The Zennist

The different names for Mind

Throughout this blog I’ve used a variety of names for Mind, although generally I tend to stick with “pure Mind”.  This is a very important term, perhaps the most important of all terms in Buddhism from Theravada Buddhism, to Mahayana, Zen, and Tantra Buddhism—although it is seldom discussed in modern pop Buddhism.  Just recently, reading Robert E. Buswell’s excellent book on Zen master Chinul’s Korean way of Zen, Tracing Back the Radiance I came across this.  It’s about the different names for Mind.

“Question: We have already given rise to right faith, but we are still uncertain what is meant by “true mind.”

Chinul: To leave behind the false is called “true.”  The numinous speculum is called “mind.”  The Surangama Sutra sheds light on this mind.

Question: Is it only named true mind or does it also have other appellations?

Chinul: The names given to it in the teachings of the Buddha and in the teachings of the patriarchs are not the same.  First let us explore the teachings of the Buddha.  In the Bodhisattvashila Sutra it is called the “mind ground” because it produces the myriads of good dharmas.  In the Prajnaparamita Sutras it is referred to as “bodhi” because enlightenment is its essence.  The Avatmsaka Sutra names it the “dharmadhatu” because it interpenetrates and infuses all dharmas.  In the Diamond Sutra it is called “tathagata” because it does not come from anywhere.  In the Prajnaparamitas sutras [sic] it is also referred to as “nirvana” because it is the sanctuary of all the saints.  In the Golden Light Sutra it is said to be “suchness” because it is true, permanent, and immutable.  In the Pure Name Sutra it is named the “dharma-body” because it is the support for the reward and transformation bodies.  In the Awakening of Faith it is termed “true suchness” because it neither arises nor ceases.  In the Mahaparinirvana Sutra it is referred to as “Buddha-nature” because it is the fundamental essence of the three bodies.  In the Complete Enlightenment Sutra it is called the “dharani” because all meritorious qualities flow from it.  In the Srimaladevisimhanada Sutra, it is named “tathagatagarbha” because it conceals and contains all dharmas.  In the definitive sutra [the Complete Enlightenment Sutra] it is named “complete enlightenment” because it destroys darkness and shines solitarily of itself.  As Son [Zen] Master Yen-shou’s Secrets on Mind-Only says, “The one dharma has a thousand names: its appellations are each given in response to different conditions.”  The true mind appears in all the sutras, But I cannot cite all the references” (p. 121–122).

By no means is the above exhaustive, Mind is treated in many other ways.  For now, the famed Buddhist layman Fu Shan-hui (487–569) sums up Mind quite nicely here.

“Observe the empty monarch of mind; mysterious, subtle, unfathomable, it has not shape or form, yet it has great spiritual power, able to extinguish a thousand troubles and perfect ten thousand virtues.  Although its essence is empty, it can provide guidance.  When you look at it, it has no form; call it, and it has a voice.  It acts as a great spiritual leader; mental discipline transmits scripture” (Cleary, Teachings of Zen, 1).

I would only add that when thoroughly empty, Mind is anything but empty.  It is just itself and being just itself it is a translucent dynamic substance that is able to animate this walking corpse.  In fact, without it Bodhidharma couldn’t have made it to China to preach the true gospel of Buddhism!  

To whom is the Buddha speaking?

For a few years I have been aware that Sutras (and Pali Suttas) are addressed to certain kinds of people, say for example, monks, disciples or Bodhisattvas.  Generally speaking, in the Pali canon many of the Buddhas discourses are simply addressed to monks which says nothing about their spiritual disposition whether or not the monks are ariyan (holy person, one who is spiritually developed) or a puthujjana (common worldling person) since monks, like non-monastics, can be either ariyan or puthujjana.  

We also need to keep in mind that the bhikkhu-sangha (community of monks) is not the same as the savaka-sangha (made up of ariya-puggala or noble or holy persons) or sometimes referred to as the ariya-sangha.  The savaka-sangha includes only holy people which might include non-monastics.  It is the triple-gem sangha, the highest sangha.

