I cried. I didn’t expect to. I expected to sit through a bunch of formalities and squirm and yawn and zone in for Karmapa’s speech and zone out again after. Instead, I became aware of just how special this place is, just how precious our opportunity is to be here, and how much it changes us. Every individual who comes to KIBI comes with the intention to learn and grow, to embrace our faults, to face our doubts, to challenge our beliefs. We come because we see suffering in the world, and in ourselves, and we want to help. We come because we see joy and wisdom in the world, and in ourselves, and we want to develop it.

Buddhists are not perfect people. We’re like anybody. Some of us are short-tempered, some wildly opinionated, some painfully shy, others other things. We step on each other’s toes and ruffle each other’s feathers and some times we fight about it and some times we complain about it. But, along with all that, each and every person sitting around me today shares an aspiration to cultivate our very best nature, the part of us that helps instead of harms, for our own happiness and so that others can be happy also.

Most Buddhists know how to admit they made a mistake. Most know how to apologize. Many know how to ask questions and how to take a joke about their imperfections. I’m not saying that Buddhists are so special in this regard. There are other spiritual and ideological communities that espouse these qualities, and I rejoice in all of them. I talk and hear others talk a lot about the state of the world, the degeneration of society, the selfishness of people. But we also live in a world where great kindness and vast wisdom exist, and where we can seek and follow them if we choose.

In a Q and A last week, some one asked Karmapa whether he believes that peace is possible. He replied that opportunities for peace are all around us; it is a question of whether or not we choose to take them. I realized then that peace is not a choice you make once and have done with. I always say that I’m a pacifist, yet how many times have I rolled my eyes when frustrated with some one or spoken condescendingly when my patience runs thin? These are not acts of peace. And peace is not created on the scale of governments or economic systems, though we see the effects of its absence in those places. Peace is every moment within us, and every act we make can be one of antagonism or one of tranquility. Today reminded me how lucky I am to live and study in a community that says point blank: peace begins with you. Make peace with yourself; make peace with others; be among friends as you learn; share as you grow.

During the graduation ceremony, my friend Daiden gave a speech. At one point, he spoke to the visitors about “the deadly combo.” He asked those who came as guests who among them, having experienced one week of KIBI life, would like to be students here. The deadly combo, he then said, is this: if you make a wish for something, and Karmapa makes the same wish, it’s as good as done.

I never knew about KIBI until I chose to come. But I made many wishes for a place to live and breathe and study Dharma, and for a community to share and create home with. I guess I didn’t wish specifically enough, considering I never meant to wind up in India. And yet, despite the pollution, the damning ubiquity of stray dogs, the bobble-head expression that means yes and no together, the unabashed staring, the lack of proper cheese, and so many other things, I got what I wanted. I got to delve deep into the history and teachings of this tradition and into myself, through them, with proper guidance and abundant support.

I learned the stories and logic behind the mysteries of Madhyamaka and Abhidharma, and I planted the seeds to develop true understanding of their meaning as my studies continue. I learned how I fight impermanence in my own heart, and hurt for it. I learned how I buy into my unhappiness and create more of it. I have seen how blame is the easiest response, both of myself and others, and that it is a trick, a way to avoid scarier truths and to continue holding on to beliefs that are only causing me pain. I learned that wisdom is not only bigger than me, it is also bigger than I ever imagined, and yet I can attain it. I learned that devotion is not slavish but a potent form of inspiration. I learned that I will continue to make the same mistakes, probably all this life long, but doing so doesn’t mean that I’m not learning.

I learned more than I can say in any sudden paragraphs or bursts of inspiration. I learned things that are nestled within me, waiting to grow and reveal themselves when the time is right. One thing I learned that bears saying is that Dharma is not separate from life. Whether or not we choose to look for the nature of reality, what’s so in this world will always be so, until we eventually realize it. We can, however, choose seeking understanding as path. In this way, Dharma can be a way to live and a way to see that guides us no matter what the landscape of our road may be. As one who has a terrible sense of direction, I prefer to travel with a map.

I don’t know if taking the Buddha’s teachings as my compass will bring me back to India, but I do know that what I have found here will stay with me and continue to grow wherever I go.

Welcome to KIBI. This is the gompa, or the temple building. It’s also where we have class, and it houses the library, student lounge, dining hall and living space for important people. The rest of us live in dorms that ring the gompa and surrounding courtyard. The compound and structures are built in the style of a Tibetan monastery, which is what they are. In addition to the forty ragtag Westerners here for the course, there are about twenty monks living at KIBI. I’ve met a few of them, and am becoming friends with a couple, but I must admit, I am a little shy of them, and they, I think, a little shy of us. Our lives and histories are vastly different, and our language too, which is perhaps the defining barrier. But slowly, slowly, we exchange smiles and good mornings, and there is the comfortable comradeship that comes from knowing you are in pursuit of the same good.

And as for that good, what a pursuit it is. Classes started on Monday. There are three classes a day, which focus on different topics depending on the day. Essentially we are studying two main teachings plus the foundations of meditation. The teachings are called Madhyamika and Abhidharma, and I don’t recommend trying to figure them out on your own. Here is a teeny bit of explanation based on my own understanding, which is a student’s view and not necessarily correct, but all these things are muddling about in my mind and it helps to write them out. If you find this stuff interesting, I recommend finding a Buddhist teacher who comes from a traditional lineage and can explain it properly to you. They are around, surprisingly enough, and not hard to find via the great internetz.

Anyway, here goes:

Madhyamika focuses on the emptiness of phenomena, that what we perceive is based on concepts we apply rather than any intrinsic nature to objects and experiences. Simple right? But think about emptiness long enough and your head will start to spin and the floor will drop out from beneath you, which is the point, I think. All of your ideas about the world become ungrounded in the face of emptiness, which, in the long run, makes us flexible, and in the really long run, makes us enlightened, but which, in the short run, mostly makes us dizzy. Makes me dizzy, anyway, and that was the general consensus over dinner last night, hehe.

Abhidharma focuses on what is translated into English as “dependent origination,” which is immensely complicated but which I often think of as the way that our sense of self arises in conjunction with our perception of external phenomena. The thing about dependent origination is that it applies not just to self but to everything. It is the idea that causes and effects exist entirely interdependently; there is no cause without an effect and no effect without a cause, but they don’t appear one and then the other. They come about simultaneously. The moment the correct conditions come together, they are the cause, which in that same moment manifests the effect, without any time lapse. Fine, makes sense. But there are so many causes and conditions in the world, and they are all intertwined, so it’s very hard to know what leads to what. The study and practice of how this all works gives us some ability to distinguish causes and effects, which is important because then we can engage in positive actions that will have positive effects, i.e. benefit ourselves and others and help us to experience less unnecessary suffering. Sounds good to me.

That’s the word these days. Love to all. Also, words are getting emphasis over pictures because pictures take bandwidth, which is scarce in India. But there was plenty of great travel-writing before photoblogging, so hopefully I can live up to that tradition a bit. I’ll try to supply imagery when I can.

Scholars have analyzed, contested and debated about the relationship between ethics and psychology and in many cases with reference to Abhidharma or Buddhist scholasticism. In terms of Buddhist psychology, the fundamental cause of suffering in life or living this “samsaric life” can be said precisely as the need to purify the mind (citta) whose real essence is pure but it is been contaminated by all sorts of different mental states (caitta) and destructive emotions (Keown, 1992, 57). In the abhidharmic literature, it lies out the theory of dharmas of Buddhist philosophy: dharmas are basic and impartite constituents of reality, the ultimate reals or ontologically grounded existents. Keown thinks that the nearest to a theoretical approach to moral philosophy within the Buddhist ethics is found in the abhidharma and therefore it is worth the attention to its analytic framework. He rejects King’s notion that abhidharmic ethical theory is meaningless and confounding for the western mind with its maze of Buddhist psychological terminology (Keown, 1992, 59). Keown argues that the difficulty of terminology cannot be good enough a reason to ignore what this tradition offers and sheds light on the nature of Buddhist ethics. He holds that abhidharmic ethical classifications are “readily intelligible” in terms of the one of the oldest and most influential concepts in western ethics, namely – the concept of virtues (59). According to abhidharma, enlightenment is achieved through purifying the personal continuum (santana) of all defilements (klesa). So in the taxonomical traditions of the mind and mental states; in case of Theravada tradition, there are fifty-two different types of mental states or qualities and without understanding the ethical functions of these states; it is impossible to provide an analysis of sila at its most basic level. In Sarvastivada tradition, there are seventy-five dharmas and of which forty-seven are of psychological nature. Despite the variations in detail all schools acknowledge a similar classificatory rubrics, and the standard classification is four-fold: matter (rupa), mind (citta), mental states (caitta) and the unconditioned (nirvana). Only a third of these are related to ethics, which falls under the third category and its relation to the fourth. Citta is the center of subjective consciousness, which is viewed as an arsenal or storage of dispositional properties that take its form in mental predispositions. “It is the personal psychological factor responsible for the unity and continuity of the human being (61)”. Keown point out that one important conclusion to be made from the abhidharma is that Buddhist ethics is naturalistic. Why? Because the abhidharmic analysis of vices and virtues – since there are dharmas – are objective and real. They are not part of our mental construction, but are actually found within the psyche (64). Now, the implication of this objectivisation is what Buddhist ethics necessarily rules out relativism: what is ultimately good or bad is not determined by accidental factors but grounded in human nature. The dharma-theory of abhidharma commands its authority on the nature of human mind and mental phenomena within which ethics resides.

