreme Power. Many people, of course, are nominally eternalist, in that they think of themselves as followers of a theistic religion, but by practice they are nihilist.

A nihilist does not believe in any afterlife. Death is the end. We are simply sophisticated machines and there are no higher states to attain to, whether in heaven after death or in terms of evolving consciousness. You are very unlikely to come across many people who subscribe to a strictly nihilist view, although there were certainly plenty about at the time of the Buddha. Most people these days seem to have a mish-mash of beliefs and views which vaguely affect how they live. Although I think it is safe to say that whatever people believe, in terms of practice, what people actually do, then in this country, materialism is the majority view and materialism is a form of nihilism. Of course, there are degrees of materialism and the majority of people probably hold eternalist views but practice nihilism which is a confused state of affairs to say the least. But this is nothing new and at the time of the Buddha there were also people who held all sorts of views, with varying degrees of clarity and confusion.

As it says in the Brahmajala Sutta ( Digha Nikaya):
“ There are some ascetics and Brahmins who are Eternalists, who proclaim the eternity of the self and the
world….”
“ There are, monks, some ascetics and Brahmins who are partly Eternalists and Partly Non-Eternalists,
who proclaim the partial eternity and the partial non-eternity of the self and the world……”
“ There are, monks, some ascetics and Brahmins who are Finitists and Infinitists, and who proclaim the
finitude and infinitude of the world…..”
“ There are, monks, some ascetics and Brahmins who are Eel-Wrigglers. When asked about this or that
matter, they resort to evasive statements, and they wriggle like eels…..”
“ There are, monks, some ascetics and Brahmins who are Chance-Originationists, and who proclaim the
chance origin of the self and the world…..” (The Long Discourses of the Buddha, trans. M. Walshe, Sutta 1)


These are just a few of the views that were prevalent then. The Buddha enumerates sixty four.
Wrong views can be broadly classified under two headings – eternalist and nihilist. How are we affected by these views? To what degree are we still under the influence of wrong views (micchaditthi)? Well, for most of us, most of the time, we are very strongly under the influence of wrong views. This is because views are not just a matter of ideas in any purely intellectual sense (if there is such a thing) but rather, views have a large emotional content, so that we may hold an idea that tends in one direction but act as if we believed the opposite. This, as I said, is probably the case for the majority of people and it is also true for Buddhists.

We may subscribe to the notion that we have no fixed self but, nevertheless, we act as though we had. If I have no fixed self then I cannot predict how I will respond in any given situation and I won’t be worried about possible failure of humiliation. But most of us think we know exactly how we will respond – we say, ‘I can’t do that’, ‘I won’t be able to cope’ or ‘So and so is always late or tired or good humoured’. We predict that we will in the future be as we were in the past or others will in the future be as they have been in the past – in other words, that we or they are fixed and unchanging.

Or we may admire the simplicity and calmness of the lives of the great sages – we may even recite the precept - “with stillness, simplicity and contentment I purify my body” – but our actual lives are neither still, simple nor content and perhaps not even tending in that direction. We may actually be more into spending our time shopping, watching television or surfing the net. These discrepancies occur. We are all to some degree or other split, even in conflict with ourselves. In fact, often as we proceed on the spiritual Path the internal conflict can become worse before it gets better.

As Sangharakshita puts it – “the central problem of the spiritual life is finding emotional equivalents for our intellectual understanding”. But perhaps we need to get our intellectual understandings clear first. We need to know what Right View is. The Pali term for Right View is Samma ditthi (Sanskrit Samyag Drsti). Ditthi is a view and Samma is ‘right’ or ‘correct’ or even ‘perfect’. Wrong view is Miccha ditthi. Right view is based upon the Buddha’s Enlightenment experience. It is not an idea or an opinion. It is a vision. The Buddha saw how things really are and then later he communicated what he saw. This communication of the Buddha’s vision or the Buddha’s experience is Right View. The first thing the Buddha realised is that he had gained Enlightenment.

