Mysticism Christian and Buddhist: Section One: II. The Basis of Buddhist Philosophy

The experience which forms the basis of Buddhist philosophy is called "enlightenment-experience," for it is this experience of enlightenment which Buddha had after six years of hard thinking and profound reflection, and everything he taught afterward is the unfolding of this inner perception he then had.

What then was this enlightenment-experience?

II

Roughly speaking, we can say that there are two ways of approaching this question: What is the enlightenment-experience Buddha had? One is objective and the other subjective. The objective approach is to find out the first rationalized statements ascribed to Buddha after the experience and understood as forming the basis of his teaching. That is, what did he first teach? What was the main thesis he continued to preach throughout his life? This will be to discover what characteristically constitutes the Buddhist teaching as distinguished

this world where every one of us is made to undergo all kinds of sorrow and suffering. How do we escape from them? Or, how do we conquer them? For we cannot go on like this. We must somehow find the way out of this torture. It was this feeling of fear and insecurity individually and collectively that made Buddha leave his home and wander about for six long years seeking for a way out not only for himself but for the whole world. He finally discovered it by hitting upon the idea of non-ego (anattā). The formula runs thus: 1

All things (dhammā) are egoless. When a man by wisdom realizes [this], he heeds not [this world of] sorrow; this is the path to purity.

The one thing I wish to call to the readers' attention is the term "wisdom," paññā, or prajñā in Sanskrit. This is a very important term throughout Buddhist philosophy. There is no English equivalent for it. "Transcendental wisdom" is too heavy, besides it does not exactly hit the mark. But temporarily let "wisdom" do. We know that seeing is very much emphasized in Buddhism, but we must not fail also to notice that seeing is not just an ordinary seeing by means of relative knowledge; it is the seeing by means of a prajñā-eye which is a special kind of intuition enabling us to penetrate right into the bedrock of Reality itself. I have elsewhere 2 given a somewhat detailed account of prajñā and its role in Buddhist teachings, especially in Zen Buddhism.

The doctrine of non-ego not only repudiates the idea of an ego-substance but points out the illusiveness of the ego-idea itself. As long as we are in this world of particular existences we cannot avoid cherishing the idea of an individual ego. But this by no means warrants the substantiality of the ego. Modern psychology has in fact done away with an ego-entity. It is simply a workable hypothesis by which we carry on our practical business. The problem of the ego must be carried on to the field of metaphysics. To really understand what Buddha meant by saying that there is no ātman, we must leave psychology behind. Because it is not enough just to state that there is no ātman if we wish really to reach the end of sorrow and to be thus at peace with ourselves and with the world at large. We must have something positive in order to see ourselves

prajñā-intuition that sees into the ego itself. Eckhart tells us: "In giving us his love God has given us his Holy Ghost so that we can love him with the love wherewith he loves himself. We love God with his own love; awareness of it deifies us." 3 The

This play was played eternally before all natures. As it is written in the Book of Wisdom, "Prior to creatures, in the eternal now, I have played before the Father in an eternal stillness." The Son has eternally been playing before the Father as the Father has before his Son. The playing of the twain is the Holy Ghost in whom they both disport themselves and he disports himself in both. Sport and players are the same. Their nature proceeding in itself. "God is a fountain flowing into itself," as St. Dionysius says.

Ibid., p. 146.)

Looking for the maker of this tabernacle
I ran to no avail
Through a round of many births;
And wearisome is birth again and again.
But now, maker of the tabernacle, thou hast been seen;
Thou shalt not rear this tabernacle again.
All thy rafters are broken,
Thy ridge-pole is shattered;
The mind approaching the Eternal,
Has attained to the extinction of all desires. 7

This is Irving Babbitt's translation, the lines of which were rearranged according to the original Pali. Incidentally, I wish to remark that there is one point in it which is unsatisfactory from my point of view. This is the phrase, "the mind approaching the Eternal." The original is "visankhāragataṃ cittaṃ." This means "the mind released from its binding conditions." "Approaching the Eternal" is the translator's own idea read into the line. Henry Warren, author of Buddhism in Translations, translates it "this mind has demolition reached," which points to nihilism or negativism, while Babbitt's translation has something of positive assertion. The difference so conspicuous in these two translations shows that each interprets the meaning according to his own philosophy. In this respect my understanding, which is given below, also reflects my own thought as regards the significance of Buddhist teaching generally.

