Clear Way Zen

(Lotus’ speaking notes of Dharma Talk on May 18, 2024)

Early Buddhism and Theravada – 1^st Turning

• Dependent Origination – 12 links of cyclic existence forming a chain of causality, all dharmas (things that can be known) radically impermanent and casually produced by preceding dharmas (knowable things)
• Momentary Dharmas (things perceived in the present) are real (Atomic events) and are fundamental constituents of everything.

Mahāyāna’s Mādhyamika – 2^nd Turning

• All things are empty of intrinsic existence, having two truths: Conceptual or conventional, but no absolute truth. Dharmas (things) would have to be independent and permanent to have their own autonomous defining characteristics; however, nothing has this – all dependently originate – have causes and are constructed from other kinds of stuff
• Ultimate truth = the ways things are
  • All things, including emptiness itself, are empty of intrinsic existence. Put another way, emptiness is the ultimate truth that nothing, including emptiness itself, is ultimately real. This is the true nature of things.
  • Name Only = all entities are simple conventions = conceptually labelled ideas of something no real reality needs cognitive process/ mental creation to exist. Nothing is an exception, including the concept of emptiness itself.
• How the world exists in itself is beyond our comprehension because we experience it from behind the veil of conceptuality. Madhyamikas rejects all conventional conceptual knowledge and views.
• Madhyamikas challenges us to move beyond the foundations of early Buddhism, which always assumes there are some basic building blocks of reality: independent origination and other myths of Vedic teachings that assume the basic building components of the world (“Brahma”, God, etc.) = the nature of reality is dreamlike, insubstantial… there isn’t any ontological bedrock.
• Even views are empty = which warns against the theoretical understanding of emptiness.
• GOAL: A direct meditation to transform knowledge of the conventional into seeing things by their true nature = Madhayamikas are not doing ontology or philosophy; they are practical! It’s the for end of suffering!!!

Yogacara – 3^rd Turning

• Asanga, Vasubandhu and Maitreya (founder) – 4^th Century
• Yogcara translates to “practitioner of meditation”
• Further develops on Madhamyamikas foundations
• Emptiness = dependently originating stream of consciousness
  • Emptiness of duality of grasping of subject-object
  • Consciousness cannot lack intrinsic existence because consciousness is the agency that fabricates the conventional world of external things – our awareness creates the illusion of reality and knowledge.
• Vasubandhu declares that the external world is only a process of perception, cognition, and consciousness manifest as nonexistent objects. When we dream, what part of the dream is real? The dreamer constructs the dream. There are no material divisible entities or indivisible atoms that can be known.

• 3 Aspects of Nature:
• Constructed/conceptual or conventional world – the subject-object duality of unawakened people, imagined, people wrongly think that everything exists, but it’s a fabrication of the mind’s processes.
•  Dependent origination – dependent stream of consciousness cognitive events, the intrinsically existing part. If the constructed dependent aspect is removed, only the non-dual element remains.
• Perfected thusness—What is realized when awakening occurs, when all consciously constructed aspects are emptied = Yogacara’s version of emptiness w/ understanding that all cognitive events are devoid of reality, which is conceptual fabrication superimposed on the non-dual stream of knowing. The awakened person sees the absence of the imagined aspect in the dependent aspects.
• Emptiness = emptiness of duality, grasping of subject-object consciousness
• No object exists outside of consciousness as the dream doesn’t exist outside the dreamer.
• Is this the same as Berkeley’s Philosophy?
  • Berkeley = mind is a thinking substance with ideas (thoughts and sensory images) as its quality
  • Yogacara = casually conditioned series of mental events (perception/cognition/consciousness)
• Is it Ontological Ideology? NO. Shared experiences result from the maturation of seeds in the subconscious level of the mind that influence conscious experiences.
  • The result of maturation of similar seeds in their individual consciousness = shared hallucination
• Is it Ontological realism with a common-sense assumption that there is an external world? No, we don’t really know the external world because everything we know is constructed by seeds in storehouse consciousness. The building blocks are processes of mental perception, cognition, and consciousness (knowing) that animate/hallucinate reality.

Problem with other minds

• No first-hand experience w/ other minds – it’s all inference by appearance of body & verbal actions.
• Yogacarins are not doing ontology = they do not say that external world doesn’t exist, but that we cannot know them with the unawaked mind that projects our mind and hallucinates everything = it’s more epistemology.  Before awakening, we cannot distinguish our mental construction and interpretation of the world from the world itself as THUSNESS.