In the Ariyapariyesana Sutta of the Majjhima Nikaya it says:
“ Then, bhikkhus, being myself subject to birth, having understood the danger in what is subject to birth, seeking the unborn supreme security from bondage, Nibbana, I attained the unborn supreme security from bondage, Nibbana; being myself subject to ageing, having understood the danger in what is subject to ageing, seeking the unageing supreme security from bondage, Nibbana, I attained the unageing supreme security from bondage, Nibbana;”
Similarly for sickness, death, sorrow and defilement.
“ The knowledge and vision arose in me: ‘My deliverance is unshakeable; this is my last birth; now there is no renewal of being.” (The Middle Length Disdourses of the Buddha, trans. Nanamoli & Bodhi, Sutta 26)


From this it follows that it is possible for a human being to gain Enlightenment. From that it follows that human beings can evolve, can change, can grow and develop spiritually. There are higher states of consciousness; it is possible to attain to higher states and to see things as they really are. It is possible to become Enlightened. From a Buddhist perspective this is a Right View and as such it is essential to the practice of the spiritual Path. If Buddhism could be said to have an ‘article of Faith’, then this is it; it is possible for any human being to attain to higher states of consciousness and
knowledge and vision of Reality. From this it follows that there is no fixed, unchanging soul or self.
The Buddha expressed his experience of Enlightenment in terms of what is known as the Law of
Conditionality (Pali, paticca samuppada, Sanskrit, pratitya samutpada). It goes as follows: “This being, that becomes, from the arising of this, that arises. This not being, that does not become. From the ceasing of this, that ceases.”

These two sentences contain the essence of Buddhism and are an expression of Perfect View. Everything that happens, everything that exists, arises in dependence upon conditions, when those conditions are no longer present, then that event or thing will cease to be. All of Buddhist doctrine and practice flows from this. Perhaps the most important practical implication is the law of karma and the ethical precepts. Karma means ‘action’ and the law of karma is an application of conditionality to the sphere of ethics, the sphere of volitional activity of body, speech or mind.. Basically, it means that actions have consequences. Skilful actions have benign consequences and unskilful actions
have bad consequences. Skilful actions are any deeds or speech or thoughts based in mental states of
loving kindness, generosity and spiritual wisdom. Unskilful actions are any deeds, speech or thought
arising from mental states of ill will, greed and spiritual ignorance.

Wrong views (Micchaditthi) arise out of unskilful mental states. It is important that we make efforts to transform our unskilful mental states into skilful mental states because that is how we can move from Wrong View to Right View. We bring about that transformation with the practice of meditation and the training precepts, as well as through study of Dharma texts and commentaries.

Sometimes people don’t like to hear the terms Right View and Wrong View, because they feel that nobody is in a position to say what is right or wrong or they feel that nobody should be told that they are wrong. There are so many views, they say, and who can say which are right and which are wrong. Some people may even feel that it is intolerant to speak in terms of Right View and Wrong View. There are three points I would like to make with regard to this.

Firstly, the terms Right View and Wrong View are only one possible translation of the Pali terms
Sammaditthi and Micchaditthi respectively. However, I don’t think we should shy away from using the terms ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ in this respect because I think the impact and precision they carry gives exactly the correct or right sense of what is meant. Secondly, there is a difference between a view in the sense of ‘ditthi’ as in Sammaditthi and an opinion. A view in this sense is the result of a realisation, an experience, a result of seeing something, whereas an opinion is the result of speculation or thinking or more frequently the result of someone else’s thinking, which we have read or heard. And wrong views are often held very teanaciously because they have an emotional basis, that can make them feel necessary to an individual's sense of identity. Thirdly, Right View is the conceptual expression of the Buddha’s experience and, therefore, the acceptance of Right View is initially an act of faith or Shraddha on our part.