         Keown finds it important to distinguish moral virtues as opposed to intellectual virtues to the study of concept of virtues in general, because virtues or vices may be either cognitive or non-cognitive. And he proceeds to do so though he designates chapter eight as where he engages with this in detail (64). The distinction he makes clear as intellectual vice is a form of “cognitive error” such as delusion or moha, while moral vices forms of non-cognitive errors such craving and hatred. However, Keown acknowledges about the difficulties of distinction between the affective and the cognitive in Buddhist psychology, because cognition and feeling are mental processes dependent on citta. The exact nature of their relationship (Vedana vs. Sanna) is troublesome (67). Keown draws on western thinkers to see how the debate between moral and emotions has taken its route in the west, but argues that, contrary to Socrates (virtue is reducible to knowledge) and general belief about Buddhism, he posits that neither of the two: sila or panna are reducible to one another (72). Keown’s posits that the approach of reason-emotion bifurcation is artificial and seeks a “middle-way” between them. And that is the Aristotelian tradition that he finds most congenial to Buddhist ethics, i.e. they both view that reason and emotion are complementary rather than disjunctive (72). Keown doesn’t address this in detail here as reserves a whole chapter on that latter in the book, but it seems plausible to say that virtue ethics is nearest to Buddhist ethics. However, from a Buddhist perspective, even though the conclusions might look similar and somewhat compatible, the arguments leading to that conclusion may differ greatly: for instance, the assumptions about the nature of mind and human condition etc.

Note: [Chapter four addresses on the subject of transcendency hypothesis by King and Spiro to which Keown responses by arguing that the Raft Parable they are employing meant to prove or support their point about the position, their anthropological studies in Burma on Karmmatic and Nirvanic Buddhism is confounding. Keown tries to discredit their claim by arguing that sila and panna are essential in post-enlightenment existence, that they are not disassociated. I will address this raft parable in detail with Keown's detailed exposition on the entangled nature of projna and karuna later. Chapter five follows on the same line about the role of ethics in Buddhist soteriological program as we discussed in the last meeting, “Nirvana and the Path lie in the same continuum”. ]

 Works Cited

Keown, Damien.

    1992 The Nature of Buddhist Ethics, New York, Palgrave. 

During his 45 year teaching career, the Buddha taught different understandings of reality according to varying circumstances and the disparate dispositions, personality types, and capacities of his students. The Buddha’s discourses are divided into 3 distinct sets of teachings or “Turnings of the Wheel of Dharma.” These 3 Turnings of Shakyamuni Buddha’s teachings are each considered to be complete cycles of explanation that correspond directly to the infinite diversity of individuals.  

The 1st Turning occurred in Deer Park near the present-day city of Varanasi in Northern India. At this time, the Buddha described how the dependently co-arising nature of phenomena allows for the possibility of freedom from suffering. These teachings include the 4 Noble Truths and Dependent Co-arising, and were collected into the body of literature known as the Abhidharma or Science of Mind and Reality. This first Turning acts as an antidote to the obsessive habit of clinging to an independent self as ultimately substantial.  

The 2nd Turning occurred at Vulture Peak Mountain near Rajagriha. The Buddha taught how all phenomena lack intrinsic or absolute existence. These teachings were collected into the body of scriptures known as the Prajnaparamita Sutras or Transcendent Wisdom Scriptures. These teachings on emptiness liberate beings from their psychological and emotional fixations on even the subtlest aspects of reality. 

The 3rd Turning was delivered at Mount Malaya and Vaishali. In contrast to the second Turning, the Buddha’s third revolution elucidated how the luminous enlightened essence known as “tathagatagarbha” or “Buddha Essence” pervades all beings. These teachings were compiled into a set of sutras known as the Tathagatagarbha Sutras, or Essential Scriptures. This final cycle of teachings was taught to free beings from nihilistic beliefs about reality.

應無所住 而生其心

(Found in Chapter 10, marked section C in Edward Conze’s translation and as Chapter 10, section 5 in Mu Bi Sunim’s concordance, Complete Commentary on the Diamond Sutra, 금강경전서, 무비 스님.)

Before the Zen hall wolves descend upon me to cry that what is beyond words and speech can’t be explained or described, much less packaged into a five-paragraph essay for an exam, let me issue a disclaimer: I’m just trying to answer the question because I’ve been asked to. I’m not aiming for an answer that would win in a kong-an interview, or even one that would stand its ground in the average Zen dialogue. I’m neither a full-time meditator nor a full-time scholar, although I am asked to think and react like both at various times. Given all that, and seeing as how this particular question stands a very good chance of showing up on the exam, it’s worth my while to examine it even while I can’t and won’t make claims to anything more than a careful reading of the text and a thorough respect for the effort necessary to put words into practice.

I will employ Edward Conze on my behalf briefly. In his introduction to the section on The Diamond Sutra in Buddhist Wisdom Books, a collection of his translations from the Sanskrit of the Heart and Diamond Sutras, he writes:

It cannot be the purpose of a commentary [or an exam essay, or a blog entry] to convey directly to the reader the spiritual experiences which a Sutra describes. These only reveal themselves to persistent meditation. A commentary must be content to explain the words used. As such is has some preliminary usefulness, since without having understood even the words one could not easily know what to meditate about.

~Buddhist Wisdom Books

That said: here we go!

The essay question asks first for the line’s “meaning.” There are two ways to approach this: inside meaning and outside meaning. (I’m not going to employ Conze’s far more appropriate “four angles” here simply because of time constraints.) I usually approach inside/outside textual analysis like peeling an orange: although you can cut straight through to the center, sometimes it’s helpful to peel away the rind first before getting to the fruit, if only as an exercise in understanding what an orange is from rind to pulp. Get your hands messy, I say; don’t be anxious to sidestep the process of peeling just because you’re impatient for a taste of what’s inside.

In this context, the “outside” meaning I’m going to explore is the line’s textual/linguistic context(s), and then perhaps consider its function in the greater context of Buddhist literature. What’s happening in this line that we can understand rationally? What can’t we understand? It has a grammar, and for a reason; what does that grammar suggest? How does the grammar fail, if it does? Does this line relate to any other lines or passages in the same text, or other texts? Does it have references? How did others understand it and use it? These are some of the questions I ask myself when I sit down with a passage or line from a text, especially a text in translation like The Diamond Sutra.

The first thing to note is that this line is Kumarjiva’s translation of the Sanskrit; in the Sanskrit-Chinese concordance of Complete Commentaries on The Diamond Sutra that I use, this line renders the Sanskrit tad. Three translators, Kumarjiva, Bodhiruci, and Paramartha, translated tad in the same way (應無所住而生其心). The other three translators, Gupta, Hyeonjang (玄藏), and Uicheong (義淨), each translated the line differently, though both Gupta and Hyeonjang differ only slightly from Kumarjiva, etc.

