Is There Anything To Be Done?

Nature of Reality, Reflections,

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We wake up in the morning and as soon as we finish washing our face and brushing our teeth, we get busy in boiling milk, reading newspaper, getting ready for the office. Then the rest of the day we spend in doing whatever our office work demands – typing on the computer, reading and sending emails, attending meetings, tea, coffee, lunch… then we get back home, watch television, read books, spend time with family and go to bed.

Day in and day out we do the same thing. On weekends we go to movies, do some shopping, eat at restaurants and go on a long drive to the countryside. That is what most of our life consists in.

We do all these things but never wonder why we do them. we might have reasons like – in order to survive, in order to earn money, to support our family, and so on. But those reasons are not the real reason why we do things.

We do things mostly by habit. We cannot do anything else. We are so used to doing things in the same way and same manner, it becomes a habit and we don’t realize what we are doing. Not only our physical actions like eating, bathing and dressing is determined by habits, even our psychological actions like thinking and feeling are driven by habit.

In reality we don’t know anything. So we tend to follow others thinking that they know. But they are following someone else. So everyone is simply following others blindly without knowing the underlying reason. This is the way we take decisions on buying a house, a car, going for a vacation and so on.

Fear is a strong motivator of actions. Based on experiences and memory we develop fear and that determines our actions in many situations.

Another strong influence for our actions is our desires. Most people think their desires are their own. But where did they find those? They did not decide to have those desires. It came as a natural inclination without any conscious effort.

So if we really look at the world and the people carefully, beginning with oneself, we find that everyone is sleepwalking, not realizing what they are doing, why they are doing, where they are going and so on. They meet with accidents, love, friendship, joy, grief and everything else without conscious effort. It happens to them. Their inner world of emotions and thoughts also happens.

When we say – I am thinking… it is the thoughts which are going on in my mind. I don’t think anything. Neither do I have any control on my thoughts. And it is the same with everyone.

Can you see how dangerous the situation is? People are living their life and dying completely unaware of who they are, what they are doing and whither they are going. They are dreaming happily with the story they invent of their name, education, job, achievements, children, family, love and friendship.

If you see the danger of this situation clearly, you instantly become conscious and you stop doing what you are doing. You become alert, mindful, and watchful. Suddenly there are no thoughts in your mind. The mind becomes calm and sharp.

And if you attain this state, you realize there is nothing to do. This non-doing is the real doing. All else that we normally call doing is only automatic reaction. No one is in control. The stopping of everything is the real doing.

The Shocking Realization

Meditation, On Knowing Oneself, Spirituality

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It is natural to consider – I am Y. I can do this and I can say this. I have independent will to do what I wish. I can listen. I can think.

It is also natural that I get angry, I get depressed, I like something and I don’t like someone. I have my habits, my assumptions, my judgments, and my way of thinking.

Further, I also believe that I can change whenever I want to. I don’t change simply because I don’t think it is necessary. There might be some aspects of my personality that hurt others or hinder me to attain my best.

However, when things don’t turn out the way I want, I blame others and I blame circumstances. I project all sorts of intentions on other people but do not realize it at that moment.

Now what I am going to explain is the most shocking realization on the path to realization. Every person who has walked on this path faces this hurdle. Only if he accepts this and see the truth of this can he move ahead on the path.

This realization is that – I am not in control!!

I have no control on what I do, what I say, what I think… none at all. Things are happening of their own accord without any one controlling them. In other words, one thing happens because of all the other things. There is no way that one thing would not have happened in any other way keeping all other things the same.

Everything depends on everything else. There is no individual will.

When I see this in myself first, I don’t believe it. But there is no doubt since I am seeing it directly. And when I extend the same observation to other people around me, I am overwhelmed by the danger of the situation.

I cannot expect someone else to simply believe this fact. You gotta see it for yourself. Watch each action of yours – what you do and what you think. If you see carefully, you will observe an infinite chain of events but no original will.

Let’s say you lift your hand to your face. Why did you do it? In most cases, you won’t be able to answer that because we are always making movements of our hands, fingers and body as a reaction to the entire stimulus of the external world on our senses. But if you are observing, you will see that there was a thought to lift the hand and before the thought there was some itching sensation on your face which you want to do away with so you raise your hand. But where did the itching come from?
That is not in your control.

You might develop great theories and plans and think you have done something. But go over it slowly and find out the time when you decided to do that and ask yourself whether you decided independently or as a reaction to something that came to your mind.

