Path: Stages in Practice (1/3)

Posted on 20. Dec, 2011 by in Blog

In the Mahavairocana Sutra, we find the phrase “mind just as it is,” synonymous to what the seminal Awakening of Faith (skt. Mahayana-shraddhotpada) calls “inherent wakefulness.” Nirvana Sutra calls it buddha-nature (skt. tathagatagarbha or sugatagarbha or buddhadhatu), the Prajnaparamita literature calls it prajna, while the Sukhavativyuha literature calls it “pure land” (we might go as far as drawing a parallel to the esoteric meaning of “Kingdom of God”). In all these texts, testament to widespread acceptance of such notions across influential Buddhist lineages, the premise is that the “original state of mind” is bright and clear. This original state, or primordial awareness, becomes obscured because of vijnanas, processes that fragment the world into arbitrary conceptual categories, making the resultant perceived realm an illusion, or perhaps a projection, since vijnanas imply the pervasive influence of reactive patterns (skt. klesha). The original state of mind is revealed by removing klesha and cultivating bodhicitta, the awakening heart-mind. This process is explained in terms of (a) three kalpas, (b) six nirbhayas, and (c) ten bhumis. The first describes the elimination of klesha which covers bodhicitta; the second describes the cultivation of bodhicitta while preventing its contamination by klesha; the third described the gradual process of revealing bodhicitta. Taken together, these three describe the process of growth of awakening heart-mind. Let’s have a look at the three kalpas first.

The term “kalpa” means an immeasurable duration of time (skt. maha-asamkhyeya-kalpa). In exoteric Mahayana, it takes three of these immense aeons to complete the path of bodhisattva to complete awakening of Buddhahood. However, Shingon interprets the term as three levels of grasping the unreal (skt. mithya-graha), namely the coarse (skt. sthula), the subtle (skt. sukshma), and the very subtle (skt. prasukshma). The Awakening of Faith describes these three veils as follows: confused action, the perceiving, and the perceived. Therefore, Shingon does not conceive kalpa as an immense duration of time. Instead, it conceives it as layer of delusion. This leads to a controversial issue which must be clarified before describing the Shingon concept of kalpa.

Disputes surrounding the sudden vs. gradual awakening are largely based on whether wakefulness (skt. bodhi) is determined by the length of practice or not. According to Kukai’s system of doctrinal evaluation, the exoteric schools affirm the kalpa (duration) requirement, though there is considerable dispute around that for Mahayana schools like Tendai or Kegon (and Zen). Shingon presupposes inherent buddhahood but in practice it nevertheless requires the triguhya (‘three mysteries’) meditation and claims that practice is the actualizing of human-Buddha identity. In practice, it would seem, there is no difference between esoteric and exoteric, but the rationale involved in practice is quite different. The two are different because of the interpretation of the term kalpa. It follows that in Shingon wakefulness is not a matter to be realized in terms of a duration of time (whether short or long). In other words, wakefulness does not take place in time, strictly speaking. Thus, the sudden/gradual dispute only arises in an attempt to temporalize wakefulness.

The first, coarse kalpa is the delusion of grasping the self-sense of separate existence. It’s a delusion because such self is impossible, while its seemingly-real appearance is a distortion. Every Buddhist school teaches this self is devoid of essence (skt. pudgala-shunyata or pudgala-nairatmya), instead of which only five aggregates are found, none of which is this self. According to Shingon, the shravaka and pratyekabuddha have transcended the first kalpa, and have realized the emptiness of self-sense of separate existence.

The second, subtle kalpa is the delusion of grasping the reality of phenomena. It’s a delusion because phenomena are also devoid of essence (skt. dharma-shunyata or dharma-nairatmya), so that experience is neither absolutely real, nor absolutely unreal. According to Shingon system of evaluation (see the post on Ten Stages), those who practice according to Yogacara gain insight into mind-onlyness, while those who practice according to Madhyamaka realize the middle. Through the insight into emptiness of phenomena, both transcend the second kalpa.

