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Prajna Paramita in 8,000 Lines – 2007 (Part 2 of 4)

Second in a series of four talks on “The Perfection of Wisdom in Eight Thousand Lines” translated by Edward Conze.

Prajna Paramita in 8,000 Lines (Part 2 of 4)

By Zoketsu Norman Fischer | September 12, 2007

Abridged and edited by Ryusen Barbara Byrum

 

I want to start with one passage that we read last week. I want to repeat it, because I think it is such a great and important passage. It appears on page 94, the last paragraph. Subhuti is the mouthpiece for the sutra.

Subhuti: The perfection of wisdom, beneficial to all the three vehicles, is also the perfection which [allows them not to] lean on any dharma, because it shows that all dharmas have no support and can therefore give none. [Here dharmas mean everything.]

The virtue of the perfection of wisdom is that it allows all practitioners not to lean on anything, or to depend on anything, because there is nothing to depend on. “Lean on” you could read as “attached to; get entangled in.” You don’t have to get entangled in anything, because when you appreciate the teachings of the sutra, you realize that there was never anything to get entangled in. So to be unsupported in terms of this sutra is the ultimate security.

Subhuti: For if a Bodhisattva, when this deep perfection of wisdom is being taught, remains unafraid, then one should know that she has adjusted herself to the perfection of wisdom, and that she is not lacking in this attention [to the true facts about dharmas.]

So, these are two things that we stressed last week, and that were mentioned so often in the beginning of the sutra. One is to realize the unsupported nature of all dharmas, the empty nature of all dharmas, the insubstantial nature of all dharmas. The other is to not be afraid or freaked-out, or not to fall into despair and lacking motivation. To realize the empty nature of all dharmas, and not to be afraid, is to course in the perfection of wisdom. Then a particular kind of attention – of mindfulness – arises.

Then Sariputra, who is the spokesperson for those who do not understand the perfection of wisdom and have a great resistance to it, appears. He questions Subhuti, saying:

Sariputra: How is it that a Bodhisattva does not lack in attention when he is adjusted to perfect wisdom? [In other words, he is saying, “No, I think a Bodhisattva would lack in attention when he is adjusted to perfect wisdom.”] For if a Bodhisattva is not lacking in attention, then he should automatically lack in adjustment to the perfection of wisdom.

In other words, there are two choices. Either you see that everything is unsupported and empty, or you have attention. Because if you saw that everything was unsupported and lacked any substance, you couldn’t have any attention. You could only have attention if you thought there was something there to be attentive to. You might think, “I have been practicing attentiveness and mindfulness, because I think that there is something to be mindful of. You’re saying there is nothing to be mindful of, so it is either one or the other. Either you are going to be mindful of something, or you are not mindful, in which case you are in accord with the teachings of the perfection of wisdom.”

Sariputra: And if he does not lack in adjustment to the perfection of wisdom, then he would be lacking in attention. [So if he is in accord with the perfection of wisdom, then there is no attention.] But if in a Bodhisattva the two facts that he is not lacking in attention, and that he is not lacking in dwelling in the perfection of wisdom, belong together, then all beings also will not be lacking in dwelling in the perfection of wisdom. Because they also dwell in not lacking in attention.

It’s a little convoluted, but basically Sariputra is saying that either you have attention to something, or you see that there is nothing, and there is no attention. If you have attention to nothing, and also understand that everything is nothing, then what are we talking about? There’s nobody out here for attention. Everybody is all the same. Everybody is mindful or not mindful. So what’s the difference? Practice does not seem to exist. This is not an incorrect statement. What he is trying to say is that this doesn’t make any sense.

I am not going to check to see if you are following me, I’m just going on! [Laughter]

Subhuti: Well said, and yet I must reprove you, although the Venerable Sariputra has taken hold of the matter correctly as far as the words are concerned. Because one should know that attention [mindfulness, awareness] has no real existence in the same way in which beings have no real existence. [So attention is empty; attention itself is empty; mindfulness itself is empty, just the same way that all other things are empty.] That attention is isolated in the same way in which beings are isolated. [Last time we spoke about this word “isolated,” which means, “supreme, sovereign, without peer,” not “desperately lonely.”] That attention is unthinkable in the same way that beings are unthinkable; that acts of mental attention do not undergo the process that leads to enlightenment in the same way that beings do not undergo that process; that acts of attention do not in any real sense undergo the process which leads to enlightenment, any more than beings do. It is through an attention of such a character that I wish that a Bodhisattva, a great being, may dwell in this dwelling.