Shraddha includes the 3 elements of intuition, reason and experience. We intuit that what the Buddha said is true and our thinking confirms our intuition and in time our experience confirms both. Because, of course, if Right View is true, if it does accurately correspond with how things really are, then it must be possible to demonstrate that, it must be testable. By practising, by living in accordance with Right View we will be able to see for ourselves the truth. In fact, if we are open-minded enough, we will be able to see the truth of the Dharma even if we don’t practise. Observing the precepts has consequences for us and not observing the precepts also has consequences. Meditating has consequences and not meditating has consequences. Although in the second case our consciousness may be too clouded for us to be able to judge the consequences.

Before Siddhartha Gautama left home he is said to have seen four sights which, as it were, woke him up. We can take this to mean that he saw these sights as if for the first time rather than literally for the first time. Or we can see this as an analogy for the spiritual blindness that afflicts most of humanity. However, we take it, the story is that he saw a sick person, an old person and a corpse and these awakened him to the suffering inherent in life and to the existential question – what is life for? what does it mean? The fourth sight was a wandering mendicant and this gave him a glimpse of other possibilities. You could see this as his first intuition of Right View or Perfect View. He took this very seriously, acted upon it and the rest is history, as we say. Although it is actually much more than history, it is timeless Wisdom.

There is a distinction to be made between mundane Right View and Transcendental Right View.
The Mahacattarisaka Sutta of the Majjhima Nikaya puts it like this:
“ Right View, I say, is twofold: there is right view that is affected by taints, partaking of merit, ripening on the side of attachment; and there is right view that is noble, taintless, supramundane, a factor of the path.” (The Middle Length Discourses of the Buddha, Sutta 117)


Bhante Sangharakshita distinguishes these two by referring to the Transcendental view as Perfect Vision. Right View is the conceptual expression of the Buddha’s experience and to the extent that we hold that view, we have Right View. On a very basic level this means, as I said earlier, holding the view that there are higher states of consciousness and that we can by our own efforts attain to those states. It also implies accepting the practices of meditation and the ethical precepts.

Perfect Vision is the vision of one who has had an experience of Insight into the true nature of Reality for himself or herself. This is not just a glimpse but also an experience that transforms how we see and experience ourselves and others. This is not the same as Enlightenment because although at this stage we have had our vision of existence completely transformed, there is still work to do to completely transform ourselves in accordance with that vision. But this experience is known as the ‘point of no return’, from now on we are irreversibly on the spiritual Path.

Right View is necessary if we are to attain Perfect Vision and Perfect Vision sets us firmly on the road to Nirvana, Enlightenment. Here is how Sangharakshita explains Perfect Vision with the help of a simile:
“ Imagine we want to make a journey to climb some lofty mountain peak. What do we do? First we study a map of the terrain, of the surrounding foothills, and of the mountain itself. This study of the map corresponds to the theoretical study of Buddhist doctrine, to knowing all about the Madhyamikas, the Yogacarins, the Sarvastivadins, and so on. But we have to actually start our journey, we have to get going – we have at least to get to base camp. This corresponds to our preliminary practice of the Buddha’s teaching. Eventually, after several days, weeks, or months of travelling, we catch a glimpse of the distant mountain peak which is the object of our journey. We have come only a little way, and are still far from the foot of the mountain, but there in the distance we see the shining snow peak. We have a direct perception – a vision – of it, although from a very great distance. This glimpse of the peak corresponds to Perfect Vision and it gives us inspiration and
encouragement to continue our journey. “ (Sangharakshita, Vision and Transformation, p.32)

According to the Buddha, the Dharma is a finger pointing at the moon. In other words, the teachings of the Buddha point us in the right direction, the direction of Wisdom, the direction of Perfect Vision. What we have to do is look at the moon, see the moon for ourselves, face-to-face, so to speak. We need to have a direct experience of Reality, a vision of how things really are.