The most essential thing here is the experience that Buddha had of being released from the bondage in which he had been

gahakāraka. He now feels himself to be a free agent, master of himself, not subject to anything external; he no longer submits himself to dictation from whatever source it may come. The gahakāraka is discovered, the one who was thought to be behind all his mental and physical activities, and who, as long as he, that is, Buddha, was ignorant, made him a slave to this autocrat, and employed Buddha--in fact anybody who is ignorant of the gahakāraka--to achieve the latter's egocentric impulses, desires, cravings. Buddha was an abject creature utterly under the control of this tyrant, and it was this sense of absolute helplessness that made Buddha most miserable, unhappy, and given over to all kinds of fears, dejection, and moroseness. But Buddha now discovers who this gahakāraka is; not only does he know him, but he has actually seen him face to face, taken hold of him at work. The monster, the house-builder, the constructor of the prison-house, being known, being seen, being caught, ceases at last to weave his entrapping network around Buddha. This means what the phrase "visankhāragataṃ cittaṃ" means, the mind freed from the bondage of its conditioning aggregates (sankhāra).

gahakāraka working out his own limited understanding of freedom. The enlightenment-experience does not annihilate anything; it sees into the working of the gahakāraka from a higher point of understanding, which is to say, by means of prajñā, and arranges it where it properly belongs. By enlightenment Buddha sees all things in their proper order, as they should be, which means that Buddha's insight has reached the deepest depths of Reality.

As I have said before, the seeing plays the most important role in Buddhist epistemology, for seeing is at the basis of knowing. Knowing is impossible without seeing; all knowledge has its origin in seeing. Knowing and seeing are thus found generally united in Buddha's teaching. Buddhist philosophy therefore ultimately points to seeing reality as it is. Seeing is experiencing enlightenment. The Dharma 8 is predicated as ehipassika, the Dharma is something "you come and see." It is for this reason that sammādassana (sammādiṭṭhi in Sanskrit) is placed at the beginning of the Eightfold Noble Path.

IV

The question now is: Why does the absolute Atman want to see itself reflected in the empirical Atman? Why does it want to work out its infinite possibilities through the empirical Atman? Why does it not remain content with itself instead of going out to a world of multitudes, thereby risking itself to

9

Tasting, seeing, experiencing, living-all these demonstrate that there is something common to enlightenment-experience and our sense-experience; the one takes place in our innermost being, the other on the periphery of our consciousness. Personal experience is thus seen to be the foundation of Buddhist philosophy. In this sense Buddhism is radical empiricism or experientialism, whatever dialectic later developed to probe the meaning of enlightenment-experience.

Buddhist philosophy has long been wrongly regarded as nihilistic and not offering anything constructive, But those who really try to understand it and are not superficially led to misconstrue such terms as demolition, annihilation, extinction, breaking up, cessation, or quiescence, or without thirst, cutting off lust and hatred, will readily see that Buddha never taught a religion of "eternal death."

"Eternal death," which is sometimes regarded as the outcome of the Buddhist idea of egolessness, is a strange notion making no sense whatever. "Death" can mean something only when it is contrasted to birth, for it is a relative term. Eternal

sankhāra-freed mind," which is in fact no other than Eckhart's eye: "The eye wherein I see God is the same eye wherein God sees me: my eye and God's eye are one eye, one vision, one knowing, one love." Time is eternity and eternity is time. In other words, zero is infinity and infinity is zero. The way of purity opens when the eye sees inwardly as well as outwardly-and this simultaneously. The prajñā seeing is one act, one glimpse, one cittaḳsāna which is no cittaḳsāna. Unless this truth is seen with prajñā-intuition, the "hymn of victory" will never yield its full meaning. Those who read it otherwise cannot go beyond negativism or nihilism.

