The Times (London) is reporting an interesting speech on spiritual values given by the Head of the British Army.

General Sir Richard Dannatt

General Sir Richard Dannatt, Chief of the General Staff, said that Christian leaders and chaplains in the Army needed to equip soldiers for the spiritual issues at stake.

“In my business, asking people to risk their lives is part of the job, but doing so without giving them the chance to understand that there is a life after death is something of a betrayal,” he said.

“I think there is very much an obligation on . . . a Christian leader to include a spiritual dimension into his people’s preparations for operations, and the general conduct of their lives,” he said. “Qualities and core values are fine as a universally acceptable moral baseline for leadership, but the unique life, death, resurrection and promises of Christ provide that spiritual opportunity that I believe takes the privilege of leadership to another level.” In his speech, reported in this week’s Church of England Newspaper, the Chief of the General Staff said that a true leader’s authority came down to the nature of their character and the degree of their integrity.

“Character defines the person – it answers the question as to whether this is someone to emulate and with what enthusiasm. Integrity establishes the moral baseline to lead.”

An interesting viewpoint from the very outspoken General.

A Life of Hui Neng by John M Evans. In the Zen Masters Series.

Hui Neng believed that the “quick-witted” were quite capable of enlightening themselves, but those who were not (perhaps those who on reading the Diamond Sutra think it less than profound), should take advice from learned Buddhists who understand the highest teachings.

“On the other hand, those who enlighten themselves need no extraneous help. It is wrong to insist upon the idea that without the advice of the pious and learned we cannot obtain liberation. Why? Because it is by our innate wisdom that we enlighten ourselves, and even the extraneous help and instructions of a pious and learned friend would be of no use if we were deluded by false doctrines and erroneous views. Should we introspect our mind with real prajna, all erroneous views would be vanquished in a moment, and as soon as we know the essence of mind we arrive immediately at the Buddha stage.”

Apart from the conjunction of concentration and prajna, Hui Neng taught a method of living in the Buddha-mind which he called kung teh. He explained that to keep the mind within in a humble and non-grasping mode is “kung”. To behave outwardly with dignity and propriety is “teh”. Realisation of the Buddha-mind is kung, while equanimity in behaviour is teh.

“When our mental activity works without any impediment, so that we are in a position to know constantly the true state and the mysterious functioning of our own mind, we are said to have acquired kung teh.”

If we treat others with disrespect because of our inflated views of our self, we lack kung and do not know the Buddha- mind; thus we also lack teh. If our mind functions naturally without ego, this is kung; if it produces a straight-forward approach to things, this is teh. To train the mind is kung, and to train the body is the. This bears more than a passing resemblance to the ancient Chinese doctrine of yin and yang.

Hui Neng’s way of kung teh may be summarised as turning the light inward to realise the Buddha-mind, which then manifests outwardly as enlightened behaviour. He would have no truck with forms and rituals, or the seeking of merits by alms-giving or good works. The latter should be performed without any expectation of reward, as in the karma yoga of the Bhagavad Gita. Merit comes from within, from the Buddha-mind, not as a gift from without, dispensed by a higher authority. To have kung teh is to live in the world as an enlightened being. When asked where to find the Buddha’s Pure Land (the Western Paradise of Amida), he cites the questioner’s own body.

“Sirs, this physical body of ours is a city. Our eyes, ears, nose, and tongue are the gates. There are five external gates, while the internal one (thought) is ideation. The mind is the ground. The Buddha-mind is the King who lives in the domain of the mind…We should work for Buddhahood within the essence of mind, and we should not look for it apart from ourselves.”

Here is another characteristic term of Hui Neng’s: essence of mind, for Buddha-mind. The third Patriarch used “timeless mind essence” so perhaps it derived from that. All these phrases refer to the ultimate reality, the Buddha-nature, unborn and unconditioned.

He also insisted that the life of a layman was no impediment to enlightenment. After all, he himself had reached Buddhahood and the patriarchate as a layman, even though he was subsequently received into the Order.

“Learned audience,” he said, addressing monks and lay guests at his monastery, “those who wish to train themselves (spiritually) may do so at home. It is quite unnecessary for them to stay in monasteries…So far as the mind is pure, it is the ‘Western Pure Land of one’s own Buddha-mind’.”

To train oneself at home he gave a series of instructions in the form of a stanza. For a fair mind, he said, moral precepts are not necessary; for straight-forward behaviour (action through non-action, the Taoist wu wei), meditation may be dispensed with. (Remember this refers to concentration, not zazen — mindfulness. It is awkward that the word “Zen” derives from dhyana, which is a concentrative technique, set against vipissana, the insight meditation of the Pali canon).

The equality of all persons should be understood, since there is “no other”. Forbearance should be a watch-word, even in a hostile crowd, then perseverance will lead to Buddha-nature appearing from the “black mire” of the unenlightened state. The aspirant should be altruistic, but never expecting reward or merit. For enlightenment is to be found “within our own mind, and there is no necessity to look for mysticism from without”.

“Learned audience,” the Patriarch added, “all of you should put into practice what is taught in this stanza, so that you can realise the Buddha-mind and attain Buddhahood directly.”

For Hui Neng, non-attachment was a fundamental principle. He also listed “idea-lessness” as the goal of his school, and “non-objectivity”, by which he meant not to be absorbed by external objects, as its basis.