Zen Master Dogen

This talk was given at the London Buddhist Centre in 2000

 

Dogen is known as the founder of Soto-Zen, one of the two main schools of Zen Buddhism in Japan, the other school being Rinzai Zen. He was born in the year 1200, i.e. over 800 years ago. His father was an aristocrat and one of the most influential ministers in the Japanese Imperial court at that time. His mother was also from the aristocracy. So Dogen would have been entitled to high position, status and wealth. He is said to have been a child prodigy – able to read Chinese poetry at age four.

However when he was just three years old, his father died and when he was eight his mother died. So Dogen was confronted with the stark reality of death – which is of course a stark reality of life – when he was still a young child and this had a huge impact on him. He became interested only in seeking the truth. When he was thirteen he went to Mt Hiei, a great centre of Buddhist studies, and the following year he was ordained a monk. He continued his Buddhist studies for nine years under Zen Master Myozen.

He spent five years in China visiting all the major monasteries in Zheyang province in Southern China. After two years there he still hadn't found a suitable teacher, those he had met disappointed him by their tendency to emphasise illogical sayings and behaviour as the only expression of Zen. Then he remembered that he had been told that Ju-Ching was the only authentic practitioner of the Way – Ju Ching was the abbot of Tiantong Mountain monastery. When Dogen met him in 1225 he was sixty two. He became Dogen's teacher for the next three years. Ju Ching, like Sangharakshita, was not concerned with the external differences between schools of Buddhism. He was concerned with the essential message of Buddhism. He referred to his teaching as “the great way of all the Buddhas.”. He didn't even wish to be identified with Zen. Ju Ching's teaching was essentially meditation, especially the practice of just sitting or zazen. Dogen's Japanese teacher, Myozen died at this time.

Dogen is said to have gained Enlightenment after one year with Ju-Ching. This may be taken to mean Insight or Stream Entry or the arising of the Bodhicitta; it is called Satori in Japanese and probably corresponds to the point of no return, Stream Entry rather than full enlightenment.

Dogen continued is practice at Tiantong monastery for a further two years. Then at the age of twenty eight he returned to Japan to teach his fellow countrymen. Buddhism was in a degenerate state in Japan at that time. It was very much associated with the Imperial power and there were even soldier monks.

Dogen was seen as a threat to the privileges of the existing monastic order. As a result he was criticised, denounced and harassed. Eventually after fifteen years, in 1243, he moved away from Kyoto to a remote mountainous region and his followers built another monastery. During his time in Kyoto, Dogen began his major writing – a work called the Shobo-genzo or Treasury of the True Dharma. He died in 1254 at the age of fifty three.

His chief disciple, Ejo, took over from him as abbot of the monastery and edited his writings for publication. After about one hundred years, Dogen's writings were largely forgotten and interest didn't really revive for about five hundred years, until his Shobo-genzo was published in Japan in 1816. even then it wasn't until about 1920 that his significance began to be understood. The first English translation was in 1958. So that is something of Dogen's history. The Soto Zen sect which Dogen is regarded as the founder of – is now one of the biggest Buddhist schools in Japan with about five million followers.

I'd like to go on to look at Dogen's teaching now and relate it to our lives and practice.

I'm going to follow the method outlined in this book, - Zen Master Dogen by Yuko Yokoi. He looks at the essentials of Dogen's thinking and teaching in terms of eleven unions of opposites or 11 identities ie identical things. These are

• identity of self and others
• identity of Practice and Enlightenment
• identity of Precepts and Buddhism
• identity of life and death
• identity of Koan and Enlightenment
• identity of Time and being
• identity of Being and non-being
• identity of Zen Buddhism and the state
• identity of men and women
• identity of monks and laypeople
• identity of Sutras and Zen Buddhism

I want to go into each one of these eleven identities or unions of opposites in a little more detail and see if we can find any relevance to us and our practice.

First we have identity of self and other.