In a nutshell, the ariyan has supermundane (lokuttara) knowledge unlike the puthujjana who hasn’t realized the luminous Mind, so he doesn’t know what needs to be properly cultivated (A. i. 10).  In addition, the ariyan sees the true Dharma which the Buddha awakened to which is “profound, of deep splendor, difficult to see, difficult to understand, incomprehensible, having the incomprehensible as its scope, fine, subtle, the sense of which can only be understood by the wise” (Catusparisat Sûtra).

In the Mahayana canon, the spiritual disposition of those to whom the Buddha is speaking seems more obvious than with many discourses in the Pali canon which are often given to monks.  For example, in the Astasahasrika Prajnaparamita Sutra, the Buddha is speaking to monks who are Arhats which puts them into the category of aryan (P., ariya) which also implies they’ve realized the luminous Mind which makes them also Bodhisattvas since Bodhisattvahood essentially commences with the apperception of the luminous Mind.  In a somewhat related Sutra, the Saptashatika Parjnaparamita Sutra, the Buddha is speaking to monks, monks who are Arhats and with a million Bodhisattvas!

In the Lotus Sutra or the Saddharpundarika Sutra the Buddha is discoursing to 1200 monks all of whom are Arhats just like in the Astasahasrika Prajnaparamita Sutra.  In addition, all of them had Minds thoroughly emancipated by perfect knowledge (samyagajñasuvimuktacitta).

In the Avatamasaka Sutra the Buddha while in a state of purity at the site of the enlightenment there was a boundless host of Bodhisattvas.

In other Mahayana Sutras there are both monks or bhiksus and great Bodisattvas such as in the Suramgama-samadhi Sutra and the Lankavatara Sutra.  In the Samdhinirmocana Sutra not only is the Buddha attended by innumerable Bodhisattvas but in addition there are gods, nagas, yaksas, gandharvas, asuras, garudas, kinnaras, mahoragas, humans and non-humans!

As a kind of generalization, the Buddha doesn’t seem to be giving his discourses to the uninitiated, i.e., worldlings (S., prithagjana; P., puthujjana)—far from it.  And in other examples, he is discoursing to Arhats and Bodhisattvas which makes the Sutras arguably unintelligible for worldlings who have not as yet obtained a profound insight into the Buddha’s Dharma or luminous Mind.

On this note, I am certainly reminded of my own ignorance over forty years ago when as a young worldling monk I thought I had Buddhism figured out.  To be honest, about 98 percent of what I read back in those dark days I didn’t understand—not in the slightest.  But I could sure pretend, pridefully, that I knew a lot.  But soon my own deep yearning to really know the truth overwhelmed me and thanks to Bishop Nippo Shaku’s crazy art work during one of his lectures at San Jose State, I had a good idea what I must do.  I had to see pure Mind or if you like the luminous Mind.

Presently, I enjoy reading the Sutras.  They are like old friends.  But again looking back to when I was a young Buddhist whippersnapper I can’t help but laugh at that struggling guy.  The only thing he did right was to persevere and keep an open mind.  And this is what we all must do, even monks and Buddhist scholars.  You may debate the issues until the cows come home, but until you have awakened the Mind (bodhicitta) you’re guessing, it is Buddhism by opinion some of which might be educated, some not.

Consciousness is not Mind

The fifth aggregate that belongs to Mara the Evil One is vijñana.  It can mean sensuous knowledge as opposed to gnosis or in Sanskrit, jñâna.  Often vijñâna is just translated as consciousness which cannot fully express all that is meant by vijñâna and in Pali, viññâna.  Nevertheless, consciousness, in most contexts, seems adequate for the job since it carries a wide latitude of possible meanings which is necessary for the purposes of translation.

