Thursday 27 January 2011

Absoluut Dharma...

The essence of ethics is to love one another. However, since there is no absolute standard for good and bad, all ethical acts are relative. Usually, though, when one makes an effort to achieve some goal, one tends to consider one's efforts as being absolute, rather than relative. when this psychological tendency manifests itself in a self-centered way, our ethical consciousness becomes a source of strife between people that can lead to the death and destruction of others, which is quite contrary to our original intent as ethical beings. 
- Rev. Kemmyo Taira Sato

most, if not all of the time we tend to discriminate between things as either being A or B, good or bad, true or false etc. and then we proceed to form opinions and make judgements based upon these absolutes we ascribe to them. Buddhadharma aims to cuts through this dualistic mode of thinking which leads us to seperate ourselves from others and place our own needs above all else. In Shantideva's Bodhicaryavatara we read - Since I and other beings both / In wanting happiness, are equal and alike / What difference is there to distinguish us / That I should strive to have my bliss alone? As there is no independently existing self, to cherish an I above Other is to seek to preserve that which has no substance in the first place.

all well and good and yes it certainly sounds worth realising. the problem as i've experienced it personally though, is that so often we seem to fall under the absurd sway of thinking that we don't carry this dualistic tendency with us on to the Dharma path. let's be honest - how often have each of us argued an understanding or aspect of Dharma from this absolute standpoint? do a quick google search and you'll find all manner of sectarian in-fighting within Buddhism, despite your cosy notion of it being all shangri-la windchimes and levitating yogis living in peace and harmony. ego is strongly rooted and habituated through years and years of practice, so much so that Buddhism will be used as just so much more grist for the mill with which to booster it. i'm Buddhist, you're not. i'm Zen, you're Nichiren. i follow Guru X, you follow Guru Y.

it's not that i believe all we need is a nice big group-hug of syncretism - of course there are differences in teaching, in interpretation, in practice and between tradition. and it is important to acknowledge them. just as it is important to acknowledge that they all share a unified purpose. but ultimately, Buddhadharma is the extinguishing of dualities. and lets not kid ourselves we're on the other shore yet before we've even set foot on the raft. a little bit of honesty, no matter how painful and ugly, can go a long way.

namu amida butsu
            

7 comments:

  1. Jon:"ultimately, Buddhadharma is the extinguishing of views"

    Hmm, what about Right View (samyag-dṛṣṭi / sammā-diṭṭhi) the first factor of the Eight-fold path?

    I'm unconvinced that we can live without views; the enlightened sage dwelling in non-duality will be run down by a car when he returns to the marketplace unless he takes up various views that cohere to certain aspects of that situation.

    Perhaps the key point can be found in the passage from Rev. Sato where he says "Usually ... one tends to consider one's efforts as being absolute, rather than relative." I don't have the original text from which the passage is taken with me but I think that what he is discussing is a love and ethics that develops at the boundary, at our skin, in the encounter between self and other, rather than an ethics which is formed within the individual and then projected into the world as if fully formed.

    In that sense the point is not to try and have no views, in which direction would lie passivity and self-deception, but to constantly re-evaluate them in communion with others.

    I also think that maybe we need to get away from the eschatological notion that at some point the veil will be drawn back and there will just be one perfect view, or 'no view', if you like. I think that there are always horizons but a fully awakened being sees a fuller landscape of the situation or context they were in whereas the unenlightened tend to fixate on certain aspects or corners wherever they are due to habit energy (I'm kind of thinking about the PL ideas in the Vimalakirti Sutra here and also very much Dogen Zenji's whole take on things).

    Just some views!

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  2. hi Kyoshin, your views are always welcome! :)

    i think this really highlights how careful one should be in choosing one's words when talking about Dharma...in this instant, "extinguishing our clinging to or cherishing of views" might be more apt. as such i will ammend.

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  3. just some more thought...

    I also think that maybe we need to get away from the eschatological notion that at some point the veil will be drawn back and there will just be one perfect view, or 'no view', if you like.

    yes, i'm certainly guilty of that and there's probably a fair bit of it going in this post. which is ironic as in a way it's part of the problem i was trying to address. basically, what's been on my mind in this and few posts recently is that it often seems we want to come to Buddhadharma from the standpoint of having already arrived and have a real tendency to deny and refuse to acknowledge the baggage we come with...

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  4. Jon: "and have a real tendency to deny and refuse to acknowledge the baggage we come with... "

    Yes we tend to cling to an ideal that leads us to deny what we are and how we are. My feeling is that we are made of the baggage, its not something that we are carrying, not something optional. Practice is a matter of re-encountering that stuff in a new way; so in Shin terms karmic 'baggage' whcih seemed to be extraneous and a burden is transformed into shukuzen (good from the past) and the very foundation of our lives.

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  5. so in Shin terms karmic 'baggage' whcih seemed to be extraneous and a burden is transformed into shukuzen (good from the past) and the very foundation of our lives.

    which again would relate to what we'd been discussing in Kunga's post! :)

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  6. "when we realize that this burden itself is our very own life force, we own up to the karma as ours, and in so doing we truly become free. When this happens, the karmic consequences of our past karma put us in a joyful state of mind that leaves us reciting the nenbutsu."
    - Gadjin Nagao

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  7. first we have to acknowledge the burden though. sometimes i feel we approach the Dharma so obsessed with an ideal that we miss this.

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