This underpins the whole practice of Dharma. In terms of the Noble Eight-fold Path this is Perfect Vision. It is a glimpse of the truth of interconnectedness, interdependence. The truth of the interpenetration of consciousness. On an ordinary level it means that we affect others and are affected by others. We affect all life that we come into contact with and are affected by all life that we encounter. Since we affect and are affected by all life that we come into contact with then by extension we also indirectly affect all life that we do not encounter and are affected by it, because the influence of our lives has a rippling out effect and we cannot tell where the ripples end. Life according to Buddhism is interdependent and this is why whatever we do bears consequences for us and for others. This is what is meant by the identity of self and other. If we do good to others we do good to ourself. If we harm others we harm ourself. If we benefit ourselves spiritually that benefits others. If we harm ourselves spiritually we harm others too. Our actions, our words, our thoughts, reverberate around the universe and the actions, words and thoughts of others impinge upon us.

This then points to the importance of living our lives well so that we can have a beneficial influence that ripples out into the world further and further. In the words of the Threefold Puja – “the fragrance of the perfect life, spreads in all directions throughout the world.”

This is one of the most difficult things for us to believe. Our tendency more often than not is to feel that we are being affected by others, by circumstance etc. but we are less able to see, to believe, to take fully on board the fact that we are having an affect on others. Especially those around us, but even further afield than that. We all have an influence and we are influenced and our task is to make both those influences as benign as possible. The main way to do this is through the practice of generosity. A spirit of generosity is what the doctrine of interdependence calls for. This reflection on the non-separation between self and other is a starting point for Dogen, just as it is in the Noble Eightfold Path.

Secondly we have identification of Practice and Enlightenment.

This seems quite an extreme viewpoint at first sight. Practice is identical to Enlightenment. The first point I want to make here is that when you read books on Buddhism the word Enlightenment does not always mean the same thing in every book. It can mean anything from initial insight or arising of faith to full and perfect Enlightenment.

What Dogen is getting at here (and this is a central emphasis in his teaching) is that when you practice you must do so fully now in this moment and not have a view that you're aiming at something in the future. Enlightenment is a state of consciousness that transcends time and is no more to be associated with the future than the past. The future is just a concept that is present in our minds now. Every moment is when we need to practice fully, not some imaginary point in some imaginary future. And practice is continuous for Dogen. Practice is not just sitting meditation – zazen – but every activity, our work, our leisure, should all be permeated by awareness – mindfulness of body, mindfulness of thoughts and emotions, mindfulness of purpose. We need to practice these all the time.

Another way in which enlightenment is identical with practice is that there must be something in our present state of consciousness that resonates with and responds to higher states of consciousness in order for us to practice at all. One way of seeing the spiritual life is to see it as a Path or journey and we are setting out on that path and our goal or destination is a long way off. Another way to see it is that we are living in the midst of Reality. Reality permeates our whole being and surroundings and it is only necessary for us to see it – to wake up, open our eyes and see things as they really are. This second way of talking about spiritual practice is more favoured by Dogen. His aim is to encourage us to practice wholeheartedly and fully in every moment. Enlightenment is just obscured - the thin veil of our delusion. Insight is immanent. This can be an encouraging view.

The third identity is the identity of Precepts and Zen Buddhism.

For Zen Buddhists at the time of Dogen there was not much emphasis on ethics. They tended to dwell in the realms of paradox, koan and meditation. Dogen introduced sixteen precepts for his Order. These are very similar to the ten precepts observed by members of Triratna Buddhist Order.

The first three of these sixteen precepts are taking refuge in the Buddha, the Dharma and the Sangha. In other words committing ones life to the Ideal of Human Enlightenment, the Path by which the Ideal is attained, and the fellowship of all those on that path. So the first three precepts are the three refuges with which we are familiar.

The next three precepts are very broad principles. Firstly to do no evil. Secondly to do good, and thirdly to confer abundant benefits on all sentient beings.