According to the Monier-Williams Sanskrit Dictionary, the tad in this case—and I’m no Sanskrit scholar, so bear with my guessing and if you know better, please chime in—probably means “in this manner, in this way,” and refers to the previous sentence, which (indeed) describes how a Bodhisattva Mahasattva should “produce an unsupported thought, i.e. a thought which is nowhere supported, a thought unsupported by sights, sounds, smells, tastes, touchables or mind-objects.” (E. Conze, The Diamond Sutra in Buddhist Wisdom Books, from the Sanskrit.) I suppose that tad could have been treated more literally by saying something like “And so should [a bodhisattva] cultivate (his mind),” “如是修(行)心(?),” but Kumarajiva and company decided on a more rhythmic and somewhat more concrete translation that allows for some of the open-endedness of “in this way” (which references without stating what that way is) while also giving parameters for what that way might be. This is how I might approach the line if I had no recourse to either further Sanskrit or Chinese resources on the text; and I mean “concrete” in that Kumarjiva goes so far as to talk about mind, and what kind of mind a bodhisattva should and should not give rise to. A simple, stand-alone tad and an equivalent, literal Chinese translation would have been vague, referencing the previous sentence and its meaning instead of establishing its own, complementary meaning. Which would have made the East Asian tradition of treating this single phrase as a lynch-pin or keystone to the whole sutra rather impossible. Uicheong seems to be re-stating the previous sentence in its entireity, moving the (Chinese) grammar around without changing the meaning drastically or offering an alternative meaning. I find it significant that no translator did what seems at first an obvious choice to just take tad literally. All feel the necessity of “explaining” the Sanskrit.

I brought up the alternate translations of the Sanskrit text to illustrate that Kumarajiva made choices in his translation; despite the deference given his translations by the East Asian tradition, he is not the only translator nor, depending on which set of criteria you use to evaluate a translation, unconditionally the best in all cases. He is, however, the one people read, and it is his translation of The Diamond Sutra that has become authoritative in Korea. Therefore I’ll now turn to his translation exclusively.

First of all, there is an immediate peculiarity to Kumarajiva’s translation. At first glance, he seems to have skipped some sentences and re-arranged the rest. In his translation of this section, Kumarajiva leaves out the Sanskrit “…apratisthitam cittam utpadayitavyam yan na kvacit-pratisthitam cittam utpadayitavyam,” translated as above by Conze and by Red Pine as “[fearless bodhisattvas] should thus give birth to a thought that is not attached and not give birth to a thought attached to anything.” Kumarjiva glosses this as “…[Bodhisattvas] should in this way give rise[=生, birth] to a pure, lucid [淸淨] mind…” (“…應如是生淸淨心…”) He then goes on to enumerate what such a mind is not attached to and does not abide in, namely the six sense-objects.

From the Mahayana and particularly the Madhyamika or Yogacara point of view there is an inherent fallacy in strictly defining the object of analysis as phenomena. That’s what the six sense-objects are, among other categories of phenomena; and analysis of the world according to such categories was the special exercise of the Abhidharmists. According to the Abhidharma school, the world could be reduced to discrete phenomena, which could then be categorized, analyzed, and ultimately understood with penetrating insight, which would lead to awakening. The idea that discrete entitities existed in a form that either suggested ultimacy or actually were defined as ultimate, meaning they were not absolutely empty, was a position opposed by the early Madhyamikans. They worked to show the Abhidharmist theory of “dharmas” as discrete entities as false by proving emptiness, not discrete dharmas, to be the ultimate nature of reality. Much of what early Middle Way texts try to establish, with Nagarjuna as the author and spokesperson for the school, is the absolute emptiness of any phenomenon.

Yogacara would build on Madhyamika’s return to fundamental emptiness by positing the (largely) psychological processes by which phenomena could arise from so-called emptiness. I’m neither knowledgeable enough nor confident enough to wade into the waters of Madhayamika-Yogacara theory, so I’ll only go so far as to say that where Madhayamika responded to Abdhidharma’s substantive suggestions about phenomena by positing absolute emptiness (even emptiness of emptiness), much of what Yogacara attempted to do was answer, “Well then, but how does this world and the mind function in this emptiness?” They came up with their own innovations, the most noted of which is the theory of a storehouse consciousness (alaya-vijnana), and also joined up with Tathatagarbha theorists, especially in East Asia. My point in outlining these schools and their trajectory of response to one another is so that we can have a broad sense why, when it should be perfectly clear to any average Mahayanist, The Diamond Sutra would belabor the point that a bodhisattva should not be attached to anything, and why Kumarajiva would make an effort to evoke an image of purity and lucidity in association with a mind that is unattached to any phenomenon.

Simply put, this point wasn’t obvious to everyone when The Diamond Sutra (in either Sanskrit, in India, or Chinese, in China) first began circulating. What we now call the Madhyamika, which formalized the concepts of emptiness found in the Prajnaparamita literature, came after the Prajnaparamita Sutras. Buddhist readers at the time of Christ might pick up The Diamond Sutra and be thinking in terms of the discrete dharma theories of the Abhidharmists. The chronology, over-simplified, is this: Abhidharmic schools (best represented to later Mahayana schools by Vasubandhu and his Abhidharma-kosa), ~3rd cen. BCE; early Prajnaparamita (emptiness) thought and texts, ~ 1st cen. BCE; Madhyamika/Nagarjuna, ~ 1st. cen CE; Yogacara, ~ 3-4th cen. CE; Kumarajiva’s translation of The Diamond Sutra, ~4th cen. CE.

There’s a fair amount of overlap between these phases/schools and the emergence of texts. What I hope is clear is that it’s not unlikely that early Yogacara thought, even in an uncodified form, influenced or reached Kumarajiva; and it’s recorded that he studied both Sarvastivadan (a school associated with Abhidharma theory) and Nagarjuna/ Madhyamika in Kucha before journeying to China. Chinese Buddhists didn’t receive all these texts and schools in the same order in which they developed, call-and-response, to one another in India, however. Confusion as to which teaching should supersede another was a standard problem in early Chinese Buddhism. Part of Kumarajiva’s purpose in translating texts was to provide authoritative Chinese versions of key Buddhist texts so that the Chinese could begin to work on the meat of the issues that consumed the Madhyamika, Yogacara, and Abhidharmists schools for themselves. When it comes to the Chinese intellectual landscape and Kumarajiva’s understanding of what’s at stake when describing phenomena and attachment, I propose that Kumarajiva chose to use 淸淨, which can translate as a compound to “purity” or as separate characters to “pure and lucid,” when he did for one (good) reason, and chose again to translate tad at the end of that section with a sentence that, in the Sanksrit, came earlier for another (good) reason.

By emphasizing “lucidity/purity” as a state of mind associated with non-attachment to phenomena, Kumarajiva skirted the Abhidharmist’s mistake of positing pure and impure states both as phenomena in their own right. (See the first chapter of the Abhidharma-kosa for what problematic Kumarajiva might have been thinking about, or at least the kind of problematic I think about when considering the same questions Kumarjiva had in front of him.) If a “lucid/pure mind” (Kumarajiva, in Chinese) is associated with “non-attachment” (both Kumarajiva’s Chinese translation and the original Sanskrit text), then a lucid mind is defined by its non-attachment, not by its ontological status as a phenomenon opposite other phenomena. Put differently, a pure mind is not a phenomenon, but an approach to phenomena; a process or state, not a material mind.

(Any Yogacarins in the group? Anyone? Because we can have a field day with the imagery of lucidity/purity and the vijnanas if we want…but I’m not going there unless someone mentions it in the comments.)

You’ll notice, though, the Chinese phrase in question is simply the last of the section in this chapter; nor is purity mentioned in the original Sanksrit. This brings up two concerns. If we read this phrase alone and out of context, we miss the incredible imagery of “the lucid mind” that Kumarajiva introduces as something like a synonym in his translation for the phrase he places where tad comes in the original; so, concern number one, should we read this phrase in isolation? Concern number two, especially if we don’t read the phrase in isolation, is “lucid and pure mind” an allowable synonym for “an unsupported thought which is nowhere supported”?