Consciousness can be looked at as a mode of Mind (citta) that is aware of its phenomena, but not of itself; which can also resonate with them as in the example of rebirth.  According to Jayatilleke:

"Man, according to Buddhism, is a psychophysical unit (nâmarûpa).  This is made up of three components—the sperm and the ovum which go to make up the fertilised ovum or zygote along with the impact of the stream of consciousness of a discarnate spirit (gandhabba) or what is called the re-linking consciousness (partisandhi-viññâna)" (The Message of the Buddha, 82).

In the above example, consciousness resonates with the just fertilized ovum becoming entrapped in a biological container which it then identifies with as being itself.  From this it becomes conscious of its new body and the sensory world the body is capable of disclosing.  Suffering naturally arises, as a result.  Jayatilleke’s description serves as the most striking example of consciousness which is thoroughly blind as regards the true nature of Mind (prakritcitta); being thus unable to save itself from the cycle of samsara pursuing phenomena instead.

As was stated earlier, that consciousness is a mode of Mind that is aware of its phenomena but not of itself, it needs to be kept in mind that not a single phenomenon is adequate to Mind, not even the most fine and subtle phenomenon like a god (deva).  Only Mind is adequate to Mind.  As a result of this inadequacy consciousness never comes to rest.  This serves to explain the driving mechanism of rebirth and why, in particular, it is connected with ‘consciousness’ and not the atman, atman being equivalent to Mind. 

For consciousness to resonate with Mind it can no longer be, strictly speaking, consciousness, which always has sensuous knowledge before it.  On the other hand, when there is jñâna or gnosis we can say that Mind directly recognizes itself which is not an act of consciousness since Mind is not a phenomenon.  Furthermore, when Mind can distinguish itself from all of its phenomena this is prajñâ which is often translated by the word, wisdom.

Turning to the ideas of  'absolute awareness' and 'I amness', which seem to be popular items in the world of pop Buddhism and elsewhere, the general, nondescript awareness of phenomena and of my present body, sometimes labeled as awareness of awareness or I amness, is far away from the comprehension of Mind which transcends the observation of phenomena.  Both are just another way of saying consciousness.

The Mind before it is stirred

The task of defining language formally is almost like trying to explain what gravity is—not just describing it mathematically.  All in all, we can probably put language in the category of psychology insofar as there are psychological processes involved in languaging.  But this also means, in one respect, language has limitations.  While for Buddhism and, in particular, Zen the use of language is important and certainly fits within the realm of psychology, by no means can it take us to the tree of enlightenment.  

In order to transcend language to reach the absolute, the use of koans is extremely useful.  By using the koan, we are being positioned to go beyond language; more specifically, to realize the transcendent within ourselves through the hua-t'ou.  Charles Luk in his book, Ch'an and Zen Teachings: First Series, defines the hua-t'ou as follows: 

"Literally, a word's or thought's head, ante-word, or ante-thought; the mind before it is stirred by a thought.  A technique devised by enlightened masters who taught their disciples to concentrate their attention on the mind for the purpose of stopping all thoughts to attain singleness of mind and thereby realize it for the perception of their self-nature" (p. 235).

Extending Luk’s definition by an example, the Mu koan (C., kung-an) is instructive which will show the limits of language and psychology.  In the koan a monk asks Zen master Joshu if a dog has the Buddha-nature or not; who then answers the monk by the negative "Mu”.  

When reading this koan, the Zennist’s attention is first turned to the hua-t'ou (J., watô).  Mu, both the vocal and sub-vocal sound, is understood not to be the hua-t'ou.  To put it more precisely, Mu as vocal and sub-vocal is pure Mind that is disturbed—not Mind before it is stirred by a thought.  Clearly, the disturbed Mu is not Joshu's Mu; nor is one right to construe anything about Mu. To do so is like making Mu a stone thrown into the still waters of Mind causing a rippling effect, obfuscating pure Mind, the true Mu. 