After the three refuges and these three broad principles, there follow ten precepts which we are quite familiar with – they are the five precepts that are common to most Buddhists and two more speech precepts and three mind precepts. The two extra speech precepts are “Do not speak the faults of Bodhisattvas, whether they be laymen or monks”. I believe this precept is referring to slander and gossip rather than constructive criticism. The other speech precept is “Do not be too proud to praise others”, which is another way of of talking about Harmonising speech. The three mind precepts are the same as those observed by Triratna Order members – dealing with covetousness, anger/hatred and wrong views.

So Dogen says these 16 precepts are identical with Zen Buddhism. And in this he is saying exactly the same as Sangharakshita who speaks of Going for Refuge to the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha as the central commitment of a Buddhist, what makes one a Buddhist and the observance of the precepts being the expression of that commitment.

Bhante Sangharakshita puts it like this:

Going for Refuge,or commitment to the Three Jewels, is one's lifeblood as a Buddhist. Observance of the Precepts represents the circulation of that blood through every fibre of one's being. By it's very nature blood must circulate. If it does not circulate this means that the organism to which it belongs is dead,and that the blood itself, stagnating, will soon cease to be blood. Similarly, by its very nature the Going for Refuge must find expression in the observance of the Precepts. If it does not such expression this means that as a Buddhist one is virtually dead and that the Going for Refuge itself, becoming more and more mechanical,will soon cease to be effectively such.(The Ten Pillars of Buddhism, p.18)

So the Precepts and Buddhism are identical. To be a Buddhist without making an effort to observe the precepts is a contradiction. If you don't make an effort to observe the precepts, you cannot express the commitment to Go for Refuge and an unexpressed commitment is not a commitment, it's a pretence. This is what Dogen is saying too. So if you want to be a Buddhist, you need to to be familiar with the ethical principles and trying to put them into practice

The fourth identity in Dogen's teaching is the identity of life and death.

There are no beginnings and endings, there is just impermanence – the wheel of life rolls on and death is just another indication of the process of change. The process of change which is a universal truth. All things are impermanent. All things change. The change happens all the time – not at some specific point – but all the time – change, change, change. There is nothing else but change. There is no non-change.

We are changing physically, mentally, emotionally all the time – now and now. There are beginnings and endings every moment or to be more accurate there are no beginnings and endings – there is just unending process. And Death is part of this unending process. The process is life, and death is part of life. There is no life without death. Without death there would simply be stagnation, because an absence of death would mean an absence of change. If nothing changed then life would not be. But there is life – Life is King as Bhante Sangharakshita expresses it in his poem of that name.

Life is King

Hour after hour, day

After day we try

To grasp the Ungraspable, pinpoint

The Unpredictable. Flowers

Wither when touched, ice

Suddenly cracks beneath our feet. Vainly

We try to track birdflight through the sky, trace

Dumb fish through deep water, try

To anticipate the earned smile the soft

Reward, even

Try to grasp our own lives. But Life

slips through our fingers

Like snow. Life

Cannot belong to us. We

Belong to Life. Life

Is King.

(Sangharakshita, Complete Works, vol 25, p.324)

Then we come to identity of Koan and Enlightenment.

A koan is a problem, traditionally presented as a sort of riddle. Sangharakshita makes a distinction between a problem and a difficulty. A difficulty can be solved on its own level. A problem can only be solved by going to a higher level of consciousness. A koan is a problem in this sense. When Dogen says that Koan and Enlightenment are identical he is not simply saying that you have to gain Enlightenment to solve the Koan. He is saying that it is because of Enlightenment that there is a Koan. In other words because there is a Reality other than the reality we ordinarily perceive, there is a problem which we cannot solve on an ordinary level. The problem, the Koan, is an expression of the Reality which we do not yet perceive or experience and is therefore identical with that Reality – identical with Enlightenment.

The sixth topic is the identity of Time and being.