To approach these two concerns holistically, because they are related, I’m going to pretend I’m Kumarajiva. I have mastery of two great languages, Sanskrit and Chinese, as well as an entire staff to help me work out the nuances of the language into which I’m translating (Chinese). I also hold the collective history and development of all of Indian Buddhism up that point in my head. I’m keenly attuned to language as a tool and an art, something that can point the way to truth; or, if used incorrectly, knock someone off-course. Sanskrit is “a highly rational language, capable of great precision, and amenable to thorough grammatical analysis.” (Conze, Buddhist Wisdom Books.) Not so Chinese, however, which often seems to work like a malleable echo chamber of meanings. If Sanskrit allows you to precisely analyze a sentence, Chinese will ask you to sense your way to the meaning of the words. I’m aware of this (because I’m Kumarajiva!…and also because I’m a struggling student of Classical Chinese) and I’m trying to figure out a way to convey the meaning of the Sanskrit. Literalism isn’t my goal. So I build a series of associations into the Chinese that will aim the reader back to the same meaning, even if by a different route, because a different route is required for a different language.

My answer to the first concern is obvious: no, we shouldn’t read the single phrase 應無所住而生其心 in isolation from the rest of the text, or at the very least its section/chapter. We can, but we miss that careful layering of image and association that Kumarajiva builds throughout his translation. (It’s also present in the original Sanskrit.) I’ve recited the Sutra in both Chinese (Kumarajiva’s translation) and English (from the Sanskrit), and the feeling of the images and phrases coming over me in waves is remarkable. It’s like a variation on a theme that progresses with incremental changes to that theme. Proximate sentences seem exactly alike, or to be making the exact argument; only when they are repeated again and again at different points in the text, now from this viewpoint, now from that angle, that the variations become apparent. Re-reading the sutra then layers the fore and aft associations over any single instance of a word or image, so that the text is no “flat” or “linear” in meaning: it is multi-directional, something nearly tangible, if it weren’t that it keeps shucking off a reader’s grasp with its defiance of logic and its absolute rejection of grasping. Reading this single line in isolation, we lose more than we gain as readers and practitioners. The crux and strength of The Diamond Sutra‘s argument lies in its radical simplicity, expressed through the varied theme of the chapters; reading the line in context adds to the depth of that argument and our experience of it without unnecessarily complicating it.

As regards the second concern, Conze’s commentary on this section is highly pertinent here:

…But that much is clear that the ability to raise one’s mind to these heights of non-attachment is equivalent to the conquest of emancipation, whether temporary or permanent. For beginners the phrase used in chapter 10c can be further clarified by considering the synonyms and alternative translations of the term unsupported (21 are listed on pp. 95-6 of my Rome edition of the Vajracchedika). Once this rather elementary task is performed, one would next have to describe the meditations by which this state of mind is made into a living reality on successive stages of spiritual development. …In this context it is sufficient to say that the thought which the Bodhisattva should produce, or raise, is a completely free thought, which depends on no object or motive. It is the white heat to wisdom intent on the luminous transparency of the Void.

~Buddhist Wisdom Books: The Diamond Sutra, pg. 48. Emphasis in original.

Conze intuits, or at least seems to intuit, something about the unattached state in a world where phenomenon are not the ultimate, but emptiness is: non-grasping directly constitutes awakening,* and it is a luminous state. Why non-attachment/non-support as awakening? Because to be free from supports is to have broken the cycle of dependent arising. And, according to both Conze and Kumarajiva, it is luminous, lucid: clear and unobstructed. The poetic leap to lucid isn’t far. Kumarajiva also understood language, and the reason his translations are favored and read is for their poetry as much as anything. By using “lucid and pure mind” instead of “a thought which is nowhere supported,” he introduces a kataphatic and beautiful image of the awakened mind. Why does he follow it with “[A bodhisattva] should [give rise to a mind] that abides in no place; he should give rise to this mind”? To undercut attachment to a positive statement about the nature of awakening and reality. To balance kataphasis with apophasis. To keep us from thinking that this lucid, pure mind is something.

(Quickly, though, before I forget, one thing to note about 無所住 is that 所 performs two major functions in Classical Chinese. One, when placed in front of a verb it nominalizes it, so that 所生 could be “that which is given rise to” (among other possible translations, I’m just trying to make a point here, so bear with me). It can also, as a full word, indicate place, such as 生所, “the place where (it) arose/was born.” 無所住 is literally, “The place of abiding (which) is not,” or less literally “abides nowhere/has no place to abide.” I don’t know if a native Chinese speaker or a serious academic of Classical Chinese would disagree with me, or disagree with me strongly, but I like the resonance that appears to me between the two meanings of 所 both as a physical location and a verbal/grammatical location, and how both don’t exist.)

Conze said it first and best: now that we’ve gotten to this stage of intellectual understanding of the line and the mental state it describes, what should naturally follow is an explanation of “the meditations by which this state of mind is made into a living reality on successive stages of spiritual development.” The Ch’an/Zen/Seon traditions, of course, say that this single line and its instruction to give rise to a mind which abides in no place, is the pith instruction. So much so that the Sixth Patriarch is reputed to have gained awakening upon hearing this line, and echoes of it can be traced in the pair of stanzas that Shen-hsiu and Hui-neng submit to the Fifth Patriarch as signs of their attainment, Hui-neng writing:

The mind is the Bodhi-tree,
The body the mirror bright;
(Since) the bright mirror is originally lucid and pure,
Where would the dust alight?

In The Platform Sutra, Hui-neng also says,

Learned Audience, when we use prajna for introspection we are illumined within and without, and in a position to know our own mind. To know our mind is to obtain liberation. To obtain liberation is to attain samadhi of prajna, which is thoughtlessness. What is thoughtlessness? Thoughtlessness is to see and to know all dharmas [things] with a mind free from attachment. When it use it pervades everywhere, and yet it sticks nowhere. What we have to do is purify our mind so that the six vijnanas [aspects of consciousness], in passing through the six gates [sense organs], will neither be defiled by nor attached to the six sense objects. When our mind works freely without any hindrance, and is at liberty to come or go, we attain samadhi of prajna, or liberation.

~The Sutra of Hui-neng, trans. A.F. Price and Wong Mou-lam, pg. 85

OK, back to the original question. What does this line mean? In the context of everything I’ve looked at here, I would say:

應無所住 而生其心 points to our lucid, pure original mind free from attachments, beyond the cycle of birth and death, fully awakened.

(Those who are following carefully will note I just leapt to include Yogacara theories of consciousness in my explanation. Why? Because regardless of whether or not Kumarjiva meant to include allusions to Yogacara, people in East Asia have read him in light of Yogacara ever since.)

And what is this line’s relationship to spiritual cultivation?

To not allow the mind to grasp at any phenomenon, mental or material; to maintain a clear awareness of the impermanence and selflessness of all phenomena; to not abide in duality: this is the practice of “giving rise to the mind which does not abide anywhere.”

Not enough? KATZ!

…But I think I said I didn’t want to turn this into a kong-an interview.

Why go through the bother of peeling this orange? I probably could have whipped up these two conclusions without wading through Sanskrit, Chinese, English, three dictionaries, three different English translations of the Sutra, two of The Platform Sutra, that concordance I mentioned, and a bunch of Wikipedia sites for dates. …Because, for me, if I really want to know the taste of an orange, I have to practically grow the tree myself, harvest the fruit, pick the one I want, and then get through the rind with my own hands to feel I’ve gotten “eating an orange.” I’m one of those people who, knowing how solar flares form and what, scientifically, the aurora borealis is, feels more awe, and not less. Knowledge increases mystery for me; the intellect it the tool and handmaid of the profound. I could have written the same words without all the fuss, sure; but then they wouldn’t have been mine, something with weight and significance, like a lantern I lit and hold in my own hand, if I hadn’t.

In that spirit, may any merit which has accrued from the study, writing, and posting of this bring about the direct and indirect benefit of all beings. May all enter together the ocean of infinite light!

*I would, if I hadn’t lent out his book, reference Lusthaus’ discussion of prapti or “possession” in Yogacara, because I think it would be reasonable to think that pre-Yogacaric ideas of possession and non-possession were possibly already under discussion in Mahayana circles during Kumarajiva’s time.

I try to prepare myself for the attentive seeker but also for those who not only do not hear or understand such a message, they do not want to hear such a message or allow others to hear it either.  In the short time that I have been sharing these revelations with people, I have been called: Crazy, a liar, a fraud, a zealot, a Devil Worshiper, a pagan, Evil, a Fool and so on. To this day, it never ceases to amaze me how something that could be offered in a spirit of love and compassion could be perceived as such a threat or as a vehicle to deceive people in some way. Perhaps, it is that some people are responding to what they have previously experienced, so they are not able to receive such a message without prejudging it or coloring it in a dark, menacing or ominous way, or maybe they are reacting to their own fears and insecurities, I do not know.

