UnMind 45. Surangama Sutra Sextet 5: Practice Instructions

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What is instruction?
Who can tell you what to do?
The Thus-Come One can!

In this section of the Surangama, “Instructions for Practice,” we will have to skim over the highlights, as the scope and detail that Shakyamuni goes into is overwhelming. It begins with Ananda confessing his lack of practice, his habit of listening without applying what he hears. This smacks of Dogen’s Vow:

We vow with all beings from this life on throughout countless lives to hear the true Dharma

With the caveat that:

Although our past harmful karma has greatly accumulated
Indeed being the causes and conditions of obstacles in practicing the Way

In other words, we are already fighting an uphill battle, but not a hopeless one. Later in the poem:

By revealing and disclosing our lack of faith and practice before the Buddha
We melt away the root of transgression by the power of our repentance

The youthful Ananda is assailed by hormones, which are inborn. On top of that, Buddha sets a first principle, renouncing the Lesser Vehicle, Hinayana, practicing in accord with the Bodhisattva way, is the path to “bodiless Nirvana.” It requires that we overcome our “age-old habit of dependence on the objects of the senses,” in a pre-scientific world in which things were seen as permanent and substantial.

He goes on to frame the higher vehicle as not relying on the mind that “comes into being and ceases,” declaring that if we do so, we will not be able to “ride the Buddha's Vehicle to where there is nothing that comes into being or ceases to be.” We should shine the light of our understanding — of emptiness, or impermanence — directly on the material world: “Since all phenomena are subject to change and decay, how could any of them serve as a basis for the practice of Dharma?” This idea was not as obvious to the intuitive empirical method of sensory awareness as it is now, with modern science.

So several ideas are emerging here that deserve, or demand, comment. The lesser vehicle of self-salvation is to be renounced in favor of saving all others first, the Bodhisattva Vow. That this leads to a “body-less” state of being, seems to imply the existence of a separate spirit, i.e. a “soul.” But this is decidedly denied, in the teaching of no-self, no-soul. This is Dogen’s dropping off of body and mind.

Buddha then launches into what he terms the Five Layers of Turbidity:

In your own body, what appears as solid is composed of the primary element earth…moist/water… warmth/fire… movement/wind. Because… primary elements… [are] bound together, your pure, perfect, wondrous enlightened mind that understands is divided into the functions of seeing, listening, touching, and cognition. Turbidity, in five layers, comes about as a result.

So it is important to note that Buddha is not merely talking about the world around us, but the world within, as well. The import of the teaching is, after all, what it means to our own life and understanding. He goes on, as is his wont, using familiar analogies to illuminate the strangeness of our reality:

What is turbidity? Suppose that someone were to pick up some soil and throw it into clear water. The soil now loses its solidity, and the water loses its purity. Together they appear clouded or, we may say, turbid. The five layers of turbidity occur in the same way.

But then he makes an exception for the fifth element, space, as a phenomenon that does not decay:

You have never heard of space being broken into parts. Why? Space has no shape or form. Therefore, it can neither be divided nor put together again.
As you look into space throughout all ten directions… no separation can be made between space and your visual awareness of it. If only space existed… there would be nothing to be aware of it. If only awareness existed… there would not be anything for it to be aware of… space and visual awareness become entangled… With… entanglement, based on delusion, the turbidity of time comes into being. This is the first layer of turbidity.
What do I mean… by ‘beings and the world of time and space’? ‘Time’ denotes flux and change; ‘space’ denotes location and direction… the directions are north, south, east, west, northeast, southeast, northwest, southwest, above, and below, while time is divided into past, present, and future. Thus locations are tenfold and the flow of time is threefold, making ten directions and three periods of time. Because beings are entangled in illusion, they constantly move about in time and space, which become interconnected.

This may be the first instance in recorded history of the interconnectedness of space and time — i.e. spacetime — hello, Einstein! Master Dogen’s fascicle, Uji, “Being-” or “Existence-Time,” said to have anticipated the theory of relativity, makes the same point with regard to time itself. It has no meaning, or existence, outside of sentient being.