All our actions and thoughts are completely involuntary. Nobody can do a thing about it. Our life might seem haphazard but everything happens as a reaction like a spring being released. This realization needs to be deepened before you can come to full realization of the nature of reality and your life.

The World as Illusion

Nature of Reality,

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Mystics throughout the ages have termed the world as illusion – a dream landscape with people and things with no inherent substance. How do we reconcile this with what we sense in our everyday life – the people, the objects, the animals, the trees?

What is an illusion? When something appears to be what it is not, it is illusion. To be more precise – when something appears, it is already an illusion. Appearance itself is illusion.

A tree appears to have a trunk, leaves, fruits, and flowers. A dog appears to have legs, tail, eyes and ears. A human being appears to have hands, face, mouth, nose and hair. We have given names to appearances. But just giving names do not make those appearances real.

What appears to us appears the way it does only because of the various conditions in which it appears. To be more precise – appearances are nothing but conditions. The sky appears blue in the day and black in the night. A leaf appears green when young and yellow when old.

What we see is not an object but an appearance which we name. To understand what is real and what illusion, we must investigate deeper than the surface appearances.

Wood appears solid, but disappears into thin air when burnt. We see a rainbow with many colors but there is nothing but water. Conditions are such that from the point we are the light is reflected by water in the air to create the illusion of a rainbow. There are no colors in the air but we still see them. That is the illusion.

We see the sky but “sky” is a word which has no object. You cannot go up and touch the sky. But touching something does not mean it is not an illusion. When you touch a table, there is only the touch, no you and no table. And what is touch? It is nothing but an appearance or sensation of touch.

I hope you see… go ahead and investigate for yourself. Apply your brain power to this and find out for yourself. Do not try to understand words but find out what the words mean in your mind.

When you are thus able to see only appearances, the whole world dissolves, leaving only the pristine existence in its bareness.

What is the Purpose of Life?

Meditation, Reflections,

So that’s the main question. Is it not? It is easy to say that you must discover your purpose in life or that different people have their own purposes. But I am not asking this question in the superficial sense. And if you have reflected for some time on this, you would have found that superficial answers do not really answer the question deeply.

Just to explain a little more. Is the purpose of my life to become somebody – a celebrity, a CEO, a wealthy person, a father, a grandfather, a good human being? Does my purpose lie in fulfilling all my responsibilities as a son, a husband, an employee, a citizen? Is my purpose gathering knowledge, learning how to do things, earning money, helping others?

All of that! We are doing all of that all our life? Is that all and then we simply die and hope that others will remember us for ever for the sons and daughters we leave behind, the houses and companies we have built. I don’t know about you but to me, none of these things seem to have any meaning. It seems to me that I engage in all these activities only because I don’t really know what I am supposed to do. So I just do what I have been educated in and what I see others doing.

The only way I can answer the question so that the question does not remain is to investigate where the question comes from and not by looking for an answer. The question is formed by the words – What, is, the, purpose, of, Life? Each word in itself has no meaning; neither does each alphabet of the word. Isn’t it true that I have composed the question simply because I can do so or have heard it or read it and then go about searching for the answer?

My mind and your mind have been trained to find answers to questions. Whenever a question is asked we are supposed to find an answer or else we will fail the exam. But can you drop the question altogether? If you can do that in reality, you might come across something which you never expected and come face to face with life in its naked form.

What Is It That Exists?

Language, Nature of Reality, Science

One of the best ways I have found to understand what exists is from the Tibetan Buddhist teachings. Any object can be considered in 3 ways

The object is made of its components

For instance, the laptop is made up of the screen, the keyboard, the CPU, the memory, the casing and so on. Even a solid object like a stone can be considered to be made of up of atoms and molecules.

The source from where the object originates

To take the same example, the screen of the laptop might be manufactured in China, the CPU in Malaysia and other components in different places and the final assembly would have happened in USA. Similarly, the stone that you see on the road has come there from somewhere. Maybe it broke off a mountain, got carried in a truck and fell down there.

It is an object because we give it a name

This is easier to see for things which are changing rapidly. For instance, we give the name Katrina to the hurricane that swept across the US. But what is a hurricane but the movement of air in a certain pattern. The hurricane is no longer there but the air which was part of the hurricane is still around. By giving a name we create an object. This way of thinking is radically different from the normal way of thinking that we give a name to an object.