In all that we share it is always my hope that people to the quality of the message and not be so concerned with the messengers. The most important words can be scribbled onto a scrap of paper, that does not mean the message shared is as trivial or temporal as the medium on which it was conveyed. The messengers simply bring the light, they are not the light itself and no real messenger would ever think otherwise.

In all that we are sharing in this Blessed Revelation of Ming Jiao, in any position I may happen to find myself in, it is never lost on me that from the standards of many in the world, I am an unworthy messenger, that I am, for all intents and purposes, a spiritual mutt.

A Mutt is not a purebred of anything. Not viewed as acceptable by one race or another, one culture or another, of faith or another…just a mutt.

Why would Shang Di use a mutt to share an important message such as the Abhidharma?

Wouldn’t such an important message come down from the heavens with a spectacular light show? A host of buddha gods and dharmapalas? Wouldn’t such a message be offered to Gurus, the High Lamas,  Patriarchs,of this world? Why on earth would such a message come from those that the world views as worthless?

It is a question that I often ask myself.

Maybe it is because the Mutt cannot rest on any laurels in this world, not race, not culture, not education, not achievements…nothing. All they have to rely on is their faith in Shang Di and their willingness to speak the truth of what they have experienced.

There is no worldly agenda, no racial, national, sexual or political bias and no desire for earthly power or  monetary gain..

There will be those who stand up to defend Ming Jiao that the world will also view as mutts, as unworthy representatives of the Abhidharma and they will have those who assail them, assault them, mock and ridicule them, trying to silence them, trying to make them feel every bit a mutt and unworthy to even speak.

But anyone who has ever had a mutt will know that they are amazing animals, that oftentimes are capable of love and loyalty that those who only look to purebreds know nothing about.

In the dispensation of Shakyamuni, no one was interested to listen to what a Kshaitrya had to say about spiritual liberation.

In the time of Caitanya Mahaprabhu, many of this followers came from other religious backgrounds and those who valued the Brahmin caste were not interested to listen to their teachings.

The elite seem to forget that, oftentimes, their own religious traditions began with spiritual mutts who were willing to stand up and say what those in authority in their era could not see, and would not say. That they would not take a walk of faith based on the Abhidharma given in that era.

The Mutt does not stand on convention, the mutt hears its Master’s voice and does as the Master directs, regardless of what others may think.

I only offer the comparisons for perspective, that in every dispensation there are those who are the means of conveying a message that, often, the world overlooks. but there will be those who read these words and all they will come away with is that it is hubris and arrogance to even make such comparisons at all, that is their right, of course.

Any person trying to speak on such matters will be raked over the coals about who they once were. The Bikkshu may have been a drug addict at one time. The Bikkshuni may have been a prostitute at one time. The Sadhu may have been a merchant at one time. But it is not how a person begins their life that matters; it is how they choose to end it that matters.

I am one of many mutts. I have no worldly authority. No value that anyone in any earthly institution would value and for that reason, my words will be of no consequence to many because of this.

My words will only carry weight among those who can hear the truth in these words regardless of pedigree, regardless of caste, regardless of race or ethnicity, regardless of worldly achievements.

I am nothing but I speak about something of the greatest value. It is the message that has value, not the messenger. A valuable message is not of value because the quality of the paper or the ink or the style of the handwriting or print, it is the content of the words that make that message valuable or not.

The Message of  Ming Jiao is priceless..but this will only be perceived by those who are ready and open to such a message in this age. The person who is more concerned with reputation than revelation will spend all their time coveting the former and ignoring the latter.

Video courtesy of  monumentaladventure & http://pureteaching.org/

Question: Do you have any advice for young people who are aspiring to become monastics?

If young people, if you want to become monastic, first you have to know what the vows, what those things. And also you try, don’t take commitment for life long or very long. First you just try, maybe you can become monastic for six month first. Or year. Or three years, something like that. And another important is, you should have some kind of like, how to say, vision or plan for how you do. Important is, you are young, you have energy, maybe you have long time, who knows, everything impermanent. Maybe first, study. Also important. Meditate, maybe you can go to study some, there is in India, Nepal, there is lot of shedra, you can join those and learn first. And then, at the same time you can learn meditation practice. Then the future goal is to retreat. And then also you can help others also if you become good monastic and you become very good, become like, how to say, role model for the dharma. And also good for you, you have knowledge, you have experience, this is why then become very good. Otherwise, sometimes, you want to become monk and nun, then you just become nun and being lazy. No practice, no meditation. And then waste time. And then sometimes no practice and no dharma and no world life, could be danger although. No big danger.

Can I ask a quick question? I just study the vinaya or study anything.

In general idea about the vinaya a little bit, but study anything, in Buddhism there is five main text, madhyamaka, the middle way, prajnaparamita, the wisdom, abhidharma, general things, and vinaya, and the logic, five.

Longchenpa Prayer

Notes from Rinpoche. If you write them down, they come in differently than if you read them later.

Writing is with the body, reading is with the head and throat.

We have in our midst people who have been teaching Kum Nye for a long time. This is not the last time, but a good time to get the map of Kum Nye. Once you start studying, it can be a little bit overwhelming. You look at one and it turns out to have nine. And one of those nine turns out to have five. And then you’re back at the start again.

I would like to try, and the people who are here very new, please come along, and taste the experience.

Rinpoche writes:

The goal of Kum Nye is to utilize abundant, beautiful energy of experience.

The way that we talked about It, the very first day we mentioned that the human being is Life. That is the basis. So as you sit there, you are not part of life, you are all of life. Life doesn’t separate itself – doling out a little bit to each of us. All of life is you. And the unique difference between life’s forms is that as a human being we have more opportunities to develop than a tree or a rock.

If we remember that as you are going through life, you are Life – Kum Nye tries to utilize Life, the Life that makes up you and each and every thing. Life is abundant. If you are life, your energy is abundant, your knowledge is abundant. And Rinpoche adds beautiful. So let’s see if as the week progresses, if Life seems more beautiful, abundant, more vital for you, and more knowledge. The Kum Nyers, do not forget the Knowledge component. You activate the flow of feeling in order to have all of the components come to life and communicate with each other. So looking at the subtle body, that is to bring all the chakras to life, because each one is a treasure (tesoro), with their own knowledge or insight, and with their own energy component, that shows in the frequency of the energy center.  Looking at the form and color of a flower, there is also a vibration of a flower, which is different than the vibration of a tree, or a rock. Once one starts matching the vibration, exchange begins. In these teachings, this is called knowledge. The communicative processes come when one can match the vibration of the object one is trying to communicate with. The vibration transports knowledge (cononcimiento).

In humans, the different chakras have different vibrations. Open. Heal. Integrate. Stimulate. Manifest. Protect.

Whenever you think about excavating the treasures, think of these five. These are very briefly described in the last chapter of MasterWork.

What we are doing in Kum Nye, is opening and relaxing them.

Anyone who wants to go deeper in Kum Nye needs to learn the other four steps.

(Healing. Integrating/Stimulating. Manifesting. Protecting)

The third big text in the Kum Nye texts discusses integrating and stimulating.

By practicing Kum Nye, we are able to mine the treasures of the Human Spirit (the six treasures – body, senses, mind, awareness, space, time.) But we have two bodies (or three).

Within the body, we have the physical body, the subtle body and illusory body.

In the physical body there are the six senses – seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, feeling, thinking.

Within the subtle body, there is the chakras – crown, third eye, throat, heart, solar plexus, navel, root – and channels (central, left, right). It may seem like a big job, the good news is that they are all connected. We are activating the communicative processes within the physical and subtle body.

Do we have any idea what treasures are to be mined from the heart chakra? It is one way to measure whether it is working. What happens a lot with workers who are practice oriented, not so strong in the theory, know much more than can articulate. If the heart chakra is opening, the treasures that can be mined are supported by knowing the theory. Studying both theory and practice draws out both – they communicate with each other.

What are the treasures of the heart? What is unique about the heart?