Renewal befalls all creatures under God; but for God there is no renewal, only all eternity. What is eternity?--It is characteristic of eternity that in it youth and being are the same, for eternity would not be eternal could it newly become and were not always. 10

"Renewal" means "becoming" which is "transiency." What is eternal never knows "renewal," never grows old, remains forever "youthful," and transcends "demolition" or "annihilation" of all kinds. Enlightenment is to know what this "eternity" is, and this knowing consists in "knowing eternity-wise his [God's] is-ness free from becoming, and his nameless nothingness" 11 Eckhart is quite definite in giving us what kind of God he has in mind in this matter of knowing and not knowing:

Know'st thou of him anything? He is no such thing, and in

Taking refreshments takes place in time. Out of time there is no taking of anything. The old teahouse keeper now asks the traveling monk what time he will use for recuperating from fatigue when, according to the Sūtra, no time, past or future or present, is "obtainable." When there is no time how can one accomplish anything? As far as thought is concerned, that is, where language is supreme, no movement of any sort is possible in this life, and yet the strangest fact is that we keep on living in the fullest sense of the term. The old lady is not a metaphysician, nor is she at all interested in metaphysics. But when she saw how inextricably the young man was involved in verbalism and in its intricate complexities she wanted to rescue him, hence the question. And sure enough he never thought of this possibility. Finding himself in the midst of contradiction, he knew not how to clear himself out of the trap which was of his own construction. He had to go without his refreshments.

Zen is very much interested in the problem of the absolute now-moment, but its interest is more along the practical line

ikku or i-chü in Chinese). The saying is not necessarily uttering any sound, it is acting of some kind. In Eckhart's term, the trick is to insert "the soul's day" into "God's day" (Blakney, p. 212). God's day is characterized as containing all time in the present now-moment [in eime gegenwürtigen nu]. 33 To God, "a day, whether six thousand years ago, is just as near to the present as yesterday." We, of another kind of day where yesterday is yesterday and one thousand years is one thousand times more than a year, either to the past or to the future, cannot have God's day operative in our everyday living. But if we do not somehow succeed in making "was" or "will be" turn into "is," we cannot have peace of mind, we cannot escape from dread, which is a topic current among existentially minded modern men. They must somehow have "the refreshment" served. To have and yet not to have must really be the cause for worry and anxiety.

I will quote a Zen sermon 34 to show how it differs from those sermons given by Eckhart, though it treats the same subject of time and eternity and the basic ideas do not differ so widely as they superficially appear. The Zen sermon was given by Daitō the national teacher (1282-1337) of the fourteenth century who was the first abbot of the Daitoku monastery, Kyoto. A Zen sermon generally begins with a mondo between the master and one of the disciples when the sermon proper is very short consisting of about a dozen lines rhetorically composed. The occasion was a New Year's Eve. When Daitō the

The master said, "All over the universe." 35

The monk continued, "When the world has not yet come into existence, 36 how do we find a passage to it?"

The master: "We fold the hands before the monastery gate."

The monk: "Anything further?"

The master: "We burn incense at the Buddha Hall."

The monk: "I understand that, anciently, Hokuzen roasted the big white bullock 37 that used to roam at the monastery courtyard and gave a feast to his monks to celebrate this memorable occasion. I wonder what kind of feast we are going to get this New Year's Eve?"

The master: "When you chew it fine, it tastes sweeter than honey."

The monk: "In this case we of the Brotherhood will appreciate your generosity."

As the monk bowing began to step back the master said, "What a fine golden-haired lion!" 38

The master now gives his regular sermon: "The old year passes away this evening. Let things go that are to go and

The master struck the seat with his hossu and said, "The December snows filling up to the horizon make all things look white, while the spring winds blowing against the doors are still severely cold."

