In Japan, dokusan is a private meeting of a Zen student with his master, providing the student an opportunity to demonstrate the state of his meditation practice. For background, readers must see my
book, Conjuring Archangel: Chronicle of a Journey on the Path, because the conjuring continues. Dokusan will present contributions selected from Anna's ongoing journal, with her kind permission and at her discretion, in the hope that the gathering of insight may prove helpful to others entangled in the nettlesome web of karma.
The subject of “brilliancy,” Archangel, relates to Master Bassui’s dying words.
“ I came from brilliancy, and I return to brilliancy. What is this?”
We have speculated that this brilliancy may be what Tibetans refer to as the Ground Luminosity, or perhaps the bright light reported in near death experiences. Even so, Guardian, the real mystery is his question.
Indeed so, child, his last words as he died, an exclamation in fact: “What is this!” But the context precedes it. He spoke of coming from and returning to, giving us to wonder what he then saw at that moment of death.
That is the problem, my Guardian. Did he refer to the life he was leaving as he saw that it was very dark, or was he remarking on his first sight of the true brilliancy of ultimate reality?
I will suggest a thought to you, my precious: it bears upon the way people may come to regard their extreme perceptions in the dual realm - extremely beautiful, joyful, miraculous - and even while cognizant of their opposite extremes, believe they perceive the transcendent reality.
They do not, of course.
Thank you, my dear. No they do not. They have far to go, having always lived in sad delusion. Now perhaps, as the Master died, what he saw was the Pure Light of the ultimate transcendence, the singular reality, from which all our sensory perceptions have been seen refracted by configuration.
Mon dieux!
Hold your tongue, child.
But it’s French… sorry, please go on.
And perhaps his exclamation expressed to his monks a sudden realization that the idea of transcendence in the dual realm pales in comparison to the reality it represents.
That is magnificent, Archangel, if I may so observe!
We often discuss here in Dokusan, Archangel, the difficulties of aging, especially enduring the frailties and disabilities, and your instruction is always eloquent and most helpful.
Thank you, my darling. The question is a principle one in this life, and as I reminded you last week, not limited to the last years. I sense, however, you are still not satisfied with my responses.
Indeed, my Guardian, I always have more to ask you, and am deeply thankful for your invaluable guidance. Many people, for example, whether or not they are in grave suffering, express a wish to go to sleep and never wake up. How do you respond, pray?
That is an easy one, child. Every person, unless they have insomnia, goes to sleep at night and never wakes up. Answer that riddle!
Ah, of course, never wakes up the same person.
Precisely, and so many answers are to be found in the true realization of selfhood, simply because the problems arise in that basic delusion. Naturally as long as your brain holds together that chain of refracted oneness you regard as your individual self, you cannot imagine that self - even your individual sense of self - is in truth transcendent oneness.
One more thing, my Guardian: how do we deal with the angry frustration that arises with accumulating disabilities?
I know you understand, my precious that all emotions are caused by chemicals in the brain, ebbing and flowing in tides. That is the perspective. Your best weapon in the case of anger though, is humility. You must try to walk in the sandals of Hakuin, when confronted by the angry accusation of his neighbor.
“Is that so!”
That’s it. But this anger you describe includes an aspect of fear, i.e. that consciousness will continue even after pain is intolerable.
I know that too, Guardian. Then isn’t morphine called for?
Yes, certainly, dear child. Yet the best advice is to utilize this human consciousness for as long as possible, the while observing the kaleidoscopic changes as manifestation comes forth, Tathagata, and holding fast to your refuge in the Dharma, the truth. Next week we must reflect on brilliancy.
I am in your hands, Archangel.
Surely, Archangel, the hardest phase of life it its last - the uncertainties, old memories that provoke negative comparisons.
Selective memory, my darling, is worst of all. I daresay a young person of any age would dispute with you on each point. Life is a struggle, as you will recall whenever you think more carefully. This is the sangsara, the dual realm, where the transcendent potentiality of Tathagata is refracted into myriad forms. Commonly misconstrued, self is rather a chain of these refractions held together by your brain through memory. Your feelings are natural in this context, but it does not behoove you to torture yourself further by drawing comparisons. Simple acceptance is wiser.
But the disability, Guardian, the pain, the fear?
Neither are these new to old age, child, you know that. Indeed in that last phase of life, these are signs that the body is giving out; and when it does, in the not so distant future, consciousness is no longer sustained and you are free, unlike the infant who faces an entire life span.
You always know what to say, my Guardian.
You are my mission, precious one. But please recall the Buddha’s message.
“We have no self nature of our own.”
That’s it, thank you, and the inference?
There is a self nature but it is not individual.