The heart is the first part of the subtle body that started. The heart chakra is the seed at the moment of conception. The heart chakra has everything in it, because everything grows from the heart chakra.

What is everything? All knowledge about life can be found in the heart. What is the heart of life – Meaning, Vitality. Connection with timelessness is in the heart – no beginning, no end. When you do Heart Gold Thread, what does it say the exercise is good for? Skin, longevity, beauty.

Longevity is determined by the heart. The heart chakra, the seed, is the first to arrive and the last to go. The kernel of longevity is in the heart. It is the primordial connection with life – Life has no beginning or end. When we do heart energy, take one of the words and put it in the space, and see if it brings forth some experience.

The communicative processes are a whole topic by itself. It is in the matrix under senses. Senses stands for all communicative processes within the body, within the mind, between body and mind, within space, between body and space, between space and mind, within time, between body and time, space and time, etc – all processes.

The communicative processes are between forms and within the formless,  the atmosphere in a room, between the form and the formless. In the Tibetan tradition has a highly sophisticated way of viewing up. All of the thankas stimulate those communicative processes. What effect is intended by thankas on the communicative processes – open, heal, stimulate, manifest, and protect.

For those of you who study Buddhism, nirmankaya is the communicative processes between forms, dharmakaya is between formless, communicative processes itself is sambhogakaya. Kaya is Sanskrit for sKu. Dharmakaya is cho sKu in Tibetan. Kum Nye tries to evoke the three kayas, all the communicative processes in the formless realm, the ones between forms, and the processes themselves, so they can be refined. How does one do that?

Nine ways: Pay attention to the  Physical, Feeling Tone, Unifying awareness, Stimulate energies, Presence (radiant presence), Self Sustaining energy.

Each level has its own characteristics, so you can measure when you are on the right track.

These do not happen systematically or gradually.

As we are mining the treasures fo the human spirit, it is not necessary to rely on any kinds of beliefs or exotic visualizations. All that matters is one’s direct experience. As the direct experience is being refined, we will touch our human nature. What could that be, to touch human nature? What will it be like if you touch life? There is life in space, how can you touch the life in space? How can one touch life? In the form realm we know life – Life flows. If you are in contact with flow, you are touching life. And what does that feel like. In Openness Mind, it is flickering, vibrating. Sometimes you are just in the wrong frequency. Ideally, one matches frequencies, establish the frequency, identify the frequency, then match it.

There are all kinds of mind body disciplines – it is easier to match up with someone who does some kind of mind body discipline. The way to match frequencies is to stop grasping. Grasping makes it difficult (impossible) to match frequencies, or get in touch. If people do not close down completely, then they wind up getting into the wrong vibration. Grasping would be like manipulating.

As the treasures of the human spirit are being mined, we refine the energies of the body and mind. The subtle body is really blossoming, not only the physical body. The treasures can come out even if your physical body is not well, if your subtle body is functioning well. A good physical body is necessary, because it is difficult if we are mining our treasures, the next step is to determine our own accomplishments. If the physical body is not working well, it is more difficult to set your own accomplishments.

Excavate treasures of the human spirit. We are in the business of excavating the treasures of the human spirit.

1. Refine the energy of the body and mind,
2. Touch human nature – flowing, has vibrations – like flowers, nature, trees.
3. Then we can determine our own accomplishments. (Determine as in set, decide upon, create a vision of…)

The seed of the accomplishments is in refining the energy of the mind and body. As you go, you have to manifest. That is a communicative process also, they feed each other. Communicative processes are never linear in this way.  Refine – manifest – review – manifest more.

Natural breathing rhythm – slow and deep, and soft and even (in and out). The breath has to touch the lower body. Natural rhythm makes the breath even. Then let the momentum of the energy of the breath go everywhere. That requires slowing down and breathing deeply. If you slow down the breath, the parts that in a frequency that had not been able to make themselves heard can then come out. A slow deep breath contains all of the frequencies.

Often when we meet children or animals, we stop and tune in, set our frequency to meet them where their vibration is. With a full breath, you can go to any frequency or level.

The natural breath is a balance between inner and outer. The communicative processes work optimally – in our processes of opening, healing, stimulating, etc – we have to bring together what is apart. In this life form, there are a couple of ways that the processes get off balance, are not functioning well. If you want to participate in communicative processes, then all opposites need to melt, because that’s what prevents communicative processes from being full. One way that one can get out of balance, which makes the communicative processes difficult – is inner and outer. That’s why we did the exercise yesterday of breathe in space into all of the chakras. In order for the communicative processes to work well, the opposites need to melt – up and down, body and mind, inner and outer, upper and lower (body), left and right, front and back. In the Kum Nye exercises, take one set of opposites and work with them.

Experience of left and right is different, which can be lessened with half an our of Kum Nye – how come it goes back after class? Because we do not make them no-more-two.  They become more integrated – and then there is no more two. Like bringing the eyes together, or bringing the left and right sides of the body together.

Why does it go back? Because the mind is not changed, the energy flows according to an instruction. The way the mind is is the way the energy flows. To maintain the energy flow as more integrated, then have to do something with what is instructing the energy, because the pattern is still there. The mind exercises, in the form of intent, is very important. What is at the heart of the mind? That is where the energy will flow.

Meaning, mission, vision – these things help keep the energy of the body integrated. The body will go back to what it habitually did, to what the pattern was.

Upper and lower exercise, bringing the two together.

Life manifests in our form as opposites – that happens because the environment is like that. Yesterday we did inner and outer (Joy of Being p. 46). All of these things only work if you work first wit the heart, otherwise where does it all go. If the upper body is energetic, and the lower body is on hold, you cannot just stimulate the lower body and think that will work. Nothing can go around the heart. It won’t be true, it won’t sustain itself, if you go around the heart. When the upper and lower body are both active, they both go through the heart. Living in the opposites means the heart is not involved.

The heart only opens when the upper and lower are open. The heart calls for the body to be integrated, and the heart will not be open unless the whole body is open. The opposites come together in the heart.

To bring it into everyday life, use a mind body discipline. The feelings need to flow to the heart. When we do expanding feeling outside the body, that is to facilitate inner and outer coming together. Feelings and thoughts come into the heart, and the center of gravity of our awareness needs to come from the heart. The heart is always the center, always the basis. The gravity of energy is better in the navel area. Meaningless talk allows the energy to leak through the throat area.

Where is the real knowing? The heart knows. The heart doesn’t have pros and cons. The head does pros and cons. The belly doesn’t have pros and cons – it says yes, no, or I don’t care. If you wonder where you are, then you are in the head.

Awaken the opposites and let them merge into each other – no more two. One is inclined to be more outward or inward oriented. So out needs to go in and out needs to go in. Space goes in – not people. If you invite all the space, then whatever is in the space is in too.

What needs to go out? Rinpoche would say our inner calmness. Go out from the heart. Out in and in out by expanding and condensing, touching into the natural flow in energy in life. Yesterday we did out and in. This morning we did up and down. Down is interesting. Communication between belly and throat is interesting, between heart and head is interesting.

If you really do Kum Nye well, it is a space experience, no more feelings, no more sensations, only pregnant space.

It is important to do something with the hands, because the hands are connected to the heart. The stream of energy from the hands (fists) to the heart, like in Heart Gold Thread.

What informs your energy? Form is preceded by knowing or intention. There is much more to form than intent – intent is tiny,  there are hundreds of processes, of which intent is a part, as well as karma. Intent does make a big difference. We will come back to this in the mind. If there is a core belief, the heart closes. The heart doesn’t have core beliefs. Life is abundant, knowledge, vitality, love, blessings. And in the West, the struggle of the core belief is what part of compassion is about; core beliefs undermine life manifesting.

Opposites.

Left and right might be comparable to feminine and masculine.

Left eye is moon, right eye is the sun. it is good if they come together. Left arm, left hand very different than right arm and right hand and It is interesting from Kum Nye to look at the difference. One is perhaps more dense than the other. It is not only the energy, but it is as if the light is turned off. But if that space has never been called upon, it is as if it is covered. If no one every appeals on your feminine side, it becomes covered over, hidden in the closet. Everything is there, but it is not participating.  It is not fixed, it is fluctuating, it can be different in the morning than in the afternoon.