VII

It is now time, after these lengthy excursions, to come back to the original topic and see if we cannot get once more into the subjective approach to Buddha's experience of enlightenment. The experience cannot merely be designated as a kind of feeling and thus done away with as if this designation exhausted all the contents of enlightenment. For, as I understand it, the enlightenment cannot be said to be devoid of any noetic elements which yield to a certain extent to a linguistic and intellectual treatment. The feeling of enlightenment has something profoundly fundamental and gives one a sense of absolute certainty and finality which is lacking in the ordinary kind of feeling we generally have. A feeling may occasionally give one the sense of exaltation and self-assurance, but this will after a while pass away and may leave no permanent effect on the being of one who has the experience. The enlightenment feeling on the other hand affects the whole personality, influencing his attitude toward life and the world not only morally and spiritually but in his metaphysical interpretation of existence as a whole. Buddha's experience was not just a matter of feeling which moves on the periphery of consciousness, but something awakened in the deepest recesses of a human being. In this sense only is his utterance recorded in the Vinaya and the Majjhima Nikāya and elsewhere to be understood. In the gāthā already quoted above from The Dhammapada (vv. 153, 154), something similar to the one below is noticeable, but the positive and dynamic aspect comes forward more strongly and conspicuously in the following: 39

This victory song is expressive of the supreme moment of the enlightenment-experience which Buddha had. In the first verse depicting the discovery of the gahakāraka (house-builder) and the demolition of his handiwork, we see the negative aspect of Buddha's experience, while in the second one dealing with the exalted feeling of victory, the realization of the highest knowledge (prajñā) and the consciousness of one's own value as he is, we see its positive aspect coming out in full view.

The consciousness of conquest such as was awakened in the mind of Buddha at the time of enlightenment cannot be regarded as the product of a self-conceit which is often cherished by minds tarnished with schizophrenia and the wielders of political or military powers. With him however whose ego-centered desires have been shattered to pieces the consciousness of victory rises from the deepest sources of being. So the feeling of conquest is not the outcome of a struggle of powers

isticheit) in Eckhart's

anupalabda in Sanskrit and pu k’o tê in Chinese) is not to the point either. Nothing is acceptable. To say it is, is already negating itself. Suchness transcends everything, it has no moorings. No concepts can reach it, no understanding can grasp it. Therefore, it is called pure experience.

41

Another thing I should like to emphasize in this gāthā of conquest is that Buddha calls himself "all-conqueror" and also "all-knower," showing, that his victory is absolute and that his knowledge is not at all fragmentary. He is omniscient as well as omnipotent. His experience has something noetic and at the same time something conative or affective, reflecting the nature of Reality itself which consists in prajñā and karuṇā. As regards prajñā, which is sometimes translated as "transcendental wisdom," I have written about it elsewhere. Therefore I shall speak here about karuṇā. Karuṇā corresponds to love.

gerecht), because "the just have no will at all: whatever God wishes it is all one to them, however great the discomfort may be." 42

The just are so firmly devoted to justice and so wholly selfless that whatever they do, they regard neither the pains of hell nor the joys of heaven. . . . To the Just person, nothing is so hard to bear or so painful as anything opposed to justice, that is to say, as not feeling impartially the same about everything that happens. 43

"Justice" savors a great deal of legalism contrary to the idea of love. But when, as Eckhart interprets it, justice is considered from the affective point of view as meaning "impartiality," "sameness," "universality," or "all-embracing," it begins to approach the Buddhist idea of karuṇā. I may add that Mahāyāna Buddhism further developed the idea of karuṇā into that of praṇidhāna or pūrvapraṇidhāna and made each one of the Bodhisattvas an incarnation of a certain number of praṇidhāna, for example, Amitābha has forty-eight praṇidhāna, Samantabhadra has ten, and Kṣitigarbha also has ten. Praṇidhāna is generally translated as "vow" or "fervent wish" or "prayer," or simply "the will," but these English terms do not convey the full meaning of the Sanskrit as it is used in the Mahāyāna. Roughly speaking, we may interpret praṇidhāna 

taṇhānam khayam) so much emphasized in the teaching of earlier Buddhism is not to be understood negativistically. The Buddhist training consists in transforming tṛiṣṇā (taṇhā) into karuṇā, ego-centered love into something universal, eros into agape.