This means that time is a function of consciousness. The past exists because we can encompass it with our minds now in this present moment. The future exists to the extent that we can encompass it with our minds, now in this present moment. There is no time for a consciousness that cannot encompass past and future in the present moment. It is said that animal consciousness does not encompass past and future. If this is so then there is no time for animals. Past and future exist in the present moment where consciousness abides. There is only now and therefore now is when we must practice the Dharma. There is no other time in which to practice, just as there is no other mind with which to practice. This consciousness we experience is the consciousness we need to raise and expand to higher levels and this time now is the only time available to us. The next moment is not here. The next moment is never here. Only this moment. No other state of being is here – only this state of being. This being at this time is who we are. To be enlightened is to see directly that no being can be grasped and there is no time in which to grasp it. Being flows. There is only becoming. Because being or consciousness flows, time flows. There is no now. There's flowing consciousness and flowing time. There is only impermanence. Only flowing. Our practice is to flow unhindered by fear of change, to flow unhindered by grasping for security, to flow unhindered by concepts of decay and death, to flow unhindered by the phantom ego, to flow unhindered.

When consciousness flows unfettered by fear, hatred and craving, then time becomes meaningless. To give a flavour of this, here is how Subhuti, describes Sangharakshita:

If one chooses to look, one senses within him or behind him something very subtle and refined, yet very powerful indeed, the almost tangible presence of a consciousness greater than one normally knows. It is as if the larger part of him sits in some other dimension, far more real and ample than this one. He has said that he has had a continuous experience recently of the complete meaninglessness of time, and it is indeed as if he looks at the world from a timeless realm...........His own attention is more and more focussed on the great and fundamental issues of existence. Whatever the frontiers of consciousness he is now exploring, there is little doubt that he will continue to do so as long as he is alive – and no doubt beyond death, if we are to accept the traditional Buddhist perspective. (Bringing Buddhism to the West, p.187)

Dogen may have had a similar experience of the meaninglessness of time and therefore he spoke about the identity of time and being or time and consciousness.

The next identity is identity of Being and non-being.

There is no being in the sense of a fixed unchanging ego identity. That is an emotional and intellectual fiction. There is also no state of non-being. There is only becoming. There is only process. As Vessantara put it – we are verbs not nouns. There were apparently some languages amongst Native Americans which had no nouns. Those languages have disappeared because as Margaret Atwood says in her poem Marsh Languages:

Translation was never possible

Instead there was always only

conquest, the influx

of the language of hard nouns,

the language of metal,

the language of either/or,

the one language that has eaten all the others.

Buddhists could do with a language of verbs because it would be more in tune with the reality of life. Nouns are useful, so long as we understand that language is metaphor.

Next we come to identity of Zen Buddhism and the state.

Dogen was keen for the principles and values of Buddhism to influence the state and permeate the institutions of government. He recognised that it was not enough for the individual to change himself – the conditions around needed to change too, so that spiritual practice would be supported by a benign state. Sangharakshita has recognised this too and therefore has given his teaching on the New Society – which is basically a society permeated by the values of Buddhism and therefore a society which promotes conditions conducive to spiritual practice. We need to transform ourselves and also transform the world. Trying to influence the value system of politics and politicians is one possible way to do this. This is the practice of citizenship. In Triratna we have taken a very long term approach and are trying to establish institutions which provide conditions for Buddhist practice and which in time may also be an example of a better way to live. This is what our communities and businesses are about. They are a recognition of the identity of transformation of self and transformation of society, a recognition that these are two sides of the same coin. Our businesses and communities and our social work in India are all a recognition of what Dogen's teaching is referred to as the identity of Zen Buddhism and the State. Some of our friends are also active in promoting ecological awareness and in trying to tackle prejudice against minorities.

The next identity is the identity of men and women.

This is the traditional Buddhist view as stated by the Buddha and recorded in the Pali Canon. Ananda asked the Buddha

“Are women capable after going forth form the home into the homeless life under the norm-discipline (the Dharma) set forth by the Tathagatha – are they capable of realizing the fruit of Stream Entry, of Once returning, of never returning, of Arahantship?