This is a description of Zen mindfulness, in which we are not so interested in something to be mindful of – we are not investigating or figuring something out – we are applying an attention, which has no particular object that is actually existing. I was thinking the other day that one of my teachers had a great way of putting this. It was a brilliant way of putting it. He said, “Awareness, mindfulness, means to drop the significance of everything.” Meaning, drop the conceptual set-up that we are holding about ourselves, about anything that we are dealing with, and just be present without any objects.

It is a different kind of presence. It’s not that I am being mindful of my thoughts, so that I can see the kind of thoughts I’m having (good thoughts or bad thoughts), or mindful of my posture, so that I can have the right posture. But just being present, dropping the significance of everything, so that everything falls away and there is just the being present. It’s a little different way of being mindful. In a way, it looks the same from the outside, but there is a certain level of depth here, of the recognition that you are not working toward something. You are just being absolutely and totally present.

It was in that spirit that I suggested that, in order to prevent us from becoming too heady, those of us who are willing to – and I myself was willing to do this – we would all practice being attentive in this way while we are washing the dishes. I suggested that we pay attention specifically when washing the dishes:, completely being present, with nothing there on each moment of washing the dishes. But then I thought, “Suppose some of these people have dishwashers?” I didn’t think of that. I don’t have a dishwasher. So let me be clear about this. I am about talking not about putting dishes in the dishwasher – you can still do this sometimes – but washing the dishes and seeing everything, the whole cosmos, on each moment.

I was practicing that this week, and I found it really satisfying and interesting and profound. I noticed a few things. I noticed that in a very subtle way, while I was standing there washing the dishes, my body was ever so slightly leaning in another direction. I was there washing the dishes, but really I was, “Let’s get this over with, because I have something more important to do.” Even though it was very subtle – and if you looked at me, you would not have said that – but from the inside, I could feel that very slightly I was turning away in another direction. This clearly meant to me that I had forgotten the empty nature of the dishes, and of myself, and of the next task that I supposedly was going to do. I was thinking that there was actually something important to be done, and the dishes were something that had to be done and gotten through with, so that I could go on to the next thing. So the rest of the week, whenever I noticed myself doing that, I would be there, firmly facing the dishes. It made a big difference, and there was a lot more release in my washing of the dishes. When I did that, I began to notice that washing the dishes has a lot to do with hearing the sound of the water and the movement of the dishes; and once I started hearing that, it made a whole different experience. There was a lot of peace in that practice. I could feel more emptiness. I could feel more a sense that the dishes were far from being something to get through quickly. They were saving me. The empty nature of the dishes was compassionately taking me in hand and giving me something really precious. Releasing me from my quite unconscious fantasies.

So that is my little report on Zen dishwashing, and I recommend that we all try this. I bring it up again, because it is what the sutra is talking about. With all these words and concepts that may seem hard to grasp, it really isn’t about the words and concepts. It is about the reality of our experience in being with our lives in a particular way.

So on to page 100 in chapter two. This is section six, “The Infinitude of Perfect Wisdom.” Sakra is the chief of the gods. The gods all come together to the Buddha and appreciate the teaching.

Sakra: This perfection of wisdom, Subhuti, is a great perfection, unlimited, measureless, infinite.

