Great Tolerance

   Ven ChangYun talked about tolerance during our group meditation practice tonight. What is tolerance, I wonder? The term reminds me of when I was very young and I was forced to swallow food that I didn't like, such as really stale sandwiches. I was learning "tolerance" mentally, but physically I think I rejected the food. So where does tolerance come from?

   When I reflect deeply on tolerance, I think that most of the time, I have subconscious vexations: thoughts in my mind that are so hidden or embedded that they create pressure without me realizing it. This is almost like wearing tight clothing for all of one's life, only to realize how tight they were when one wears the clothes appropriate to one's body size. Tolerance can become thin if one's thoughts are oppressive. But another enemy of tolerance is having too many wants. If I want to travel and find I have only certain number of days' vacation, I find myself trying to save vacation here and there, and I feel constrained. With fewer desires for something better, I can take one step at a time and treat each of my day to day tasks with a sense of earnestness. In this way, there is so little that I need to do in the moment. I believe that when there is less mental pressure, there is much more room for tolerance. But I need to think on this topic a little more to fully understand and appreciate it.

Perplexity

  Here is what Master Boshan says about the great doubt of birth and death: "Your inability to shatter this barrier of birth and death will suddenly arouse the doubt--like a curled knot on our eyelashes, which you are unable to untangle or get rid of" (Master Sheng Yen, Attaining the Way, p.7). I am reminded of those math problems in school that are so frustrating to solve, yet we spend hours engaged on it in the hope of finally breaking through to resolve it. Is the doubt like this? What drives that urgent desire to resolve this great doubt?

  I would have to say that one must respect the process here, over and above the actual solution. What good is the solution, for instance, if it comes from a textbook or is somehow given to us? The important part is not solving the problem but of how this process opens up and softens us to a place where there are no neat solutions, and everything is in a constant state of unfolding and constant flux. Wanting to know and have the answer prematurely is perhaps the sign that we associate not knowing with a sense of threat--that feeling we get when we haven't properly prepared for an important test or exam, for example. 

What can doubt do to us? Maybe this doubt is about realizing that there was no real ground for my being after all, since my true nature is impermanent. By exposing myself to the continual doubt of the everyday world (not getting caught in habitual thoughts, being vulnerable to present moment confusion, yet being grounded in the body), I am exploring a different aspect that is neither born nor dies. It is just in a constant state of leaving! Well, this would be how to see the huatou as a practical tool for living.

Waves and Iterations

 If we knew we were only waves, and merely versions of one great big ocean, how would that change the way we are? I keep hearkening back to Olaf Stapleton's early science fiction novel First and Last Men, where he talks about legions of galaxies and histories of different alien races, all experimenting with different modes of society. Iterations. Versions. "Experiments". Then whatever we are doing here is a mere echo of a deeper truth, something that by nature is intertwined with everything.

   Master Boshan remarks, "Oblivious to where you will go after you die, how can you not question where you will end up?" (p.7 from Master Sheng Yen, Attaining the Way). Suddenly, the wave knows that it's only a wave and will disappear soon, but before it does, it generates that burning question: who am I really? What part of "me" will leave, and what part of me will stay here after I leave? Some say that it's karma that will stay after our death. While this may be true, we may continue to ask where even karma comes from and whether or not it too is permanent.

  Can our creations--those things that keep us alive and interested-- sustain us? Only, I am afraid, if we see creativity as one wave in the ocean. If I build an elaborate sandcastle and tell the world to take a look and be enthralled, I ought to remember that the castle will not survive as a phenomena. But as an expression of mind, it is the supreme sign. We can say the same about anything we marvel at. The mind creates the elaborate image, then names it, then classifies it by the name. All this elaborate creation, but who is the creator? This is the question that Master Boshan seems to be asking. 