In Kum Nye you can bring to life what is dense, but it will come back. If you keep doing Kum Nye, then it will work.

What is the knowledge that will keep the left and the right different from the life? In the end, we don’t have to do Kum Nye, Life flows. This is what Skillful Means is about, calling on all of our being.

When we rely on the head and don’t include feelings, lower is left out. Same with left and right – when we access the feminine and leave out the masculine, or vice versa.

The whole body is lighted up, but there are parts that have not been called upon, either by you or by someone else. You have to appeal to yourself, to all parts of yourself. Sometimes a teacher can help with that. You need to find your inner call. The left and right are out of balance very frequently. Changing your energy is the best way to create the balance. And something has to appeal on the side that is not being used. We can have a pattern of having friends who sustain the imbalance. Sometimes people are bonded in misery.

So you can help your friends by showing them where they might be relying on the same side. And you can help yourself by looking to see where you do not call on parts of yourself. Look at all of the opposites, look at them in each and every situation.

Become aware, awaken, let the two merge and then let it all flow to the heart.

If you want to open up the left side – awaken the energy in the whole of the left side, then integrate by inviting the left to go into the right and the right goes into the left.

The orientation of the body can also depend on the situation.

Appeal to yourself – challenge yourself. Give yourself a deadline. Go toward the places that are fearful. But it has to be a meaningful challenge, otherwise you are doing it through willpower.  In these teachings, there is only laziness in the way. Perhaps there is something about laziness that prevents one from finding what it is that appeals.

Exercise 20 Touching Body Energy

Harmonizing Opposites – Joy of Being – p262

Afternoon Session

When communicative processes work, the first characteristic is joy.

The way that one works, your approach, your stance, determines what can come back, and there won’t be joy. What would close the aperture is thinking, judging, being critical, being fearful, while you work. When the aperture closes, little can come back. It shows as heaviness. You want to open the aperture – this translates as yes. Yes is opening the aperture. The way that feedback can be established – can ask. And if her aperture is closed, it will open up because the question was open. It is good to ask is it meeting the need. We work because of what we work for. While working, refine the body and mind energy. How is the working? How is the flow of the energy? How is the involvement? It can be hard work, but should feel alive when you come out.

Work is a communicative process. More in the area of Skillful Means, it is very useful for Kum Nye, how and where one is leaking energy. The main way of losing energy is talking. It is more what that is talked about than talking per se. Meaningless talk leaks energy.  If the words are meaningless, it doesn’t stick, people aren’t attracted, it isn’t compelling. In Yeshe De, begin by working silently, so people can feel the energy of the work. How can one tell when there is meaningless talk? If one chooses a word, it is probably meaningful. A poet chooses every word. The president chooses every word. It is a process through the throat chakra. Setting a time limit can create meaningful speech as well.

Body gives the cues as to if there is communication. It is the communication that gives energy and information. When leading a class or group, it helps a lot if the group talks, especially if they like it. The right communication dissolves duality.

Silence is the heart and the start of all communications. Silence is the mother of all communication. If it comes from there it is genuine. The purpose of a lot of the work we do in this program is to dissolve the duality.

This communication process takes place in the body, in the example of the exercise this morning with the shoulders. Raise the left shoulder, it feels different than the right. Then raise both, and get the energy to go back and forth between the two, that is no more duality.

We are talking about communicative processes about the senses. The bottom line of the six chapters in Joy of Being about the senses is the dissolution of subject-object in the using of the senses. The larger the Kum, the more the treasures can come out. And then it is easier to communicate, in the other ways besides talking. Subject-object stance keeps the treasures from being able to be mined. Rinpoche calls this non-dual presence in the senses.

Seeing happens – there is seeing and being seen. Listening and hearing.

There was a group of disciples of the Buddha that were able to listen in such a way that they became instantly enlightened. The Group of Listeners.

In the section on Seeing, in Joy of Being, on page 82 (bottom) – 83, the whole teaching is summed up, read it again and again, you’ll get it. In the same chapter is a very small sentence – it says if you trace the contours of the form, – this is one of the most important exercises in Kum Nye – you get a feeling from the form. If you trace the contours of color and form, you can match the vibration of that color or form. The knowledge that the color/form is expressing becomes accessible. Similar to what people do when they see babies.

Rinpoche says expand in time and space, and then you meet others (not us, anyone trained like this) who are doing it.

We did exercise with colors, vibrations and the group.

You are the color blue. The other two people are a color. The colors are not the same. Can you make the colors the same?

• Blue
• Green
• Red
• Yellow
• White

(these are the colors of the mandala)

If you translate this into your life, what is the benefit? To think about attuning to the vibration to other people. If you find out what the color is, you can vibrate with it. You can choose to switch on or off. Can match the vibration in the room, then you can hear them, and they can hear you. Let’s be green in this meeting, because in the mandala, that has a certain effect.

Evening Session

Exercise: Embracing Space This was interesting. There is something about the breath that I need to go more deeply into.

Talk about subject and objects.

Wat brought this to his mind is an observation that he made during practice, that the feelings and sensations that he was observing in Kum Nye, they are limits, in a certain way. The feelings and sensations are kind of a limiting structure. He started to think more about that, and… it led him to see some interesting comparisons between some traditional Buddhist mediation metods and Kum Nye.

Abhidharma is a big topic, but there is a part that is called analytic meditation. One of the ways the Buddha taught to examine experience was in a sense by taking things apart.  What looks like just what it is, we could jus ttake it apart in a certain way. Because it loks like a single independent thing, but this is a little deceptive. If we examine it, it is made up of parts that are always changing. So the most important thing to examine in that way is ourselves.

The Abhidarma teachings have a lot of different methods of doing that. Ways of Enlightenment is all Abhidharma. So in there, there are things like the five skandas – form, feelings, volition, consciousness. The basic idea is that our way of living is kind of naïve. So it means we just accept everything the way it comes to us. So we are easily fooled. So much of what we take to be real gains it reality form a lack of examination. So in traditional Buddhist context, they talk in this way. So the thing looks like what it is, but when you look closer, that’s not really what it is. In Abhidharma, there’s some intellectual analysis, and then there is a meditative method that goes along with that. When Ralph first started doing Kum Nye, there were not very many Abhidharma books, but he thought then that it must be working with the same things  as the Abhidharma. But wasn’t sure until Joy of Being was published.

Traditional Abhidharma methods is one method, but it is not easy. Kum Nye presents another avenue toward gaining the same level of insight. The way we do that is through engagement and opening. Before we do Kum Nye, our experience of our body is more like and idea about our body. We’re not really contacting the body. You say – my knee hurts, but you don’t have a lot of information about that. You don’t have a lot of information because you’re not in contact with your body. We’re trapped in the concept. Labels get applied very quickly, so we pop up to a certain level very quickly.

A really simple example – the limited experience is sustained by our lack of attention. And bringing our attention to things can immediately start to change them and shift them. If I take the example of a pain in the knee – oh, I don’t know what to do, it is very bad. But then even if you go to a doctor, even the doctor is going to ask you where is the pain in your knee. Everyone will have to go into the experience and figure out where is the pain in the knee. And that is already a shift. And then the doctor may ask – and what does it feel like? Then you have to go farther in. Now you are starting to suspend the conceptual level – it is very automatic, but we can turn it off a little. We know from Kum Nye that there are many more levels than that. Even at that point, we have a subject and an object – with the knee, and how is the knee, and going in to check. We are a little divided. There is the me and the book, subject-object, but there is also there is a me – mine experience. When we are thinking about the difference between me and an object, there has to be qualities – there are rocks, chairs, space, and they are all separate, they all have their own properties.

When we are looking internally, then we are going into the sensations in our knee. We hava a location, and we tap into some kind of quality. Is it hot, pulsating? But what happens then if we rest our attention there, (everyone has that experience) then you start to lose the border. Something is moving, the border is not so distinct, the qualities you realize are changing, there’s some kind of fluctuation, or variation. And if we really rest with it and go into it, then the words are not adequate for it anymore. The words don’t really describe what’s happening very well. It is kind of a paradox, the more intimate we are with the experience, the less definite things we can say about it.

But our definition of making something real is that we can draw distinct borders and say something about it. Sometimes we read about things that are inexpressible, inconceivable, transcendental. It makes it sound like we have to go very far away in order to make this happen. But in a simple way, everything is beyond words.