Subhuti: So it is. And why? Perfect wisdom is great, unlimited, measureless, and infinite because form, feelings, perceptions, consciousness are also unlimited. [So the dishes are infinite; this is the point. The dishes are measureless, infinite. I was not noticing that. If you are washing infinite dishes, it’s a fantastic thing! It’s not a chore.] Hence one does not settle down in the conviction that this is a ‘great perfection,’ an ‘unlimited perfection,’ a ‘measureless perfection’, and ‘infinite perfection.’ [Why? Because those are limited concepts.] That is why perfect wisdom is a great perfection, unlimited, measureless, and infinite. [Not even limited by the concepts.] Perfect wisdom is an infinite perfection because objects as well as individual beings are infinite. [So here you see that “limitless,” “measureless,” and “infinite” are synonyms for emptiness.] Perfect wisdom is an infinite perfection because one cannot get at the beginning, middle, or end of any objective fact. Moreover, perfect wisdom is an infinite perfection because all objective facts are endless and boundless, and their beginning, middle, or end are not apprehended. For one cannot apprehend the beginning, middle and end of form. In that way, perfect wisdom is an infinite perfection by reason of the infinitude of objects. And further again, a being is endless and boundless because one cannot get at its beginning, middle, or end. Therefore perfect wisdom is an infinite perfection by reason of the infinitude of beings. [So we are strangled by the limitations of our everyday experience, including our thoughts and feelings – so ineffable, indefinable, and ungraspable. Frightening to think of that. And yet we hear about emptinesss, and we get frightened. But emptiness is the antidote to that.]

Sakra: How is it, Holy Subhuti, that perfect wisdom is an infinite perfection by reason of the infinitude of beings?

Subhuti: It is not so because of their exceedingly great number and abundance.

Sakra: How then, Holy Subhuti, is perfect wisdom an infinite perfection by reason of the infinitude of beings?

Subhuti: What factual entity does the word “being” denote?

Sakra: The word “being” denotes no dharma or non-dharma. It is a term that has been added on [to what is really there] as something adventitious, groundless, as nothing in itself, unfounded in objective fact. [So all of our language, and most of our thinking, is an add-on, without anything to which it exactly refers.]

Subhuti: Thereby, has any being shown up? [Does any being appear with your words?

Sakra: No, indeed, Holy Subhuti!

Subhuti: When no being at all has shown up, how can there be an infinitude of them? [There aren’t any.] If a Tathagatha, with his voice of infinite range, with the deep thunder of his voice, should pronounce, for eons countless as the sands of the Ganges, the word ‘being,’ ‘being’ [countless beings], would he thereby produce, or stop, any being whatsoever, either in the past, present, or future?

Sakra: No, indeed, Holy Subhuti! Because a being is pure from the very beginning, perfectly pure. [Limitless, measureless, perfectly pure, impervious – all beings, all dharmas, all thoughts, all objects.]

Subhuti: In this way also, perfect wisdom is an infinite perfection by reason of the infinitude of beings. In this manner also, the infinitude of perfect wisdom should be known from the infinitude of beings.

[Page 119]

Sakra: Does a Bodhisattva course only in the perfection of wisdom, and not in the other perfections?

The Buddha: […] Even so, one cannot get at a distinction or difference between the six perfections. All of them are upheld by skill in means, dedicated to the perfection of wisdom, dedicated to all knowledge.

“Skill in means” is a really important Mahayana term. Basically what it means is profound improvisation. The Perfection of Wisdom is the ultimate flexibility, right? Because there are no guidelines. So one needs to drop the significance of everything, to be fully present in any given situation, and to come forth with what is needed in that situation. Sometimes it might look this way and sometimes that way. How to come forth with all knowledge on any occasion, unique to that occasion.

This is very much the spirit of Zen. No guidelines, no rules, no set forms. Just coming forth from the groundless standing. The virtue of all the training forms is to train us in that. Here we have skill in means. The Perfection of Wisdom is all six Paramitas rolled into one.

edz

Xiangyan’s man up a tree

Mumonkan, case 5
This talk is available in Spanish translation. See Mumonkan, caso 5: El hombre colgado del árbol de Xiangyan

Case:

Xiangyan said: `It’s like a man hanging in a tree by his teeth over a
precipice. His hands grasp no branch, his feet rest on no limb, and at the
bottom of the tree someone stands and asks him: `What is the meaning of
Bodhidharma’s coming from the West ?'
`If the man in the tree does not
answer, he fails in his responsibility to the person below; and if he does
answer, he falls and loses his life. Now what shall he do?'