Exactly. Therefore, in realizing that true self nature through zazen, you need not die to be free. Now, my precious, why is that?
Tell me, my Guardian.
We are already free; we are the circle enclosing the yin and yang; we are the nature of Singularity, the One.
My god!
Please don’t call me that.
A rare spell of early autumnal weather, Archangel, has Grey and I feeling haunted by those childhood memories which ironically become more clear as we age.
What you describe, my darling, is nostalgia, particularly for loved ones who have passed on before you. Such memories, you observe, are bittersweet, thus related to the grief we discussed last week, based on delusion.
Quite so, my Guardian, yet surely no less keenly felt for that.
But my rejoinder, child, brought you to tears.
Which you pleaded to stop, but that’s another matter.
Is it, my precious? I cannot bear to see you cry, you know.
Even for joy?
Even so. Recall the story about the old man who was not seen to mourn the death of his wife of many decades.
He said that to mourn would signify that he did not want her to have her rest. Ironical, Guardian, point taken.
Now as to those poignant memories, the delusion again is that we are invested with persona, by which I mean a separate, individual selfhood. Indeed individuality is persona, even though as you go through life you see clearly that your nature changes markedly by virtue of karma. Here is the ultimate truth, my darling disciple.
I am all attention, Guardian.
Individuality, being karmic, is not the true persona. It is your intuition that holds the truth about personhood. Intuition is your brain’s connection to the universal mind. If one is percipient of this connection, they see there all there is to know of self; but sadly most people find this truth unrecognizable and give it no further thought.
Might you describe this person?
Of course, it was the first self you knew upon awaking at birth, before it became enshrouded. It is timeless, and it is singular, as I said last week, not individual. Now, my dear, please contain yourself, as I must repeat…
Let me, Archangel. It comes from brilliancy!
That’s my child! The transcendent void of the Womb of Tathagata.
I hope you will clarify, Archangel, what you explained last week about love binding the bubbling potage.
At your service, my darling. It is indeed a deep and large topic. Where would you like me to begin?
I read this week, pertinent to the loss of a loved one or a beloved pet, that grief is love, and love is grief. Surely the love you describe is not grief.
Paradox, child, the dual realm of sangsara begets paradox. The love that I describe binds the refracted brilliancy in transcendent oneness. It is the trait we have observed to be inherent to the Singularity, along with wisdom and strength, its essence. It is the spiritual sense religious people often believe is God dwelling within themselves. That is where the mistake arises, in their delusion of self. They stubbornly cling to their individuality, their separate self, separate even from God, indwelling or not.
An easy mistake though, my Guardian.
Yes indeed, individuality is miraculous, coming forth in the myriad forms; it is our clue to the true power of Tathagata. But self is singular not individual; your sense of it aligns you to One, to Singularity, brilliancy, along with all you perceive - and in so doing mistake as separate.
I begin to see clearly, Holmes, what you are driving at.
Thank you, Watson. Tell me then.
Grief is not love; it is the separation we mistakenly feel from someone who was never separate.
Exactly. Likewise, my precious, when we form a loving attachment to someone it brings with it a sense of grief even in the contemplation of eventual loss.
Because we have not realized nor appreciated oneness, nor timelessness.
Quite right. A person will naturally miss, often profoundly, another whom they have loved now gone from their experience. But on this Path there truly is no coming and going. Bassui’s dying words?
“I came from brilliancy, I return to brilliancy. What is this?!”
No tears, child, please.
I like a phrase you have used, Archangel: “the bubbling potage of Tathagata, which evokes the myriad forms coming forth in this realm as random ingredients in a soup. But does it not tend to disparage those forms, which instead arise out of transcendency?
In a sense, my darling, you are correct, but the phrase, the comparison, will also direct a thoughtful student to reconsider ingredients of a soup: we will have carrots, potatoes, onions, plenty of water. Examine these closely! Are they not miraculous? In the final analysis even science will admit that they emanate from the transcendent potency of void, which is the very meaning of Tathagata.
So we are all the highly various bubbling ingredients in a soup. But you know, Guardian how hard it is for people to appreciate even the transcendence of nature’s glories.
Indeed I do know, child. They are like fish in relation to water, taking it for granted. But then recall Suzuki’s “nothing special.” Transcendence is nothing special, the refraction of light, traced back to the brilliancy of One, timeless, egoless brilliancy.
We take so much pleasure in the refractions though, Guardian.
Until you do not, my precious. For every pleasure there is pain, and what you fear most is losing your consciousness of perception, and that forever.
How then, my Guardian, should we come to see the brilliancy, the One?
Now! my dearest disciple! You must see it in the timeless moment.
Can you help me?