And the Buddha answers

“Women are capable of doing so, Ananda”

Men are capable of realising the highest spiritual Ideal – Buddhahood, and women are also capable of reaching the highest spiritual Ideal – Buddhahood. This is what Dogen means by the identity of men and women.

Next we come to the identity of monks and laypeople.

In Triratna we say, as Bhante Sangharakshita has put it, commitment is primary, observing the precepts is secondary and lifestyle tertiary. (The Ten Pillars of Buddhism, p.50) By this is meant that one follows on from the other. Commitment to the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha, commitment to transforming our lives based on the values and principles inherent in the Three Jewels is primary. It is what makes us Buddhists. Following from that, giving expression to that commitment, means the precepts. A commitment that does not affect our lives is only a theory or even a pretence. Following on from observing the precepts is lifestyle in the sense that the values inherent in the precepts will affect how we live our lives. We will want our lives to be such that it is possible for us to practice the precepts. Therefore we will take a close look at how we earn our livelihood – is it ethical? We will take a close look at our home life – does it help or hinder our observance of the precepts?. We will take a close look at what we do with our leisure time – does it help or hinder our practice of the precepts? And so on. The lifestyle we have will be a reflection of our commitment to the principles and practices of Buddhism. This does not necessarily mean becoming a monk. One can be a full time, wholehearted, committed Buddhist without being a monk in the formal sense, and on the other hand one could be a monk in the formal sense without practising very fully.

The important thing is the depth of commitment and the intensity of practice. Whether one is a monk or not does not matter so long as one practices wholeheartedly and consistently. That is what will enable us to grow spiritual and that is what constitutes the identity of monks and laymen as mentioned by Dogen.

Finally we come to the identity of Sutras and Zen Buddhism.

This is important in the context Zen Buddhism at the time of Dogen and also popular Zen nowadays. Zen was said to be a special transmission outside the scriptures and this led people in practice into the error of disregarding the scriptures and sutras. What Dogen was keen to to get across was that the sutras were important, it was only attachment to the letter of the sutras that was a hindrance. So he was steering a path between two extremes. One extreme is to dismiss the sutras altogether and claim that all that matters is direct experience. The other extreme is to slavishly follow the letter of the scriptures in a literal minded, unthinking way. We need to study the sutras, study Buddhist concepts and imbibe the spirit of them and the spirit of the sutras can feed into our meditation practice and lead us to spiritual insight. I think it is very important that we become steeped in Dharmic concepts such as “all things are impermanent” or “everything arises in dependence on conditions” because these concepts will be the tools for reflection when our minds become calm and concentrated. Dogen was warning against a foolish and literal minded interpretation of the notion of a transmission outside the scriptures.

That is a quick run through of some of the main teachings of Dogen. Dogen's true greatness lies in the fact that he penetrated so deeply into the Dharma and embodied and expressed it so fully that his influence is still being felt over 700 years after his death.

I'll leave you with some lines written by Ryokan – the Japanese hermit poet who lived at the end of the eighteenth century and beginning of the nineteenth century. He wrote a poem called Reading the Record of Eihei Dogen. Here is some of it:

On a sombre spring evening around midnight,

rain mixed with snow sprinkled on the bamboos in the garden.

I wanted to ease my loneliness but it was quite impossible.

My hand reached behind me for the Record of Eihei Dogen.

Beneath the open window at my desk,

I offered incense, lit a lamp, and quietly read.

Body and mind dropping away is simply the upright truth.

In one thousand postures, ten thousand appearances, a dragon toys with the jewel.

His understanding beyond conditioned patterns cleans up the current corruptions;

the ancient great master;style reflects the image of India.

…...

Now when I take the Record of Eihei Dogen and examine it,

the tone does not harmonize well with usual beliefs.

Nobody has asked whether it is a jewel or a pebble.

For five hundred years it's been covered with dust

just because no one has had an eye for recognizing dharma.

For whom was all his eloquence expounded?

I'll leave you with Ryokan's question about Dogen..... for whom was all his eloquence expounded?