Mumon's comment:

In such a predicament the most talented eloquence is no use.
Even if you have memorized all the sutras, you cannot use them. When you can
respond correctly, you give life to those who are dead, and kill those who
have been alive. But if you cannot respond correctly, you should wait and ask
the Buddha, Maitreya.

Mumon’s verse:

Xiangyan is truly a fool
Spreading that unlimited
ego-killing poison
He closes up his pupils' mouths
And covers their
whole body with demon eyes.

In connection with this case the story of Xiangyan’s awakening is always told. It seems that like a lot of Zen adepts, Xiangyan, was an intellectual: a student of the sutras. It’s interesting that in Zen such scripture specialists are usually made fun of but the fact of the matter is most of the great Zen masters past and present were highly literate people. And even though it is repeated over and over that you need to have real concrete experience, the fact is that insofar as Zen practice centers on the understanding of Zen literature, which it certainly does to some great extent, Zen is a very literary religious tradition.

In these stories usually the literary person exhausts his or her intellectual abilities and out of frustration burns his library and goes off in despair. That’s the typical Zen trope, and it is exactly what happens in the story of Xiangyan. He is asked by his teacher to express his understanding, and he racks his brain and searches his notes but he cannot answer the question, “Who were you before your parents were born?” He says to Guishan, his teacher, I have no answer to this, please teach me; but Guyishan says, I have nothing to teach you, and even if I had, if I explained it to you you would hate me for it later. Besides, whatever understanding I might have is my own, it will never be yours.

Well this is a pretty good response from the teacher, I think. And it is not a joke or a pedagogical technique, it is literally the case. The fruit of practice isn't the conceptual understanding of something, or an experience of something; it’s a feeling we have for life; a way we live our life; and even though zen is zen and we all come to see the same thing about our life through the practice, it really is unique for each one of us because each of us is living out a different dilemma. So we have something to share- but also each of us has to find out for himself. It’s unusual for a teacher to be clear about this, so I admire Guishan for his response.

So Xiangyan goes off and burns his sutra texts and notes and goes to take care of the gravesite of an eminent teacher. He just works there every day quietly sweeping up and clearing the grounds. A nice job, I think, and probably a great relief to Xiangyan. Wittgenstein worked at a Catholic monastery as a gardener toward the end of his life, I think, and I always thought that was wonderful. It’s harder to do such a thing now though- somehow there isn't social support for grave keepers or gardeners. You have to own the cemetery or the landscape business to be able to survive. Being a menial laborer is less possible as an option than it once was. That’s too bad. Anyway, one day Xiangyan was sweeping and a stone skipped up and struck a hallow bamboo- tock!- and with that sound he was awakened. He ran to his hut, took a bath, got all dressed up, and offered incense in gratitude to his teacher for not telling him anything.

I would like to make a few points about this story. First, how do we study and think about things? Well my idea is that we have to do that as poets. I think Zen practice- and I would extend that and say religious practice in general- has a poetic approach. By that I mean that the style of thinking and studying isn't logical or cumulative, emphasizing reasoning or the amassing of data; rather it’s experiential, and whatever connections are made are made by feel, and according to what one knows deeply within one’s heart, rather than by sticking to some sort of scholasticism or following some thread of reasoning about doctrine. Of course all religions including Zen have scholastic traditions that involve logic and the accumulation of data and so on, and there’s nothing wrong with that. It’s interesting. But the real juice of any tradition, it’s transformative pivot point, can never be scholastic. It’s always about some poetic turn of mind or heart, some epiphany. So it’s ok to study and read. It’s not that you should become an illiterate. It’s good to study and read.

But there are many ways to read: you can read with your mind or with your belly or with your breath or with your heart. The way we ought to read is all those ways. I often advise people- read a little bit after you sit. Maybe for ten or fifteen minutes. Just read a few paragraphs. Let the words sink in. If they float out of your head, fine. If they stay in your gut even better. If you come to something that seems important, stop there and just breathe with the words. If it is really important write it down and put the words on your altar and breathe with them during the day. This is reading with the lungs and spleen. So in the old stories when it says the monk burned his books, or when it talks about illiterate masters, like the 6th ancestor, I think it is not telling us to stop studying; I think it is pointing to a particular way to study.