That time is regarded as a “turbidity” is astounding. It recalls a statement by D. T. Suzuki, in his early introductions of Zen to the West, that measured time was a wonderful invention, making possible the systemization of agriculture, the industrial revolution, and all that followed. But at the same time, it became a spiritual tragedy, as people took it to be the way time is. The very fact that you are listening to this podcast, in the time available to you, demonstrates how measured time has come to dominate our daily lives. But as Hsinhsinming reminds us, “Words! The Way is beyond language for in it there is no yesterday, no tomorrow, no today.” In other words, no time. A closing comment on space:

Although space can be defined as extending in ten directions and can be clearly understood as such, people in general only take account of north, south, east, and west. They do not consider above and below to be specific directions, and they see the four intermediate directions as merely relative to the others, while the four cardinal points are understood to be fixed. Therefore, we can say that space is fourfold and time threefold, and that the three times and four directions multiplied together make a total of twelve.

This reflexive enumeration of all things was, I suppose, a way of lending a veneer of science to the phenomena being discussed, as well as a mnemonic, a way of remembering the extensive teachings.

Buddha then goes into the other four layers. The second, perception, results from the faculties of awareness’ entanglement with the four elements. The third, afflictions, from entanglement of six consciousnesses with their perceived objects. The fourth, that of individual beings, arises from entanglement of thoughts and karma. Even though “beings ceaselessly come into being and perish” they “always desire to continue to experience the world indefinitely through their faculties of perception” and their “karma leads them to continually move from one land to another.” He proceeds through relentless logic to the fifth and final layer of turbidity, closing this dissertation with a passage remarkable for its clarity and comprehensive summing up of the conditions of existence:

The fundamental natures of your seeing, your hearing, and your other awarenesses do not differ from one another, but the six objects of perception separate them so that your awareness is forced to become differentiated. Although the six sense-consciousnesses share a single fundamental awareness, their functioning has become distinct. The consciousnesses and their objects are no longer in their correct relationship. They become entangled with each other, and with this entanglement, based on delusion, there is the fifth layer, the turbidity of lifespans.

This brief paragraph also summarizes for us the direction that our meditation must take, in reversing this “turbid” nature of our consciousness. In zazen, we must return to the undifferentiated original nature of awareness, the unity of the six senses, and their correct relationship to their objects. In doing so, we can at least realize the meaning and purpose of this present lifetime, whether or not it relieves us of future lifespans. Buddha sums up this trans-sensory challenge in no uncertain terms:

Ānanda, now you wish to transform your visual, aural, tactile, and mental awareness, together with the other kinds of awareness, into the permanence, bliss, true self, and purity of the Thus-Come One… The original enlightened understanding, which neither comes into being nor ceases to be, must be the basis of your practice.

This neither coming into being nor ceasing to be, sometimes called the “unborn mind” or “uncreate,” is a most difficult principle to apply to one’s own consciousness. But Buddha insists it is a major point. Then he frames one of his more famous analogies for stage-one meditation — stilling the mind — viewed as a precursor to stage-two — direct insight — referring back to the analogy of turbidity:

The process may be compared to the settling of turbid water. If you keep it undisturbed in a container so that it is completely still and quiet, the sand and silt in it will settle naturally, and the water will become clear. This may be compared to the initial stage of subduing the afflictions that arise from transitory perceptions of objects.

If you cannot leave it alone, but insist on picking it up and shaking it, the water will never become clear. This is the activity we call “monkey-mind,” the obsessive-compulsive behavior of the chattering, inner dialog, with its outflows into impulsive actions. Buddha then returns to the sense faculties, “Choosing One Faculty in Order to Liberate All Six”:

The second principle is… you must courageously dedicate yourself to practice in accord with the Bodhisattva Vehicle… let go of everything that has conditioned attributes… examine the source of your afflictions… which… have created your karma and nurtured its growth.

Buddha illustrates the source of our afflictions — which we usually blame on others or outside forces — with two striking exaples, “The Example of the Bell’s Sound” and “The Analogy of the Six Knots.” He rings his bell, asking Ananda if he hears. Ananda does hear. After a while he asks Ananda again if he hears. Ananda says he does not. Buddha chastises him, asking how can he hold to such contradictory views? Hearing is independent of the object of hearing, the sound of the bell. Then he goes on:

Ānanda, consider some worldly person who wishes to untie a knot. If he cannot see the knot, how will he know how to untie it?

Of course, we can untie a knot in the dark, so Buddha must mean the kind of knot that we are not even aware of, as when we are all “tide up in knots.” Suddenly Buddha launches into poetry, restating the principles covered thus far.