When we look into that mind, does the sandcastle itself not seem all the more precious? Or do we resignedly throw up our hands and say, "Well, I spent so many hours on that beautiful sandcastle, only to find it's so unreal, so destroyed by the coming waves"? I believe that, based on my understanding of Buddha's teachings, the latter reflects nihilism and the belief in a sense of self that stands to gain and lose. The former, on the other hand, reflects an awakening compassion that comes about through a refined awareness of emptiness. In the former case, the creation is so fleeting, yet it is miraculous. What a freely granted gift I have been given to see these things albeit for a brief moment. 

But what does it mean that I am seeing these things? Who is seeing them? This is to be discovered!

Sustaining Doubt

 Master Boshang remarks on page 7 of Master Sheng Yen's Attaining the Way, "Not knowing where you came from prior to your birth, you have no choice but to wonder where you are from" (italics mine). I wonder, is it true that we have no choice but to wonder, or is this "having no choice" also created by the mind? What happens if we choose not to arouse the doubt sensation or even be curious about the question of our birth and death? I believe that some secular thinkers or skeptics even doubt that there was anything before birth or after death. There must be something special about this expression "having no choice", similar to the concept of choiceless awareness that I have read in other Buddhist texts.

I think that conviction in the question has to come from a certain urgency: either resolve the question now or perhaps never, or even when it's too late to even ponder it. To do so, one must put aside even the concept of choice, because choice entails a subject who chooses. In a sense, "having no choice" here likely means that awareness comes from a place of not choosing at all. This doesn't mean we are "forced" to ponder the question, but rather, the question is so embedded in our experience of life and mind that we can't help but wonder deep within our hearts "who came before me?" It is the one question that is responsible for the sense of unease that we experience that we aren't necessarily conscious of, but is nonetheless there.

What is There to Doubt?

 In the course of practice, the most crucial thing is to arouse the "doubt" sensation. What is this doubt? Not knowing where you came from prior to your birth, you have know choice but to wonder where you are from -Master Boshan, p.7 from Sheng Yen, Attaining the Way

The first part of Master Boshan's exhortation relates to birth and where we came from "prior" to our birth. This seems a bit strange, perhaps, because most people don't remember what happened to them before they were born or even how they got to the world. So, what does this "prior to your birth" really entail? To get to this point is really to question what exactly does it mean for anything to be born, for that matter. Is our own sense of existence truly who we are, or is it nothing more than a series of thoughts, ideas and inklings ? How do we know that the "sense" of who we are is truly who we are at the base? I believe that these are the questions that may give rise to doubt.

While on the bus back from the medical clinic, I had this thought: each person on the bus is a universe unto themselves. There is something infinite about everyone's experience on the bus, where we can't even compare one experience to the other. I can try to imagine "empathically" what it might feel like to be someone else based on my imaginative construction of what is means to "wear their clothes", adopt their mannerisms, or take on their expressions, but at the end of the day, there is something irreducible about experience itself. I cannot just take my current "experience" and plant it into someone's body or brain. At the same time, however, I can tell that somehow everyone on the bus must be aware. They must have awareness in order to be able to do what they're doing. This "awareness" seems to be the basis for any kind of experience in general. It's like the movie screen through which all the images are being projected to create a sense of time and space. But I cannot "take on" the awareness of someone else. Awareness can't be broken up into parts, switched and swapped, or treated as an object. Awareness just somehow is, and as such, is not locatable. 

This ground of experience (awareness?) is perhaps what Boshan means by the great doubt, in the sense that we are looking for this fundamental being that came prior to the birth of anything. Even "birth", now that I think of it, is nothing more than a concept to me, because I don't even remember the event of being born. Did mind suddenly come about through birth, or is it just the basis for any birth? These are the kinds of questions that can make us wonder who we really are and what we were before things came into being. 

Another way of putting it is: prior to subject or object formation, who creates the subject? Who creates the object? But where does the urgency to know this come from? It must come from an insight (to go to my previous entry) that birth and death are like a raging fire of suffering from which there is no escape except to get to the root, to go beyond birth and death themselves.