The second point I want to make about this story is that it seems to involve a crisis- as Zen stories often do. It seems as if some sort of actual crisis is necessary in spiritual practice in order to finally see what you need to see. Not a hoked up crisis created for the sake of enlightenment, but a real crisis, a real dark night of the soul.

I have several friends who are going through such crises. It’s an interesting thing. All of them are very successful, they have achieved much in their careers, they are happily married, their children are in great shape, their health is good, and nothing particularly challenging is going on in their lives. And yet all of them- each one in a different way-are going through a really difficult time- a life and death time. It’s hard to explain- it is something inside that they may not talk about much, and I am sure most of the people who know them have no idea that this is going on. And yet, these crises are very real.

You come to a point in your life I think where you realize you don’t know where you are or where you are going. You realize that you are holding onto something and you can’t let it go and you know you have to let it go. This becomes something immense and you can’t seem to find any way to let it go even though the misery it is causing you becomes very intense.

That’s what happens to Xiangyan in this story. And he does what I would do in such a case: he abandons his life and makes things very very simple, very quiet. He just devotes himself to some simple work. Now I realize that for my friends it isn't possible to abandon their families and careers and go take care of a graveyard. In some cases such a thing might actually be possible; but mostly even if it were possible it would be some kind of romantic flight, a way of running away from the problem. Still, though, my friends can find a way of making themselves internally quiet. Of recognizing the nature of the crisis and turning toward that, of letting go as much as possible of extra things and frivolous things. Of evaluating everything they do and asking, is this really necessary or is it just one more thing I am doing automatically, without really needing to. And then even the things they do need to do they can do more slowly, and with a sense of renunciation. Renunciation- the recognition that everything must be given up in the end- and even now must be given up- is already given up- this is what they need to get used to. This is the solution to the crisis. It’s what Xiangyan does, he renounces his big interesting literary Ch’an and sweeps graveyard paths.

And then tock!- very dramatically it becomes clear to him. So this is a story, yes? Our own solutions might not sound so dramatic or so clear. But they might, and in any case within the context of our own lives they will certainly be as dramatic.

The interesting thing I want to note about this is that in Zen stories such moments never come about in meditation practice. They always occur in moments of relationship. Usually it’s an exchange between two monks. It might also be, oddly enough,when hearing something read or recited. And sometimes, like here, it is with an act of perception- the ear organ meeting the heard object. And this is what brings it about- a meeting.

Lately I have been reading Martin Buber’s “I and Thou,” and I have been astounded at how much it reminds me of this Zen experience. Buber says that all real living, all deep living, is only meeting, true meeting. A relationship that is so intimate that the two utterly alter each other in the process. A relationship, he says, that only takes places in the radical present moment- and only lasts that long. In such a relationship there is no time and no space, and such relationships are not experiences. He is insistent on this point- they are not experiences. They occur but they are not experiences. It’s not that the two merge- there is still I and there is still you. But both are created in that moment by virtue of the giving up of everything that occurs on that moment of relationship.

In this story Xiangyan relates to the world- he actually relates to the fact of hearing something; he hears something for the first time and he is created all over again as a person. When you actually hear something the whole world is in your ear. Your life is changed forever. What could you be looking for at a time like that? How could you feel incomplete? I think when Xiangyan heard that tock! he didn't care whether he lived or died and all his accomplishments and failures, all his happiness or sadness, was entirely unimportant. The story doesn't go on past what I have told you but I am sure that after this Xiangyan felt like going out and meeting the world on all occasions. As in the tenth ox herding picture, he was ready now to go out with his big bag of goodies trying to have fun with everyone he met, and to help out a little if he could. Maybe he did that in the graveyard, I don’t know. But I am sure that was his feeling.