The teacher replied: "Thoroughly clean! Utterly blank!"

Teacher: "There are many like you." 44

Daitō the national teacher then gave a short sermon:

He now held his staff up straight and declared: "It is piling filth over filth."

Footnotes

38:1 The Dhammapada, translated by S. Radhakrishnan (Oxford University Press, 1951), verses 277-9, pp. 146-7. I do not, however, always follow him in my quotations in this book.

39:2 Studies in Zen (London: Rider and Company, 1955), pp. 85-128.

40:3 Evans, pp. 147 ff.

42:4 The Dhammapada, verse 348, p. 167.

43:5 Studies in the Lankāvatāra Sūtra, pp. 223 ff.

43:6 "Sabbe dhamma anattā’ ti yadā paññāya passati."

44:7 The Dhammapada, pp. 153-4. (Published by Oxford University Press, 1936.)

46:8 Dhamma in Pali. It has a multiple meaning and is difficult to render it uniformly. Here it stands for Truth, Reality, Norm.

48:9 "O taste and see that the Lord is good; blessed is the man that trusteth in him." (Psalms, 34:8.)

50:10 Evans, p. 246.

50:11 Pfeiffer, p. 319. "Du mit ime verstandest ewicliche sine ungewordene istikeit under sine ungenanten nihtheit."

51:12 Evans, p. 246.

53:13 Lankāvatāra Sūtra, translated by D. T. Suzuki (London: George Routledge and Sons, Ltd., 1932), p. 77.

54:14 Evans, p. 228.

55:15 Ibid., p. 204.

55:16 Ibid., p, 204,

56:17 Ibid., p. 37.

56:18 "Ein luter wesen" in German. Luter means "intellectually or analytically clear and distinct," opposed to what may be called "metaphysically indefinite."

57:19 Evans, pp. 204-5.

57:20 Quoted by Eckhart, Evans, p. 205.

57:21 Pfeiffer, p. 296.

58:22 A more or less modernized interpretation given to Yengo's terse and loosely knit Chinese.

58:23 Literally, "question and answer."

60:24 St. Augustine, Confessions, Book XI, 14.

60:25 Evans, p. 134.

61:26 Blakney, p. 231.

62:27 Evans, p. 221.

62:28 Blakney, p. 72.

62:29 Ibid., pp. 72, 73.

62:30 "Ein unbedahtiu warheit" (Pfeiffer, p. 284), that is, a truth not premeditated but spontaneously coming to mind.

62:31 Blakney, p. 232.

63:32 Studies in Zen, p. 126.

64:33 Pfeiffer, p. 265.

64:34 From the Sayings of Daitō Kokushi.

65:35 The original literally has, "The thirty-three heavens and the twenty-eight constellations."

65:36 Literally, "When the firework has not yet been cracked."

65:37 "The white bullock" is the symbol for the Highest Reality.

65:38 This is a more or less ironical remark on the part of the master.

67:39 The Vinaya, I, p. 8. The Majjhima Nikāya (translated by Lord Chalmers, published by Oxford University Press), 26, p. 12.

68:40 It will be interesting to note that we have another gāthā in The Dhammapada, v. 353, which also echoes the same sentiment as the one here quoted from another source. It is possible that they are from one and the same original source. The Dhammapada one runs thus:

71:41 Evans, p. 14. "This birth" in this sermon means "the newborn Being" or "the child of man turned into the child of God." It also means "hearing of the Word" which is revealed to "one who knows aright in unknowing."

72:42 Blakney, p. 179.

72:43 Ibid.

75:44 These questions and answers may sound somewhat enigmatic to most of our readers. A full explanation will be given elsewhere on a more opportune occasion.