​If you really want to see the world as it is, then learn to see everything from these 3 perspectives. Take a leather shoe for instance. See that it is made up of the sole, the upper portion and the lace. Then see that the leather would have originated from some animal, processed and then made in to a shoe. Finally, it is a shoe because you think it is. This point might need some insight but try to see it. Can you see the object without giving it a name?

Looking at Life as a Story

Metaphors, On Knowing Oneself,

 

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How do you describe yourself? Don’t you say something like the following:

​My name is Y. I was born in N city on DD-MM-YYYY. I attended this school and that school. I studied graduation from a reputed college and post graduation from an even reputed college. I work as a manager in some renowned company. Previously, I have worked in many companies like M, F and C. I am married and my wife’s name is B and I have two kids A and A. My parents stay in N. I like to read books. I like new age and fusion music. I also like watching movies.

That is my story. I can add more details and elaborate on it. But doesn’t everyone have a story? What is your story? You have a name. You were born somewhere. You did this and did that. You went here and went there. You like this and you dislike that. And many more things like this. Then you have your goals. “I want to do this in life. I am working on a great project. I want to earn a million dollars. I want to drive a BMW and live in a penthouse.”

Observe this carefully. Is there anything apart from the story? I say there is just the story and nothing else. Our mental life is made up of nothing but the story. The obvious question you might raise is then what is all that we see and feel. “The hand that I see is not the story; it is apart from the story. The sky, the tree, the road, the bus, other people and so on.. they are not simply stories. They are real.”

What all those things are cannot be said in words. All words and descriptions are again stories. Whether it is the story of the big bang, or how the earth was formed, or how Alexander conquered countries, how a bud becomes a flower and how a child grows into a man, all these are stories – descriptions made out of concepts invented by us. You read stories in novels, you read stories in newspapers, you listen to stories on television and radio..

Reality is not compelled to follow these stories. Reality cannot be understood with these stories. You will see what is real only when you empty your mind of all stories. You must not attach importance to these stories but know them simply as yarn woven out of thin air.

Koans – A Zen Practice for Enlightenment

Zen

laozi

Koan is a technique for awakening by silencing the conceptual mind.

Traditionally there have been two main schools of Japanese Zen Buddhism – the Rinzai School and the Soto School. The main emphasis of the Soto School was on sitting meditation while that of the Rinzai School was on the Koans. The aim of both was essentially the same – enlightenment or awakening.

WHAT IS A KOAN?

A Koan is a statement, a dialogue, a story or a question which cannot be understood or answered by logical thinking. In fact, logical thinking is the biggest hindrance in understanding the meaning of the Koan. Some famous koans used by Zen masters are

  • What is the sound of one hand clapping?
  • All the ten thousand things return to the one. Where does the one return to?
  • A monk asked Joshu, “Does a dog have Buddha Nature?”. Joshu shouted, “Mu”.
  • Shuzan held out his staff and said, “If you call this staff short, you oppose its reality. But if you don’t call it short, you ignore the fact. Now, what do you call it?”

HOW IS THE KOAN USED?

The Zen student requests the Master to give him a koan for practice. The Master understands the specific mental snags in the student and gives him a koan which is most helpful in his practice. He also explains to the student in private what he must do with the koan. The student is instructed to constantly keep the koan in mind and try to grasp its hidden meaning. He has to think of the koan while walking, eating, sweeping, and while doing all the daily activities.

When the student believes he found the answer or when the student meets the Master during the scheduled times, he must explain what he has understood. If the Master finds evidence to believe that the student has really understood, he will certify the enlightenment of the student else he will drive him away asking him to put in more effort into the koan.

Mumon, a great Zen Master, said to his students that they must make their whole body and mind into the koan in order to penetrate it.

HOW DOES THE KOAN PRODUCE ENLIGHTENMENT?

Although the koan is a paradoxical statement and appears to be some sort of puzzle; it is not something that can be solved using a mental trick. It cannot be understood in conceptual terms at all. The purpose of the koan is to silence the conceptual mind completely as this is essential for awakening.

A statement that one does not understand makes the mind go on hyper drive. The mind turns and twists the question to find out its meaning and find an answer in one way or another. As long as the student keeps giving conceptual answers, the Master keeps sending him away. Even if the student realizes that there is no conceptual answer and says so, the master might tell him that knowing it is one thing but feeling it in one’s bones is another.