Joshu's real Mu points to the undisturbed Mind, i.e., the pure Mind before it ripples with thought-ripples, idea-ripples, possible meaning ripples, sub-vocal ripples, and so on.  The koan, to be sure, is a very specialized use of language, one which transcends language and, of course, the psychological.

For Buddhism, the substructure of its texts is always like the finger pointing to the moon which is a metaphor for ultimate reality in which Mind is not yet disturbed. Koans serve to refine this even more making them almost impossible to construe—as it should be—since any construal keeps us bound to the linguistic and psychological world which Buddhism has no real interest in since it hides the pure Mind.

Zen the old fashioned way

If I were a Zen Buddhist monk in the Sung Dynasty I would have already attended a number of lectures on key Sutras like the Surangama, Mahaparinirvana, or the Avatamsaka.  As a result of this education, I would hopefully know in what general direction the great finger of Zen is pointing!  It would be pointing to intuition of pure or luminous Mind.  (When I use the term pure or luminous Mind it actually refers to the absolute which has many different names in Buddhism.)

Knowing what I must intuit, meditation will therefore serve to make me familiar with my own vast mental landscape as if to shed a light upon it.  And remembering what the Sutras are really pointing to, I also have a good idea that various psychological states I encounter have to be superseded if I am to get close to pure Mind which I hasten to add, is not a psychological state—far from it.

In the West we don’t do Zen the old fashioned way.  Not like the Zen monk in the Sung.  We first begin with the practice of zazen (lit. sit down meditation).  There is no extensive study of the Sutras beforehand, in other words.  Some monk or nun teaches us zazen, for example, how to position our body on the zafu (sitting pillow).  We never actually learn what zazen is about except maybe that mindlessly sitting makes you a Buddha.  In fact, according to the Japanese Zen master Eihei Dôgen (1200–1253) it seems that sitting mindlessly is the Way.

“If you spend your time sitting straight [zazen] without attaining anything or understanding anything, then it would be the Way of Buddhas” (Shobogenzo Zuimonki).

Eihei Dôgen, of course, is wrong from a scriptural standpoint.  Neither the Pali canon nor the Mahayana canon say that just sitting straight is the Way of the Buddha.  But this is beside the point, the point being that we have to study certain important Sutras before we know in what direction, so to speak, to drive our meditation automobile.  Parking our Zen auto beside the road as Dôgen appears to advocate is not the real Way of Buddhas.  It is just being lost.

Simply sitting in zazen is inadequate.  However, in all fairness, it might be an advantageous posture for calming down the monkey mind or the same, settling down our general level of anxiety.  But can the posture, itself, blow away the obstructing clouds that make the sun of the luminous Mind seem nonexistent?  Well, of course not.

The process of penetrating through the cloud-like veil of phenomenal being (in this case psychological phenomena) so as to reach its limit and to behold thus a luminosity that engulfs our finite carnal body, ain’t easy.  Sitting or standing doesn’t make the process any easier.  What is required is a kind of intuitive leaping ability!  As regards this ability the literature of Mahayana Buddhism is not without lots of examples or hints for us intuitively to leap at.  For example.

“Likewise this clear seeing as well as the objects (seen) and the void are fundamentally the perfect, pure, true Mind of the Wonderful, Bright, Supreme Bodhi wrongly perceived as form and voidness as well as hearing and seeing, just as a second moon is perceived with the accompanying misconception of real and unreal moons” (Surangama Sutra).

And,

“Said the Blessed One:  It is not, Mahamati, that all things are Maya because they are both alike in being imagined and clung to as having multitudinousness of individual signs, but that all things are like Maya because they are unreal and like a lightning-flash which is seen as quickly disappearing” (Lankavatara Sutra).

Since we are intrinsically absolute Mind, which is most primordial, but as yet can’t distinguish itself from its transitory phenomena, passages like the previous two examples serve to jog our spiritual memory (smriti).  With enough jogging we break the moorings which bind us to this temporal realm of clouds and illusions.  We at once see the luminous Mind so that everything less than it appears illusory and empty.  Sitting alone (zazen) cannot accomplish this.  It is a fool’s errand which leads not to nirvana, but to the abyss. 