I offer this: It will help you to know that the potage is thoroughly mixed, all the manifestations of configuration together, sentient and insentient. Recall that insentient beings speak dharma, "the mountains and the rivers." The transcendent potency of Tathagata is bound as one by the Dharma, the Truth, which is love, my dear. The love of it all, inherent in your own configuration, alike dwells in all of it, and is the brilliancy!
If only they knew, Guardian…
The mission of Buddha, my love.
I drew "a spark from the stone," Archangel.
Indeed you did, my darling, in meditation. Do tell me.
I was again worrying about the bardo of rebirth and whether I would be prepared to escape reincarnation, when I realized as there is no individual soul there can be no transmigration.
Bravo, my precious! The Tibetans got it wrong. They forgot about Mahakasyapa, First Patriarch of Zen, and were led astray by Padmasambhava, who only sought to assuage the King with the "Book of the Dead." Individuality is strictly karmic. It is consciousness that deceives you into thinking it is somehow a separable part of that individuality, when consciousness, individuated as you believe it to be, is in fact a conduit to the transcendent potency of the universal mind. To appreciate that potency consider that every leaf on every tree is unique, likewise every person who ever lived or shall live. Your individuality abides in that mind, while your consciousness links you to the One, the ultimate reality, the true essence of all, sentient and insentient.
What about paranormal experiences, my Guardian, especially at the time of death?
At such times, dear child, that link aforementioned may be more sensitive than usual, bringing awareness of things otherwise imperceptible, those times, places, people, past or future, that truly make up the potency of Tathagata, though your brain has them pigeonholed. Such perceptions are not ghostly, nor supernatural, when you have a true understanding of natural.
Are they ESP?
Strictly speaking they are indeed extra sensory perception. Now, child, when you sit on your bench, just sit, listen and breathe, without fear. Those “sparks from the stone” are not preparation for the bardo, only Truth to guide you through this dual realm. You are already “woke.”
The matter of time, Archangel, is such a tricky business.
You understate, my darling. Please continue.
I bring it up because as I experience aging, I cannot but observe how the speed of time seems to change dramatically. I know time is not real, but please might you explain this aspect of our perceptions?
At your service, dear child, and you have hit upon the very word, perception. The idea of time is created by change and inseparable from it. Time, being delusion, does not exist and so does not move and thus cannot have speed. We measure it by things that change: positions of the earth and the stars, the hands on a clock. Changes in the natural environment are most often very slight but the tiny changes may be seen using time lapse photography. Through the phases of a human life, the body changes dramatically at the start and then again in old age. We embrace the anticipated changes of growth in childhood, while the decline of aging can be puzzling and frightening.
But why, Guardian, do we perceive that time is speeding up the older we get?
I’m getting to that, my precious, and again it is only perception, since time has no speed. Months and years may seem to fly by because your capacity for perception is slowing down. Your body is less able to keep up, instead distracting you from the present.
So the speed of time is relative.
Very much so, as for example in an accident when your brain may see the threat in slow motion. Ultimate reality is transcendent, child. There is no continuous thread, but only the coming forth of the dual realm, which you are configured to perceive in delusion.
My Guardian, you take my breath away!
(8)Many people argue, Archangel, that the hideous changes we witness in the world - extreme weather, crowding, viral contagion - are nothing new; that such conditions have beset the species in times past, and therefore we should not be worried.
Such opinions result from ignorance, my darling, in two respects: It is true that the human species, with such potential for extremes, has endured hideous conditions. The term “apocalypse” was first used before the twelfth century to refer the the ancient book of Revelations, and the word itself borrowed from ancient Latin and Greek. But every period of great peril and suffering - plague, conquest, religious persecution - was unique to its time and in the experience thereof; so what we witness in the present is likewise unique. We have but to point to human population continuing to increase by powers of ten. The denouement for the modern world is no more clear to us than to the people of ancient times with respect to their hideous conditions.
Except for modern science, Guardian, surely.
Indeed yes, child, which leaves our condition far more terrifying I daresay. Climate science, for example, decrees planetary destruction, avoidable only by measures that clearly are unacceptable. On the other hand we cannot presume that Nature itself will not intervene. If more humans decide not to procreate, or become unable, what would be the effect? Or if more women and children are randomly slaughtered in tribal violence? Nothing is for certain, my precious, and it never was. There is human nature to deal with.
The planet may yet be saved, my Guardian, but the species lost. “We are the mice.”
Possibly, dear child, and on one hand it would be a great loss, given the potential of human intuition, which is uniquely capable of plumbing the depths of its own essence. But only step back and recognize your self: personal but not individual; neither eternal nor historical but timeless. And don’t worry!
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