However, with constant practice with a koan, the student’s mind finally falls silent on its own accord and then whatever answer he gives will be spontaneous not based on rational thought. This is the first step to awakening.

COLLECTION OF KOANS

The most famous collections of Koans are found in two books – The Blue Cliff Record and The Gateless Gate.

Arhat vs. Bodhisattva

Buddhism

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Arhat and Bodhisattva are commonly understood terms in Buddhism. The Arhat is the pinnacle of spiritual achievement as mentioned in the Theravada scriptures while the Bodhisattva is an ideal which spiritual seekers aim for in order to achieve Buddhahood.

There are several sects within Buddhism, the main ones being the Theravada, also called as Hinayana and the other being Mahayana. Arhat is a term used by the Theravada sect while Bodhisattva is used by the Mahayana. And there is some amount of debate among the Buddhists on these terms and what they signify. In order to understand what this means, it is important to learn the context of the terms used.

THE ARHAT

In many Theravada texts, the Buddha is described as an Arhat, one who has completely extinguished birth and death. An Arhat is not reborn in any realm. This is the highest spiritual achievement, the goal of all meditation and practice. The Arhat is the final stage of 4 stages of spiritual evolution – the stream enterer, the once returnee, the non-returnee and the Arhat.

The stream enterer is one who has entered the path of Nirvana and within a maximum of 7 rebirths will attain to the level of Arhat. He cannot go back into the realm of suffering. The once-returnee as the name suggests is reborn only once before he becomes an Arhat. The non-returnee has no more rebirths in the lower realms but has not yet become an Arhat. The Arhat is one who has extinguished all desire, all ignorance which leads to rebirth.

There is a distinction which is made between the Buddha and the Arhat. A Buddha is one who discovers the supreme path with his own efforts, without recourse to a teacher. The Arhat on the other hand achieves Buddhahood but with the guidance from a Buddha. There is another category called Solitary Buddhas or PratyekaBuddhas, who also become Buddhas without any teacher, but they are unable to teach others. It is mentioned in several texts that after his disciples became Arhats, the Buddha sent them all across the land to preach the Dhamma.

THE BODHISATTVA

Bodhisattva, which is the Mahayana ideal, is someone who has taken the vow to save all sentient beings, wherever they are however innumerable they are, from ignorance and the rounds of rebirth and until then, he does not enter Nirvana. In order words, he does not free himself until he has helped each and every other being to free themselves. The Bodhisattva willingly gets reborn in order to fulfill his vow.

A Bodhisattva is also someone who is eventually going to become a Buddha in a time to come. So if you are intent of attaining Buddhahood, you need to take the Bodhisattva vow and help people in innumerable lifetimes, leading to the perfections and eventually to Buddhahood.

THE CONTENTION

The Mahayana Buddhists accuse the Arhat of being selfish, looking after his own salvation without helping others. Monks in the Theravada tradition go off into the jungles away from society, beg for their food and spend their time in meditation in order to become Arhats. The Mahayanists claim that you cannot become a Buddha unless you have the Bodhisattva attitude.

The source of the Bodhisattva ideal can be traced to the stories of the past life of Buddha as told in the Jataka tales. In each of these stories, Buddha recounts how he helped other people through millions of previous births as a human being or as animal, on his path to becoming the Buddha.

THE RESOLUTION

I believe the people who make a dispute out of Arhat and Bodhisattva have not really grasped the essential teaching of the Buddha. The core of the realization which makes a Buddha is that there is no Self, separate from the rest. It is not that you strive and meditate to destroy the Self. The Self does not exist right from the beginning. What you do is to eliminate the illusion or notion of its existence.

So looking at things from this view, there are no people to begin with. And if you really understand in your bones what impermanence is, what emptiness is, there is no more dispute. Then there is no difference whether you help people or not because you are not there at all and neither are they. When you eliminate the notion of self, there is no me and no others, so no sentient beings to save.

​But so long as you see others suffering, you also have a subtle notion of self. When you do away with this, whatever you do will be a help to people. You see, there is a limit to explanations with words.

If you are taking the Bodhisattva vow, it is good. It helps to direct the mind outwards away from the self-centeredness. But eventually, your goal is to become the Buddha when you no longer hold the view of Self. If you are coming back again and again into the world to help people, you are only increasing the delusion. On the other hand, if you consciously strive to become an Arhat, you are caught in the deepest swamp.

The true son of Buddha only looks directly into the mind, discovers there is emptiness, and stays there with nothing further to be done.