Japanese phenomenalism and a donkey's jaw

According to Dr. Hajime Nakamura, learning to speak Chinese was extremely difficult for the Japanese; even for official students sent to China during the Heian period (9th–12th century) who were supposed to learn to speak Chinese.  How, for example, a Japanese Buddhist like Dôgen communicated with a Chinese monk was by writing out Chinese characters.  

Needless to say, for one reason or another, the Japanese more than often misrepresented original Chinese texts.  More importantly, Buddhism as introduced from China underwent many changes when, according to Dr. Nakamura, it entered Japan.

To understand just how Buddhism was transformed when it entered Japan requires that we understand, so to speak, the Japanese soul which, in a word, holds that the phenomenal world is the absolute which in a word is phenomenalism.  On this subject, in his book, Ways of Thinking of Eastern Peoples, Dr. Nakamura writes:

“In the first place, we should notice that the Japanese are willing to accept the phenomenal world as Absolute because of their disposition to lay a greater emphasis upon intuitive sensible concrete events, rather than upon universals.  This way of thinking with emphasis upon the fluid, arresting character of observed events regards the phenomenal world itself as Absolute and rejects the recognition of anything existing over and above the phenomenal world” (p. 350).

As a result of this kind of cultural view of reality, Japanese Buddhism, especially Zen, is not untouched by the phenomenalist view.  Dr. Nakamura continues:

"The way of thinking that seeks for the Absolute in the phenomenal world plays an effective role in the assimilation of the Zen sect as well.  The Zen Buddhism in Dôgen seems to have been influenced by the Japanese Tendai Buddhism.  This fact has often been alluded to by specialists but has not been fully explored.  Here I shall point out a few examples which reveal the phenomenalist way of thinking.  The Chinese translated “dharmatâ” in Sanskrit as “the real aspect of all things.”  This concept refers to the real aspect of all kinds of phenomena in our experience, and therefore is compose of two distinct contradictory elements, “all things” and “the real aspect.”  But Tendai Buddhism gave this phrase the interpretation which emphasized the “the real aspect is all things.”  Dôgen meant to say that the truth which people search for [in] reality, [is] nothing but the world of our daily experience.  Thus he says, ‘The real aspect is all things.  All things are this aspect, this character, this body, this mind, this world, this wind and this rain, this sequence of daily going, living, sitting, and lying down, this series of melancholy, joy, action, and inaction, this stick and wand, this Buddha’s smile, this transmission and reception of the doctrine, this study and practice, this evergreen pine and ever unbreakable bamboo’" (pp. 351–352).

It is not difficult to see where this is leading.  Dr. Nakamura observes that “For Dôgen...the fluid aspect of impermanence is in itself the absolute state.”  And thus we find Dôgen saying in the Shôbôgenzô, in the section on “Life and Death” that “impermanence is Buddhhood”!

For Dôgen and many other Japanese thinkers, but by no means all, the phenomenal world is the absolute.  It is not illusory.  Neither is there a beyond nor a higher mind.  What you see is basically the Buddha-nature.  According to Dôgen in the Shôbôgenzô, in the section on “Buddha Nature”:  “Since this is the way things are, to look at mountains and rivers is to look at Buddha Nature, and to see Buddha Nature is to see the jaw of a donkey and the muzzle of a horse.”  This, of course, cuts against Indian Buddhism where phenomena are considered to be illusory and empty such as the “jaw of a donkey.” 

Naturally, those who worship Dôgen’s brand of Zen will defend his phenomenalism.  I expect this.  However, it would be advisable to first read the the Mahaparinirvana Sutra which treats the subject of Buddha-nature and see how Dôgen’s words tally with the Sutra, itself. 