“Our mind should stand aloof from circumstances, and on no account should we allow them to influence the function of our mind.”

As a caution, however, he added, “But it is a great mistake to suppress our mind from all thinking.” In India this state is known as yoga nidra, a totally unconscious condition in which the meditator is unaware of any mental or physical activity. On awakening, the subject’s mind simply reactivates at the point at which it left off. The state has no spiritual value whatever since it is absolute quiescence akin to annihilation.

Go to Part 5.

A Life of Dogen by John M Evans. In the Zen Masters Series.

The Einsteinian notion of space-time, a continuum in which time represents the fourth dimension, was apparently anticipated by Dogen, for whom time was inseparable from “being”. Time, of course, can only exist within a context of space, since it is a function of movement. But since being, or put another way, consciousness, is self-identical with space, time itself is inseparable from being.

Dogen said: “So-called time of being means time is already being; all being is time…Self is arrayed as the whole world. You should perceive that each point, each thing of this whole world is an individual time.”

Shunryu Suzuki elaborates this point: “Moment after moment each one of us repeats this activity (of breathing). Here there is no idea of time and space. Time and space are one. We do things one after the other, that is all. At one o’clock you will eat your lunch. To eat lunch is itself one o’clock. You will be somewhere, but that place cannot be separated from one o’clock.” To create an idea of a place separate from one o’clock, as when we say “I wish I had gone somewhere else for lunch,” is playing mind-games, weaving illusion.

Dogen’s ideas on being and time, which have aroused a lot of interest among modern thinkers, arise from his basic theme of the non-dual suchness of the world, the unity of being. All dimensions and systems of measurement, therefore, are just mentally-created facets of the one central reality, and ultimately are indistinguishable from each other and the underlying reality realm.

The ramifications of this temporal system include the concept of all things existing in their own “being-time” for all time. Thus at this instant you and this time are identical. But you also participate in the whole structure of being-time, which is timeless. This means that you have always existed, and past moments are still in existence, but exclusively within their own being-times. The notion resembles a roll of movie film, where individual frames can be observed and put into motion as being-time. However, the whole drama exists timelessly as the reel of film.

Dogen also points out that time can seem to be moving in various ways, from past to present to future, or the reverse, depending on the standpoint of the observer. In this he seems to be looking forward to Quantum Theory and other developments of mathematical relativity.

A number of current writers are making the connection between modern science and ancient Eastern philosophies, for example, Fritjof Capra in his interesting account, The Tao of Physics. Despite such ideas, Dogen was never diverted by mind-games and always remained firmly in the Buddhistic realm of direct experience. Words to him were only fingers pointing to the moon. Never the moon itself.

Read the rest of this entry »

A Life of Dogen by John M Evans. In the Zen Masters Series.

When Dogen returned to Japan after his enlightenment experience in China he did not at first settle into a formal career. He was offered thirteen locations for establishing his own temple but not one satisfied him. Eventually he was installed at a temple outside Kyoto where he began to teach his own version of the Chinese Ts’ao Tung (Japanese Soto) school.

By dropping the cultural forms associated with more esoteric schools of Buddhism, Dogen was able to present a very pure form of practice, close to the original methods of the Buddha. He emphasised not so much that everyone has Buddha-nature, but that everyone is Buddha-nature. This non-dualism enabled him to profess a very direct path to enlightenment; in fact, so direct that the candidate merely assumes the mantle and posture of the Buddhahood he knows he already possesses. As Shunryu Suzuki puts it: “this is the sudden way, because when your practice is calm and ordinary, everyday life is enlightenment.”

Over the next few years he began to lay down the framework of teaching that we know today as the Soto school of Zen. Its basic tenets were those of Bodhidharma, direct pointing to reality by-passing names and form, transmission of enlightenment from mind to mind, and the assumption that each is already enlightened, is Buddha-mind.

His methods were largely psychological, though arising directly from metaphysical experience, and, given his own nature, more intellectually-based than those of the Rinzai school. By this time he had designated two successors, Ejo and Gi’in, and had begun his long-term literary work, the Shobogenzo.

Finally, after much fund-raising and great difficulty in finding a suitable site, Dogen was able formally to open his own monastery, Eiheiji, in modern Fukui, ninety miles or so north of Kyoto, and some 4000 feet above sea level. Today, Eiheiji is one of the two main temples of the Soto school in Japan. It has around seventy beautifully crafted buildings set among giant cedars and a crashing waterfall.

Suzuki Roshi recalls some of the atmosphere of Eiheiji when he was a monk there early in the 20th Century. Just before you enter the monastery, he wrote, there is a small bridge called Half-Dipper Bridge. Whenever Dogen took water from the river he would use only half, returning the rest to the river as a mark of respect to the water. The monks still observe this practice today, not from any idea of economy, but because: “When we feel the beauty of the river, when we are at one with the water, we intuitively do it Dogen’s way. It is our true nature to do so. But if your true nature is covered by ideas of economy or efficiency, Dogen’s way makes no sense.”

By the same token, he thought, our modern environmental problems will not be solved by scientific interventions, but only when we resume the perspective of our true non-dual nature. To be at one with the Earth, means we replace whatever we do not need and respect the eco-system that provides it.

Now Read Part 5