How is the world known? = Through 8 Consciousnesses (8 modalities of knowing):

1. Eye Consciousness (knowing through sight) = Sensory Organ + Consciousness (knowing nature) + Visual Input = Sight Knowing

• Ear Consciousness (knowing through hearing) = Sensory Organ + Consciousness (knowing nature) + Sounds Input = Hearing Knowing

• Nose Consciousness (knowing through smelling) = Sensory Organ + Consciousness (knowing nature) + Scent Input = Smelling Knowing

• Tongue Consciousness (knowing through tasting) = Sensory Organ + Consciousness (knowing nature) + Taste Input = Taste Knowing
• Body Consciousness (knowing through hearing) = Sensory Organ + Consciousness (knowing nature) + Texture Input = Sensation Knowing

• Thought Consciousness (knowing through thinking) = Cognitive Process of Thinking + Consciousness (knowing nature) + 5 Consciousness Input turned into Concept/Language/Interpretation/Labelling = Conceptualization Knowing

• Manas: Egoic Essence or Self-Consciousness (Knowing through discrimination of separation) = Perceptual process of Identity and Separation + Consciousness (knowing nature) + Preceding 6 processes = Perception of Self Knowing (Dualistic Experience)

• ālaya-vijñāna: Storehouse Consciousness or Buddhism’s Unconscious (knowing through storage of mental seeds/conditioning) = The knowing nature that’s neutral but knows everything and stores everything. It is the basis for Karma to function; whatever is experienced through the 7 preceding consciousnesses is stored or brought to resurface by external conditions. When resurfaced, it is either reinforced by desires/resistance or an unawakened mind, then reinforced seeds stored again. The very nature of the preceding 7 consciousnesses is a seed of functional karma, stored and constructed by storehouse consciousness.

Zen Meditation is a Process of Transformation of the Above Consciousnesses – Post Kensho, one transforms the seeds of Karma (conditionings) or processes of the mind into Four Ways of Knowing:

1. Alaya-vijnana storehouse consciousness converts to knowing of the perfected mirror (reflecting things as they are = Thusness)

• Manas-vijnana consciousness (Egoic Essence/Perception) converts to knowing of equanimity (All is Equal in Nature/Wisdom of Non-discrimination = Emptiness)

• Thinking/ discriminating mind converts to knowing of clear observation (Refined Rational Mind with basis in Facts and Reality without Mental Obstruction)

• Five other consciousnesses transform to knowing of perfected action (or the perfected mirror knowing in the sense-consciousness)

To transform 8 consciousnesses into 4 wisdoms, the meditation practitioner (Yogi) using mindfulness (sati) to refine observation in understanding all aspects or phenomenology of mind, to see the manifestations of the first 6 consciousness (consciously can be observed) and understand the 7^th and 8^th workings (unconsciously working) imposed on them, to be free of delusions through perpetual mindfulness practice to experientially understand and gain insights into this working mechanism. By deepening insights, the practitioner gained freedom from attachment to this process and its mechanism, thereby experiences liberation from sufferings.

The nature of knowing (Citta) (Essence of mind) is wisdom (Functions of mind). When it doesn’t know itself, it is deluded by phenomena of consciousness deluded with its factors, it is knowing in a dualistic manner. When knowing knows itself and is liberated from attachments to all phenomena of itself, it is transformed into wisdom.

The essence of knowing nature (Essence) is the absolute reality of unmoving stillness amidst all the busy activities (Functions) of everyday life. This Mind (Citta) has two aspects – the Mind as Suchness or Thusness, that is, Absolute Reality itself, and the Mind as phenomena, a collection of the eight- consciousness described in the Yogacara. Between them, these two aspects embrace all there is… The essential nature of the knowing mind is unborn, imperishable, and beyond language. It neither grasp or move or is differentiated from all that is observed.

Zen meditation focuses on realizing the absolute nature of the mind or non-dual way of knowing. But it cannot do so without observing and understanding the functions and phenomenology of mind: the Yogacara’s consciousnesses.

Hui Neng’s on the Transformation of Consciousnesses

The way of knowing of the great reflecting mirror –mind clears 

The way of knowing equality – mind without afflictions 

The way of knowing of clear observation – absent of efforts 

The way of knowing perfected action – all is alright 

Five, six, seven, eight: the resulting fruits of planted seeds movements 

It only uses labels, not the true nature of reality 

If knowing moves without attachments 

Amidst bustling activities, stillness liberates. 

• By Hui Neing, 6th Patriarch of Chan/Zen China

Suggested Readings on the Yogacara

1. Living Yogacara: An Introduction to Consciousness Only by Tagawa Shun’ei (Author), Charles Muller (Translator).
2. Understanding Our Mind: 50 Verses on Buddhist Psychology by Thich Nhat Hanh
3. Making Sense of Mind Only: Why Yogacara Buddhism Matters by William S. Waldron
4. Inside Vasubandhu’s Yogacara: A Practitioner’s Guide by Ben Conelly
5. Haikuin on Kensho: The Four Ways of Knowing by Albert Low