Zen actually goes this far

Man only perceives the phenomenon, the appearing thing, or what is revealed to his senses or psychological awareness.  But true reality, the unique substance of which the universe is composed, cannot be apprehended—at least not in the way a phenomenon can.  

Yes, we can speak about such a true reality and its relationship to phenomena, and even doubt it.  This is called metaphysics.  But it gets us nowhere.  We are staying on the shore of phenomena, speculating about the other shore where no phenomenal vessel has ever made landfall—and never will.

Metaphysical speculation is for dreamers who don’t even realize they are dreaming.  Such speculation prevents us from becoming spiritual voyagers who dare to cross the ocean of phenomenality to the other shore which is devoid of phenomena, but is real nevertheless.  Many, in fact, fear to leave this shore so as to directly merge with the substance of pure Mind—our original face (Hui-neng).

In the West we are content to listen to a professor speculate, metaphysically, about ultimate reality.  There is no challenge in this.  Just sit and listen.  Our belief in this world, as we listen to the lecture, remains unshaken.  But Zen takes this one step further.  If there were such a person as a Zen professor he would drive his students out of the classroom after having just told them they must have a direct encounter with pure Mind, the absolute substance of the universe.  If not, they will flunk the course!  He would force his students, in other words, to become spiritual voyagers.

It is difficult for a Westerner to imagine that Zen actually goes this far, or even that Buddhism does.  But the Buddhist canon doesn't want us to become metaphysicians, pretending to have grasped ultimate reality.  It asks us to directly apperceive the transcendent reality that underlies the phenomenal universe—or better still, is the stuff from which phenomena is composed.

Real Zen is not to be found in a zendo, a classroom or an easy chair.  It involves a daring search for the noumenal other shore that might find us one day in a small cabin, alone, searching for the meaning of Mind; looking deep within ourselves to find the pristine other shore utterly devoid of phenomena.  It will be a time, to quote Nietzsche, “When you look into an abyss” until it is transcended making landfall where there is only absolute Mind. 

Genpo Roshi's big psychological mind

Genpo Roshi’s theory of Big Mind is not without its problems as regards Buddhism and Zen Buddhism.  But before I proceed down this trail, this paragraph taken from Dennis Genpo Merzel’s book, Big Mind, Big Heart is the corner stone of his theory.  It describes how the Big Mind process was born. 

“Then in June of 1999 something emerged.  For about nine months I had felt as if I were pregnant.  I knew something was growing within, but I had no clue what it was.  Around my fifty-fifth birthday, during one of my workshops, I was working with a young man, in front of a whole group—there were probably fifty or sixty people in the room.  I asked to speak to the voice of Big Mind, and at that moment the Big Mind process was born.  He was a beginner, he had never studied Zen, but when he began to speak it came across so clear, it just blew my mind—the clarity that he had.  I saw that he had made a shift.  The moment I asked to speak to Big Mind, he was there” (p. 32–33).

From what I can tell, it appears that Genpo’s Big Mind is a process of letting the higher person or psychological mind naturally come forth which Genpo also calls the “Non-Seeking Mind” in which we naturally and always speak as it.  Going even further, I would not be wrong to suggest that Big Mind is not far off from Freud’s superego which is a part of the psychic apparatus not caught up in the neurotic conflicts of which the id certainly is.  Nor is it unlike Martin Buber’s thou, a kind of Ultra-person. 

The main problem that comes to mind with Genpo’s Big Mind theory is not its therapeutic implications, but that it might lead to the mistaken belief that this mind is the same as the Mind (citta) that is expounded upon in Sutras like the Lankavatara and the Surangama, and in the subsequent works of later Zen masters like Gunabhadra, Bodhidharma, Hui-neng, Tsung-mi, Huang-po and others.  To oversimplify the matter, Big Mind is not Buddha Mind or the luminous Mind.   