In Kum Nye, we place a lot of value on feelings and sensations, because we find a lot of value there. From one view point, they are like little treasures that we open up. The main thing is the opening up. It seemed that almost every ordinary perception we have is like a little limiting structure that has a lot of energy. Awareness is like touching each of these structures and then they naturally open or melt. It starts to feel a little bit like a dance. There are forms, and then every time we contact a form, it opens up into energy, and different forms create different perceptions appear. And then there is the possibility of touching each of those with awareness, and everything is very very fluid.

Rinpoche says in the first Kum Nye book – when the practice goes very well, the body becomes like a cloud that is passing. There is no stopping anywhere, in any moment. And it is very different than being who we have been for so many  years. More in touch with the changing nature of our body than the patterning that continues that allows us to identify each other. That’s kind of a basic thing with our way of perceiving – in the sense that everything  – very beautiful about how the process of perception works. Recognition sets up a limit. Once we know what it is at that level, there’s a lot we don’t know, and we stop trying to know. It applies to things, it applies to people, it applies to knowledge and concepts and to ourselves. The Kum Nye standpoint is that it is so much less rich than it can be. It is kind of an impoverished way of being. So much of the first KN book is about richness, expansion, joy. Being a subject that is isolated from all the objects is pretty lonely. We don’t have any natural intimacy, even with our own perceptions.

There is kind of kind of a basis for grasping, for creating anxiety. But if we start to talk about non-dual perception, then it starts to sound a little far out. Like we’re going to walk into the wall if we talk about that. Perhaps it is not so disorienting as all that.

Is there a way that words open and not close? Up to a certain point. He asked Rinpoche the question once, if any of his books got around this trap, he said, not totally. That’s why there is so much emphasis, in this book, encouraging us to trust ourselves and not get caught up in instructions. Rinpoche calls it the paradox of instruction. We need some pointing, but we have to learn how not to be trapped by it. Just let go, follow the flow of your experience, trust it. There are certainly ways in which words help.

Nama-rupa is like an abbreviation of body and mind, the total operation of our being. Nama-ruma is a traditional term that refers to human embodiment.

In terms of the four foundations of mindfulness, KN works with mindfulness of mind and feeling. The traditional process of perception, we are trying to stay closer to the perception, without moving on to the conceptualization and labeling.  We make a kind of training so that we don’t do that. We go to the sensation, or to the visual perception, whatever the ting we are practicing is, and we let go of the label, and try to bring our attention more immediately to the shape, the form, the qualities. We are melting, or dissolving toward more primary experience. And then what we find in Kum Nye, is that we can kind of, the mind can slip into a little diffenent way of operating.  If you have brand new people in a class, then it is like the mind is having to spend all the time coming back. The points of contact between the person’s mind and body are not that many. So not so much happens at that level. But when the mind relaxes and can settle on the object, then it stabilizes. So you can hold the object, but that is not like nailing it down. The quality of relaxation lets the mind just rest with the object. A mind that is resting with its object is very different that the mind that started out.

There is a certain kind of intimacy there. When we start a session with a new student, we are up in the control tower. Sensation, over there. But as we are able to stay with it, there is like a softening and a connectedness there. So it is natural for the subject-object division to just soften. You don’t even notice it. Later you might notice – Rinpoche says that the quality of relaxation and not forcing, because then the me identity doesn’t get anxious.

In just about every section of the Joy of Being, you’ll see this theme of things just opening. There are sounds in silence, there are forms in space. Eye is always drawn to the form and not the space. Our consciousness gets locked to the form and loses the quality of space. And then the mind adds commentary about the form – there isn’t so much to comment on if one is focusing on space. The book takes the perspective that we’re always opening up forms and space, sounds; they have more information, more energy. The subject and the object are made out of the same stuff. So when we live in a world that has dried up little objects, then there is a dried up little knower. We start by opening up the feelings and sensations, so that we are opening up to. The more flowing the internal self world, the more flowing the exterior world is.

Many people think that focusing on the body is limited. But we know that there is a lot of depth there.

Rnpoche was way ahead of most people teaching meditation in the West – looking around 40 years later, you can see many Buddhist teachers now realizing that there has to be some relation to the body. People were trying to think with their heads only.

“you don’t have to do our type of meditation, but meditation has to be connected to the body.”

The sixth sense is the one who meditates. It is not the whole of all of mind, it is where we spend most of our time, but it is not all there is to mind.

So it is an appropriate moment to draft up a Buddhist response, or my response to the whole thing anyway. In Buddhism there is a theory of the composition of matter, which can be found in the Abhidharma. It is said that that matter is composed of some very tiny particles and it is the arrangement of these particles that lead to the formation of the ordinary objects that we know, such as tables, chairs, stars and so on.

It is said in the Pali Abhidhammattha-Sanghaha, or the Manual of Abhidhamma, one of the key texts in Theravada Buddhism, that ordinary material objects are composed of very tiny paramanu. The text describes this as follows:

It should be noted that the atomic theory prevailed in India in the time of the Buddha. Paramanu was the ancient term for the modern atom. According to the ancient belief one ratharenu consists of 16 tajjaris, one tajjari, 16 anus; one anu, 16 paramanus. The minute particles of dust seen dancing in the sunbeam are called ratharenus. One paramanu is, therefore, 4096th part of a ratharenu. This paramanu was considered indivisible (A Manual of Abhidhamma or Abhidhammatha-Sanghaha, p. 318).

I did not have time to look up how big or small a ratharenu is, but the idea should be clear. Things are ultimately composed of paramanu, and I have heard some scholars say that one paramanu is about one nanometer wide (This is only an approximation). And according to the Abhidhamma the paramanu is considered indivisible. So the picture is a basic one of tiny particles making up the material world.

However, the Abhidhamma (or ‘Abhidharma’ in Sanskrit) is only a school of thought within Buddhism. This fact is much obscured in Thai Buddhism because of the veneration that the Abhidhamma canon has received being one of the three ‘baskets’ of the Buddhism scripture. Very few in Thailand have a chance to study the other schools of thought in the other traditions, so they come to take the Abhidhamma itself as the final word of the Buddha, where in fact in the Suttas the Buddha scarcely mentions topics such as basic composition of matter, if at all.

So the point is that there are other traditions of Buddhism which do not subscribe to the atomic theory of the Abhidhamma. This is well known in Tibetan Buddhism, which has received all the earlier and later developments of Buddhism from India. Other schools, most notably the Madhyamaka, say that, ultimately speaking, even the paramanus do not exist from their own side. That is, on the objective side of the matter, there can be no such thing as the paramanu, and since there is no paramanu, all material things are but illusions created by the mind when it fabricates reality through concepts and language. At one level there is Emptiness, but at another level there are all the things that we know and are familiar with. However, these two levels do not mean that one is shallow and the other is deep. On the contrary the two ‘levels’ are more or less the same, so to speak. This is because Emptiness itself is empty, there being no ‘thing’ such that it could be regarded as the ‘Emptiness’. ‘Emptiness’ is just a term to signify things in the world, only emphasizing their interdependence and lack of inherent characteristics. So on a “deeper” level behind the ordinary things there might be Emptiness, but then at the deeper level than Emptiness itself are these ordinary things like tables and chairs.

So how is this related to the atom smasher? One thing it might do is that it might provide either a support or a counterexample to the Abhidhammic theory. Smashing protons together might yield some further, hitherto unknown, particle that might well correspond to the paramanu. Or it might not, because coming from the ancient tradition the paramanu could then be further interpreted in either way.

But my real point is not with the Abhidhamma. The point is that anything that happens as a result of the smashing will not only answer some old questions, but will open up a whole host of new questions to keep physicists busy for a foreseeable period. Suppose the smashing yield some smaller particles that we have not known before, then there will be further questions as to whether these smaller particles themselves are basic and indestructible, or whether they can be smashed further. Or could it be that after the smashing nothing is revealed of the proton except for something that could not be classified as matter at all? In any case the colliding and smashing will always yield more questions, perhaps more than answers.

Will in the end the experiment provide an evidence to the Madhayamaka’s idea that all material objects are at the ultimate level ‘empty.’ This could be so, and let us see what happens as a result of this smashing.

I end with a YouTube video very clearly describing the whole process: