184: Surangama Sutra

In the introduction to “The Surangama Sutra, A New Translation” by the Buddhist Text Translation Society, the section on “The Reasons for the Teaching” explains six reasons for this particular sutra, the title translating to something like, "heroic march or journey": 1) The first is the importance of balancing learning and meditation practice. The authors explain that Ananda, the interlocutor in this sutra, had “the keenest memory of all the Buddha’s disciples” but thought he could rely solely on his intelligence and neglected his meditation practice, thus making himself vulnerable to the “spell” the young courtesan in the story cast upon him on the way to the meeting with Shakyamuni Buddha.They also explain “The Syllogism and the Tetralemma” as key forms of formal logical argument that the Buddha employs in trying to help Ananda navigate the intricacies of the nondual nature of Mind. Quoting one example, using the five parts of a syllogism: proposition, reason, instance, application and conclusion: 1) Proposition: it is the mind, not the eyes, that see2) Reason: our visual awareness is active even if nothing is being seen;3) Instance drawn from ordinary life: In the Buddha’s words, “If you asked a blind man on the street, ‘Do you see anything?’ he would no doubt answer, ‘All I see is darkness.’”4) Application of the instance: “Reflect upon what that might mean. Although the blind man sees only darkness, his visual awareness is intact.”5) Conclusion: “The eyes themselves simply reveal visible objects; it is the mind that sees, not the eyes.” A brief explanation of the Tetralemma, or Fourfold Negation, follows: In the logic of ancient India, statements could be affirmed, negated, neither affirmed nor negated, and both affirmed and negated. In this fourfold negation, sometimes called the “tetralemma,” (catuskoti), a proposition is asserted to be neither true, nor not true, nor both true and not true, nor neither true nor not true. That’s a lot of neither-nors, for those of us who presume that Zen promotes a positive mental attitude. But they go on to explain that “This formula can serve as a reminder in our practice that all we perceive is empty of any attribute, and so nothing definitive can be asserted about the world and the contents of the mind.” In more recent times, namely the Thirteenth Century, Master Dogen affirms this tenet in several fascicles from his masterwork, the Shobogenzo, including “Self-Fulfilling Samadhi (J. Jijuyu Zammai): All this however does not appear within perception because it is unconstructedness in stillness — it is immediate realization. If practice and realization were two things, as it appears to the ordinary person, each could be recognized separately. But what can be met with recognition is not realization itself, because realization is not reached by a deluded mind. Implicit in this last is that, therefore, any form of recognition, of any perception, is itself delusion. It is only when perception itself undergoes deconstruction that the delusory nature of perception becomes apparent. If fundamental reality cannot be perceived, let alone recognized, described and asserted as real, we have to embrace a new definition of primary experience itself, most immediately before it is translated into perception. Nagarjuna gets a mention as the founder of the “Emptiness (Madhyamaka) school of Buddhism” who “popularized the logical negation of these four possibilities as a way of showing the emptiness of anything that might be construed as a real, permanent self or phenomenon or as an attribute of a real, permanent self or phenomenon.” Note that the imputed self is lumped in with all other phenomena as fundamentally unreal. The question of whether things are real or not, is not the question in Zen, however. The existential question in Zen is not either-or black-and-white, but HOW things exist. They exist by virtue of emptiness; that is, with determinate characteristics of impermanence, imperfection, and insubstantiality. Given these three attributes yes, things do actually exist. For now. Forever is a different story. One might argue the case that “thingness” exists forever, and that no single thing is separate from all things. But what we perceive as a thing is pulling a fast one on us. Don’t be fooled. An interesting and, I think, cogent definition of enlightenment and awakening is included, and I quote: In this volume we use the English terms “enlightenment” and “awakening” as synonyms. In Buddhism, when these terms are used in a formal sense, they do not connote a temporary experience but rather a complete and irreversible transformation of one’s fundamental way of being in the world. Only the enlightenment of a Buddha is perfect and complete. The text goes on to explain that others, such as those folks who function as Bodhisattvas, “have ...