Master
Sheng Yen's Mixed Message
Recently I have gone through many
sources on the topic of sudden enlightenment. Here I continue on this topic. Please remember that what I say here is being said solely
from the viewpoint of sudden awakening, not from the viewpoint of
gradual enlightenment.
Chan-master Sheng Yen (1930-2009), a well known proponent of
Chinese Chan (Zen) Buddhism said:
”So they (the students) hoped I
can give them a way to sudden enlightenment. It seems to them that,
given the way to sudden enlightenment they would get enlightened
immediately. I told them, ”I'm sorry. If there is such a way, I
would have used it first. But up until now I have not invented it.”
Up until now no Chan Buddhism literature has shown who had used it.
It's like making a pill from a thing called sudden enlightenment and
then once you swallow it, you'd be enlightened immediately. Or like
getting a morphine injection. You want enlightenment? No problem. I
have this thing that you inject and you become enlightened at once.
Or how about something like an acupuncture needle? One needle at the
acupuncture point and enlightenment at once. All these are sudden
enlightenment, aren't they? I say, what a pity, no one has yet made
the discovery... Some attain enlightenment gradually while others
attain enlightenment at once.”
In the same vein, Jetsunma Tenzin
Palmo, a well known Tibetan Buddhist nun of the
Kagyu-school said:
”It would be nice if someone would
come along and find a method by which people could awaken. Even the
Buddha couldn't do that. How to collectively wake up? I don't know.”
I was just talking with a friend of
mine about the matter of dharma practitioners, teachers and even
masters becoming conditioned to their respective dharma method. To
say it bluntly, it means that people devoted to their paths become
very convinced of their paths, thinking that whatever their teacher
or master says is 100% true and accurate. We easily fall into the
trap of trusting an old approach of mind training which is held as
something very accountable and effective. However, especially the old
systems have a lot of useless stuff, beliefs, assumptions and hearsay
in them, among other things. I understand this is hard criticism but
listen what I have to say.
It is undeniable that there are two
segments in mind training: 1. sudden awakening/sudden enlightenment
and 2. gradual enlightenment/purification of the mind. These
two principles are based on the anatomy and mechanism of the dualistically conditioned
and deluded human psychology. Many texts (sutras and tantras) have
explained these two segments. As I already said, this text is
purposeful on the first segment, sudden awakening.
In my analysis there are four main problems in various teachings
trying to help their followers awakened (sudden awakening) but not
being able to do so. These factors may be partial impediments,
serious hindrances which waste time and energy of the practitioner or
complete obstacles which are dead ends in the context of awakening:
1. theoretical explanation not being able to explain what
awakening exactly is and what the anatomy of it is,
2. method in
general not having particular technology for awakening,
3.
technique aimed at generating awakening in particular, being
superficial or only vaguely relevant and
4. no guidance from an
awakened specialist available.
A problem with some mind training methods is
that there is no understanding or a vague understanding of the
mechanisms of the dualistic mind and the way how it works. The
psychological anatomy of our existential dilemma and confused mind is
poorly known. This in turn affects the content of the method and the
technology consisting of various collection of techniques.
The thing is that the mind is already
conditioned to believing that ”I” is a real solid entity. We are
already conditioned in believing to this artificial sense of me-ness
which permeates our whole bodymind. The sense of ”me” or ”I”
is already a false notion. Because of this there is no reason to go
anywhere else except directly into the sense of the I-thought to
solve it and to realise that the I-thought has no solidity, that
there is no such entity as "I" to begin with, only boundless awareness
without any kind of entity in it.
Not knowing or
understanding the core of this existential dilemma, people are told to
do these or those non-relevant practices to solve it. But the problem
is that the given (1.) theoretical explanations and particular (3.)
techniques might have no relevance with the actual issue, as in
Master Sheng Yen's teaching. He says that he doesn't know
there being a way to get suddenly awakened, even though he has been asked for it by his students. There is
no other way to explain this than to consider that his understanding
of the nature of the problem is insufficient. If one knows, whether
being a dharma master or a common man, that the core of the problem
is this limited sense of me-ness that is deeply ingrained in our mind
and nervous system, why would you create any other theories or
artificial add-on techniques in order to solve it? It doesn't make
any sense, does it?
Various mind training
methods are aware of the fact that the elements of the mind, thoughts
and emotions, need to be purified by gradual practice (2. gradual
enlightenment). Various methods encourage us to do different
practices for making our minds permanently calm and clear. This is
quite well known. But when it comes to sudden awakening which means
that one comes to see through the illusory thought of ”I”, the
methods and teachers are pretty lost. Then they go on saying that,
”I'm sorry. If there is such a way, I would have used it first.
But up until now I have not invented it... what a pity, no one has
yet made the discovery...” as
master Sheng Yen. I am sorry but I don't think this is OK. The old methods and their exponents often do
not have solid understanding of what sudden awakening exactly is and how
to go about it. The effect of this can be seen in the spiritual culture of the world.
There really is a need to review what we are doing
here. We need to analyse what we are doing
and where it will take us or whether what we are doing is relevant at all. There is a call for pragmatism here. Unless we do that, we will have the same problems again and again. If
we continue the same way as before, even another 2500 years of buddha
dharma won't make it.
Thank you for reading.
-Baba Kim Katami
Helsinki, Finland.
Open Heart,