A knot must be untied according to a certain sequence,
And when the six have been untied, the one will vanish too.
Choose one perceiving faculty and realize your breakthrough.
Enter the current. Realize the true enlightenment.

This impulse to recap in a spontaneous outburst of poetry must have been a common talent in public speaking in those days, as we find it in many written records of the Indian transmission, and over a millennium later, in the Platform Sutra of Huineng, sixth ancestor in China.

Through an exhaustive analysis of the limitations of each of the six senses, Buddha demonstrates the relative degrees of efficacy of each of the faculties of perception, he gives each a value: The eye-faculty 800, owing to its ability to see clearly in only one of the three directions; the ear-faculty 1200, owing to its ability “to hear in all ten directions without exception”; the nose-faculty 800, owing to not functioning between breaths; the tongue-faculty 1200, for its ability to proclaim wisely both worldly and world-transcending wisdom, as languages differ, but meaning knows no boundaries; the body-faculty 800, as it has two-fold awareness upon contact and lacks awareness once there is separation, which is singular. Finally the mind, or cognitive faculty, scores 1200 for its ability to silently include within its scope all worldly and world-transcending phenomena in all ten directions and all three periods of time… it knows no boundary.

Whatever we may think of the logic of his argument, Buddha is engaging in a kind of reductio ad absurdum of our ordinary, unexamined appreciation of the senses. But he is not done yet. Using a precious scarf as a visual aid, Buddha ties six successive knots in it, continuing the dialog with Ananda:

B. You are right. The six knots are not identical. Let us examine how they were made. They were all created out of the one scarf; still, it would not do to confuse their order. The same may be said of the six faculties of perception. Within what is ultimately one, differentiation eventually arises. Suppose you were displeased by the six knots in your scarf and would prefer it to be a single length of cloth. How would you go about untying the knots?
Ā. As long as these knots are in the scarf, there will naturally be disagreement about which one of them is which. But if the Thus-Come One were now to untie them all and no further knots were tied, then there would be no question as to which was which, since there would be no first knot left, much less a sixth.
B. When the six are untied, the one will vanish is the same idea.

After assuring Ananda and the others that untying the knots will relieve the stresses of existence, Buddha demonstrates the method of untying, tugging on the scarf from one end, then the other. Ananda agrees that this is not the way to untie it, but you must pull on the scarf “from within each knot…then they will come undone.” This theme comprises the subject and title of one of Matsuoka Roshi’s collected talks, “Unravelling Enlightenment.” Buddha follows with the next logical consequence:

Therefore, Ānanda, carefully choose one faculty of perception from among the six. If you untie the knot of that faculty, its objects will disappear by themselves. All delusion will melt away. How can what remains not be what is real?

And asks “…I now ask you: can we untie the six knots in this cotton scarf all at the same time?”

No, World-Honored One. These knots were tied in sequence in the first place, so now they must be untied in sequence.

The Buddha said, “The same may be said of freeing the knots of the six faculties. In the first stage of freeing a faculty, one understands that the self is empty. Once that emptiness is fully understood, one can become free of attachment to phenomena. Once one is free from attachment to phenomena, then both self and phenomena have been emptied and will no longer arise. This is the patience that the Bodhisattva develops by means of samādhi — the patience with the state in which no mental objects come into being.”

I have long thought that what we are practicing in meditation is, primarily patience. Patience with the self, patience with the monkey mind, patience with our own impatience. When one enters into the state in which no mental objects come into being, who would’ve thought that it would test one’s patience? It seems that having no objects in mind would not require any patience.

Buddha closes this section asking “Twenty-Five Sages” to testify to their enlightenment, questioning which sense faculty initially unraveled for them? Several mention hearing, as in Avalokiteshvara, “The Bodhisattva Who Hears the Cries of the World,” the title of one of the last teachings in this section.

Please listen up, gaze fixedly, and feel deeply, next time you are sitting in meditation. In other words, do thou likewise. Once one of the six knots unravels, the others cannot be far behind. Open up to what Master Dogen referred to as the “fine” or “subtle” mind of Nirvana.

Next segment, we will examine some of Buddha’s official warnings against misinterpreting the meaning of your experience at the far reaches of meditation.