Turning for a moment to the Lankavatara Sutra, since it was the main Sutra of Zen that established its characteristic teachings of Mind, unlike Genpo’s notion of mind, the Lankavatara Sutra understands Mind to be the fundamental substance of all phenomena.  This means that all phenomena, without exception, are compositions of Mind as a pot is the composition of clay.    

This is not the case with Genpo’s Big Mind which is a psychological mind.  It works as a part of a therapeutic process, much of which is owed to the work of Hal and Sidra Stone in the 1970s who created the psychological therapy of Voice Dialogue.  According to Genpo, “The Stones recognized that all you had to do was reveal the disowned voices, bring them to light by having a facilitator ask to speak to them, and they would once again be owned.  Genpo then goes on to say, “The Big Mind process also uncovers these disowned voices yet it is much more than that... it was the key that actually unlocked the door to the transcendent” (39–40).

To reiterate, Genpo is saying that the Big Mind process unlocks the door to the transcendent.  Here we arrive at a most critical juncture.  Now the important question is this, is the transcendent that Big Mind reveals the same as transcendent Mind found in the Lankavatara Sutra and other Buddhist works?  The answer has to be in the negative.  Or putting the question this way, is Genpo’s transcendent mainly about having certain important maturing experiences?  If this is Genpo’s idea of the transcendent, then this is not transcendence—not in the true sense of the word.  As a matterof fact, the transcendent of which Genpo seems to speak for, doesn’t get us beyond the pale of our psychophysical being, namely, the Five Aggregates which constitute the psychological self or satkaya.  Thus, as ever, we are still attached to the suffering machine, stuck in samsara.

At least in Buddhism, the Five Aggregates have to be transcended because they are suffering.  Moreover, they are regarded as attributes (skandha) while the substance is Mind which the suffering of the aggregates cannot reach so that liberation for mind will consist in its becoming fully itself as self-realized Mind.

Turning to Zen Buddhism, our initial awakening to Mind (bodhicitta) is what Zen teaches us to accomplish.  Having such an initial awakening, we can actually begin to shed our attachment to this illusory body and its attendant psychological phenomena.  Short to this, without a glimpse into what transcends the psychophysical, our efforts will be pretty much in vain.  Making this even worse is clinging to the belief that psychology can transcend the psychophysical.  It can’t.  As Siddhartha discovered before he became a Buddha it is by putting aside the psychological in meditation (dhyana), so as to transcend it, that final awakening was accomplished for him. 

A post script.  A number of years ago I read The Psychological Society by Martin Louis Gross.  The book covered just how much psychology had penetrated into every facet of American society.  It was a warning to me that eventually Zen would become psychologized.  Unfortunately, I was right.

In league with the Buddhist devil

Of those attached to the Five Aggregates consisting of physical form, feelings, thoughts, inclinations and sensory awareness, can we say they’re in league with the Buddhist devil, Mara the Evil One?  We sure can.  And this might go a long way in explaining why the Buddha, many times, said of the Five Aggregates, they are not my self.  The Buddha, unlike ordinary people (prithagjana), was able to break his attachment to Mara’s realm.  He fully realized that he was not any one or all of these devilish aggregates.

First of all, how is Mara defined?  Literally, in Sanskrit, Mara (with diacritics, mâra) means killing, slaying, slaughter.  So now, who is Mara the Evil One?  There are a lot of references to Mara in the Pali canon not to mention the Mahayana canon.  He is sometimes referred to as death itself, “the king of death” or “the lord of the realm of lusts”.  His other names include Papima (evil one), Kanha (the dark one), Adhipati (the chief), Antagu (destroyer), Maccu (killer), Pamattabandhu (friend of the indolent or the thoughtless).