A "No Concern" Mind

 At this point, throw away your concerns about the raging fire, your very life, your anticipation of others' help; with no other thoughts and refusing to halt, just directly dash forward. If you can break out [of the raging fire], then you're a person of [great] abilities! Master Boshan, "What Beginning Practitioners Should Know", from Sheng Yen, Attaining the Way, p.7

As I am reading this statement, I feel that it contradicts everything I "think" about the goals of practice. Isn't practice about being prudent, observing precepts, and remaining humble in the face of death? Where does the "directly dashing forward" come into it? And, does this act of dashing forward mean abandoning thought altogether? 

My sense is that that the passage doesn't suggest that one be rash, only that one not be clouded and deluded about the nature of thoughts themselves. Thoughts don't really connect with each other; they are transient, and it is only past habits that joins thoughts into concrete wholes. When I see the desk and associate it with a memory of "past desk", I immediately assume that the desk is permanent in nature, not realizing that this desk I am seeing is not the same desk as the past. Different thought, completely different conditions arising from each of these thoughts, yet the mind falsely concludes that it's the same desk because the appearance is the same. Little are we aware that even seemingly solid objects are the result of temporary conditions in the present--the quantum collapse of energy fields based on both form and perceptions.

If my actions are reactions to thought formations, then I fail to see the nature of thought, and it's easy for me to get ensnarled in likes and dislikes, as well as the identity formation of self. By questioning what is the original mind before the birth and death of identity (ego, others, things, "me" and so on), we get to the point where thoughts no longer give rise to the delusion of permanence. Suddenly the mind becomes calm and more clear, more able to work with the illusory thoughts with flow and finesse. Perhaps this is part of what Master Boshan means when comparing the practitioner to a someone running from a burning house.

But I think the most crucial aspect of the burning house metaphor is the sense of urgency it evokes. If we don't act NOW, we forever hold the possibility of liberation indefinitely into the future. This is not because we feel we have lots of time to spend, but because we have no faith in our buddha nature. We think we have to participate in some great meditative experience to arrive at the mind that is already beyond likes and dislikes, change and stasis, arising and falling, birth and death. All we need really do is examine all these polarities and, one by one, question whether the any one of these polarities represents the true you, the true mind you are using to take in these words.

The immediacy of the fire is representative of the sense of urgency needed to stop creating a sense of time and stop thinking buddhahood is some distant future goal. It can only happen when we investigate deeply what is happening now, deep within, in this present moment, without second thought or discursive thinking.

Help of Others

  Master Boshan writes, "Give rise to no other thoughts and don't count on the help of others" (from Sheng Yen, Attaining the Way, p.7). What does this mean, "don't count on the help of others"? Who are the "others" that Master Boshan refers to, and why don't we count on others? During the group sharing today, someone had asked the question of what we do when someone has a strong smell due to smoking, and Chang Yuan Fashi had shared a story of how he sent compassion outward toward ants that were occupying his place of solitary retreat. 

As I listened to these anecdotes, I reflected: sometimes we take this story to mean that the best way to get things the way we want them to be is to send compassion! But this is another strategy that the ego uses to try to gain control of a situation. The point is: when I stop trying to make things right for myself and simply have the confidence in myself to handle any situation with compassion, then there is no more grasping mindset, and things tend to go more smoothly and harmoniously.

   If we rely too much on the help from others, an expectation may come to mind, which involves a mind of grasping. This ironically blocks things from flowing. It's like a person trying to get help by running into a line of traffic and holding up a big sign. The act of seeking help paradoxically blocks help from actually arising. So, I think that when Master Boshan says "don't count on the help of others", he isn't saying that other people are cold or unkind, or cannot be relied upon. Instead, he is suggesting to drop all attachment or grasping at the phenomena of others, so that the real interconnectedness of things can flow more freely , like a kind of cosmic dance.

    When we give rise to no other thoughts (except the huatou, or that which is beyond birth and death), we are allowing all thoughts to appear. Having thoughts is not the enemy; it's the grasping that is. If you have ever seen something desirable or undesirable and tried simply yielding to its presence without a mind of grasping, you will know how difficult it is to see something with all its power for what it is, not for how we want to control it.