So the main case- Xiangyan’s man up a tree- is a fable about this person in the middle of crisis. Hanging onto his life by his teeth, ready to fall to his death below. This is certainly a crisis. And it’s the crisis of every moment of our lives of course. It’s the crisis of time itself. Even if there had been no one asking annoying questions below it would still be a crisis- after all, you can’t hold on up there forever- but I find it interesting that the urgency of the issue comes from the fact that the man in the tree knows he is responsible to others. He is responsible to the person below asking the question. It’s because he is responsible to others that he has to take the situation in hand, that he really has to do something. But, as with the most intimate things in our lives, whatever he does is wrong. There is no solution to his dilemma.

In his commentary to this case, Shibayama-roshi quotes someone who says, “what about when he has fallen from the tree, what is the meaning of Bodhidharma’s coming from the west then?” And Shibayama adds, “and if he hangs from the tree, just as he is hanging, the essence of Zen is manifest there. Here and now, just as it is, this is it.”

Zen Master Baiyan, commenting on this case, said , “Xiangyan made the whole earth into a glowing furnace, its fierce flames reaching to the sky.”

There is no way out of here: that’s a definition of life. There is no way for us to escape our responsibility to others and there is no way for us to really embrace impermanence. Also there is no way for us to ignore our human problem- we have to go right into it, to hang there in that tree. Of course there’s no solution to this koan, it’s not as if it were a problem with a trick or clever solution, as if your life were a problem with a trick or clever solution. There aren't any solutions, tricky or otherwise, and this is why our life’s issues are only in the end resolved through renunciation, through letting go entirely.

When you let go entirely, and recognize that it is easy to do this since you never really had anything to begin with, including your own life, then you can do the things you need to do. You can hurt someone if there is no way not to hurt them, and you can live with that. You can let someone or something go if that is what you have to do. Also you can enjoy loving someone knowing that each day of that loving them is a precious day, the first and last day of loving them. You are not looking for happy endings. You are not trying to tie up loose ends. You do your best of course but you know there’s really no hope for that. Suffering is endless and all of us are entirely alone in the center of the world.

I am a practical person and I always think- what does any of this that I am saying amount to? Why do I waste my time talking about it? People go about their business anyway, and what does this sort of thing do for anyone?

Well I do feel that if you sit every day and make your sitting into a furnace, burning up your whole life, in other words, if you situate yourself in the middle of your life but not in the middle of your thoughts or emotions or ideas- and you plunge into that very large space, and recognize that this is where we all always live- if you can do that then I think you can also recognize and remind yourself about renunciation all the time, and you can practice it. If you do it will begin to affect your state of mind and also your conduct. You will realize that it makes no sense at all to hold onto yourself and your own desires. You can have a good time, no problem. But don’t hold on. And then it will be possible for you to dangle there, just breathing. If you fall actually it won’t make that much difference- falling and dangling are both forms of dangling anyway.

Mumon's comment:

In such a predicament the most talented eloquence is no use.
Even if you have memorized all the sutras, you cannot use them. When you can
respond correctly, you give life to those who are dead, and kill those who
have been alive. But if you cannot respond correctly, you should wait and ask
the Buddha Maitreya.

“give life to those who are dead,” means yourself as well as others- you wake up for the first time to seeing and hearing and speaking and listening. You can see what’s really at stake in our lives and begin living that out. And when you do that you become an example for others.

“kill those who have been alive” means you don’t any longer have to worry about all the obsessions and confusions that had plagued you before. When they arise you know them for what they are, instances of suffering that have clear causes, and once you see the causes you can let go of them and reduce the suffering. Now your problems are real problems, big problems, not the usual kind.

Mumon’s verse:

Xiangyan is truly a fool
Spreading that unlimited
ego-killing poison
He closes up his pupils' mouths
and covers their
whole body with demon eyes.

The students listing to Xiangyan tell this story were dumbfounded- they couldn’t respond. They were freaking out over this difficult seemingly impossible problem. But the problem is easy- it is their minds that are difficult. They think there’s a solution but the solution is in the letting go of the problem, as is usually the case. If it were me I would have screamed out help! help! help! save me! save me! then would have plunged to my death happily.