Mara controls the whole of worldly existence which includes birth and death.  He oversees samasara, in other words,  He is opposed to nirvana.  There are five Maras (the reader will note that there is no Mara of the Atman or Self).  They are as follows:

1.  Mara of the Aggregates (khandha/skandha)

2.  Mara of Defilement (kelesa)

3.  Mara of Death (maccu)

4.  Mara of Karma

5.  Son of God Mara (devaputta)

Probably the most insidious of the five Maras is Mara of the Aggregates because he is our psychophysical body.  Instead of carefully identifying and analyzing each and every aggregate of the psychophysical body like form (rupa) or consciousness (vijñâna), rejecting them because they belong to Mara, we proudly believe that we have understood what the Buddha taught, namely, there is no real self!  At this point, however, we just became the thralls of Mara of the Aggregates—we've made a pact with the Buddhist devil, in other words.  We’ve been greatly deceived and shall remain such for as long as we insist that the rejection of self is more important than the rejection of the Five Mara Aggregates that make up our psychophysical body.

Mara is really lord of all traps for keeping us on the wheel of samsara so as to continually re-experience birth and death.  Mara, we might say, runs the Evil Empire; who is master of the dark side of the force.  The Buddha before his enlightenment has to fight Mara and his tenfold army, which includes the sons and daughters of Mara.  It is only through Mind and its immaterial powers that the Buddha is finally able to defeat Mara and his huge army.  This, of course, is nothing new to the literature of religious India such as the fight story between Lord Shiva and Kamadeva in the Mahabharata.  Finally, this excellent verse from the Lalitavistara Sutra:

Seeing the frightful transformations of Mara’s army,

The Pure Being recognizes the all as a product of illusion.

There is no demon [Mara], no army, no beings;

  there is not even a self.

Like the image of the moon in the water,

  the cycle of the three worlds is misleading.

Good and evil friends

In Mahayana Buddhism it is not the teacher (sensei), Roshi, guru, or the Lama who is a key factor in the attainment of bodhicitta (a direct, face-to-face encounter with absolute Mind) but more properly the kalyana-mitra (lit. virtuous friend).  In this sense, the kalyana-mitra cannot be a teacher or a guru since both can only transmit what is external to the Buddha's profound Dharma which, for the ordinary mind, is incomprehensible.  For example, we might learn from a teacher a number of Sutras, going over the Sanskrit word for word, but this does not guarantee that for all we have learned in the way of Sutras and other practices that we will grasp bodhicitta from where the path of the Bodhisattva actually starts.  

It is the kalyana-mita who will shape our spiritual character so we can, hopefully, attain bodhicitta.  This shaping, I must add, can only come from a deep friendship in which there is a profound psychical link between the kalyana-mitra and the adept.  

Above all the kalyana-mitra teaches us to be fearless, fearlessness being necessary for the production (utpada) of bodhicitta.  Truth be told, a direct encounter with Mind (not the small psychological mind of which we are familiar) is a harrowing event insofar as the psychophysical body is surpassed which gives the feeling that one is dying when in truth it is death that is dying.

Who is opposed to the kalyana-mitra is the papa-mitra, i.e., the evil friend.  The latter does all in his power to devalue the importance of the production of bodicitta (bodhicittotpada).  We might even say that the papa-mita is like Bizarro Superman! (Oh do I remember as a kid in the 50s reading Superman comics then coming across Bizarro!).  A papa-mitra Bizarro code might read "Us do opposite of all spiritual things!  Us hate luminous Mind.  Us love materialism!  Is big crime to transcend Bizarro World of ignorance and suffering!"  

The papa-mitra problem is overlooked in modern Buddhism because the important spiritual message of Buddhism has not resonated well with modern culture—modern culture being a veiled form of nihilism.  Instead, the Buddha’s negative diagnosis of conditioned reality as resonated with many Buddhists—not transcendence in which immortality (amrita) is attained.  There is only impermanence, suffering, and no self with no mention of the transcendent beyond (param) except, perhaps, that mystic death is the new nirvana.  

To sum this up we can say that the kalyana-mitra always teaches transcendence while the papa-mitra teaches a veiled form of nihilism trying, at the same time to de-transcendentalize Buddhism stripping it of its spiritual content, especially, bodhicitta.