Language in Thought and Action

Books

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Language in Thought and Action by S I Hayakawa

This is a book that must be made compulsory reading for every human being who communicates. Now that means pretty much everybody.

All of us communicate throughout the day. The ability to talk and communicate is what has made human beings the reigning species on the planet. Yet how little we understand about how we communicate!

Even though we have been communicating for centuries and millenia, we still cannot be certain that what we speak is understood by the other person as we intended. This is a rare book which I picked up in an obscure bookshop in Singapore.

I have been making photocopies of this book and have gifted it to many people. This book makes so much sense that I have also prepared a presentation on its contents and make it point to teach it to others whenever I get the opportunity.

Quotes from Language in Thought and Action

The habitual confusion of symbols with things symbolized, whether on the part of individuals or societies, is serious enough at all levels of culture to provide a perennial human problem… The symbol is not the thing symbolized; the word is not the thing; the map is not the territory it stands for.

Many situations in life as well as in literature demand that we pay no attention to what the words say, since the meaning may often be a great deal more intelligent and intelligible than the surface sense of the words themselves.

What we call society is a vast network of mutual agreements.

Having defined a word, people often believe that some kind of understanding has been established.

What we call things and where we draw the line between one class of things and another depend upon the interests we have and the purposes of the classification.

It has been said that knowledge is power, but effective knowledge is that which includes knowledge of the limitations of one’s knowledge.

Reinterpreting the 3 Jewels of Buddhism

Buddhism

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The Buddha, the Dhamma and the Sangha – The Triple Gem

All practitioners of Buddhism take refuge in the triple gem. However, a deeper meaning can be interpreted about them apart from the conventional meaning.

The 3 jewels of Buddhism are the Buddha, the Dhamma and the Sangha. Conventionally, the Buddha stands for the person Gautama Buddha who taught 2500 years ago in India. The Dhamma stands for his teachings and the Sangha is the order of monks which he founded.

Whenever a lay person wants to get ordained as a Buddhist, he has to recite the three refuges thrice. By doing this, the person expresses his intention to lead his life by following the teachings of the Buddha. If the person wishes to become a monk, he must take formal vows.

Most lay people who consider themselves as Buddhists do not investigate the deeper meaning of the triple gem. They pay respects to the statue of the Buddha; they perform rites and rituals or read Dhamma and also offer food and robes for the monks in the Sangha. However, if one really investigates the true significance of the three jewels, one can discover the Buddha’s teaching for himself and become enlightened.

First Jewel – Buddham Saranam Gacchami (I Take Refuge in the Buddha)

Buddha literally means the ‘Awakened One’. It also stands for the Buddha Nature which is the underlying substance of all the phenomena of this universe and also one’s true self. So when one takes refuge in the Buddha, it is not bowing down to the image of Buddha or praying to that image. In a deeper sense, it means taking refuge in one’s true self or true nature.

Ordinarily, we are known by our individual names and are living according to the circumstances that life presents to us. However, in the Buddhist understanding, this is bondage. To be free, one must recognize one’s true nature and live in it, which puts an end to all striving because one has reached one’s home.

Second Jewel – Dhammam Saranam Gacchami (I Take Refuge in the Dhamma)

The word Dhamma has many meanings. The most commonly used is that of the body of teachings of the Buddha in the form of discourses and the sutras. However, a deeper meaning of the word Dhamma is also phenomena or ultimate reality. It is like saying that ‘water flows because it is the Dhamma of water to flow’.

Taking refuge in the Dhamma does mean, at the superficial level, studying the sutras and following the teachings in one’s life. However, in a deeper sense, one must take refuge in the true nature of things. One must understand that all things have the nature of impermanence, dissatisfaction and emptiness and live that understanding. This refuge meant to free oneself from attachment to things and wrong notions.

Third Jewel – Sangham Saranam Gacchami (I Take Refuge in the Sangha)

The Sangha is the community of monks who live according to the teachings of the Buddha. They beg for their food and spend their time in meditation. In the literal sense, taking refuge in the Sangha means to join their order by becoming a monk. However, in the deeper sense, it means living the right life oneself. Living in society, where one is tempted by all kinds of desires and influences, one must live rightly even if one has to stand alone.

Taking refuge means one is protected against all danger and calamity. And taking refuge in the triple gem is the true protection from the vicissitudes of life. However, one must take the refuge understanding the deeper significance of the three jewels.