The third, very subtle kalpa is the delusion of grasping to ignorance (skt. avidya), namely distinguishing phenomena in terms of conditioned and unconditioned. According to Shingon system of evaluation, Tendai and Kegon (and Zen) have transcended the third kalpa by realizing the synthesis of the conditioned and unconditioned. Through such synthesis Tendai realized the realm of suchness, while Kegon and Shingon realized the realm of Dharmadhatu, the dynamic creative universal realm, a seamless fusion of emptiness and form.

Thus, this three kalpa theory is a categorization of Buddhism into Hinayana, Triyana, and Ekayana. Hinayana refers to the shravaka and pratyekabuddha vehicles; Triyana, meaning ‘three vehicles,’ claims the superiority of the bodhisattva vehicle; Ekayana does not discriminate the three but encompasses all three within one universal vehicle. Shingon is also Ekayana, but it is esoteric, and therefore called Vajra-Ekayana. 

Doctrinally, Kegon and Shingon are closely related. What distinguishes the two is the interpretation of Dharmadhatu. The Avatamsaka Sutra (ch. Huayen, jap. Kegon) describes Dharmadhatu from the perspective of cause. This distinction is important. Shingon, unlike Kegon, does not speak of one becoming Buddha (which ‘becoming’ presupposes a duration of time), because one already is Buddha by one’s inherent buddha-nature. Shingon practice is the revelation of Buddhahood in a concrete context – the attributes indicated by six elements, four mandalas, and three secrets. This brings us back to sudden vs. gradual awakening theories. The process of awakening is gradual, but once awakened, one realizes that the very moment is abrupt, sudden, and direct – like a flash of lightning. Shingon awakening – consisting of direct awareness of one’s inherent bodhicitta – refers to the latter. Apart from such distinctions, both approaches are Ekayana, transcending the three kalpas, and realizing Dharmadhatu. Hence, master Shubhakarasimha’s Commentary on the Mahavairocana Sutra says,

“If one transcends the three graspings in one’s lifetime, then in the present life s/he shall realize Buddhahood. Why should the duration of time be discussed?”

Next, the six nirbhayas.

 

Notes from Minoru Kiyota’s “Shingon Buddhism: Theory and Practice”

7 Responses to “Path: Stages in Practice (1/3)”

  1. David

    22. Dec, 2011

    Hokai: “Every Buddhist school teaches this self is devoid of essence (skt. pudgala-shunyata or pudgala-nairatmya), instead of which only five aggregates are found, none of which is this self.”

    Is this true? Ken Wilber paints a very different picture in Sex, Ecology, Spirituality:

    “However true aspects of that doctrine might be, it nonetheless generated considerable controversy in subsequent Buddhist development. Virtually all ensuing schools of Buddhism (the Mahayana, or “Great Vehicle,” and the Vajrayana, or Tantric Vehicle) accepted the Abhidharma as a starting point, but none of them remained with it: none of them accepted it as the final word, so to speak. In fact, the Abhidharma doctrine as a complete and adequate system was aggressively attacked, both in its capacity to cover relative or phenomenal reality and in its ability to indicate absolute reality. Some schools, in fact, would claim that the Abhidharma, taken in and by itself, fundamentally misunderstood both illusion and reality, both relative and absolute truth: wrong on all counts, as it were. Thus, Nagarjuna launched a devastating attack on the reality of the skandhas and dharmas themselves (they have apparent reality only). . . .

    “Nagarjuna (and several of his followers) demonstrate that on the phenomenal level, the states (skandhas) cannot exist without a self, and the self cannot exist without the states: they are mutually dependent. Likewise, substance does not exist without modes or flux, and vice versa. Neither the states in themselves (without a self), nor the momentary modes, can even offer an adequate explanation of phenomenal. . . .

    “In fact, the entire Madhyamika position is developed by a trenchant criticism of the one-sided modal view [selfless flux] of the Abhidharmika system, by being alive to the other side of the picture equally exhibited in the empirical sphere. ‘In the same strain Chandrakirti [a principal successor of Nagarjuna] complains that the Abhidharmikas have not given an adequate picture of the empirical even. ‘If it is sought to depict the empirically real then besides momentary states, the activity and the agent too must be admitted.’ Chandrakirti shows, in a sustained criticism of the view of mere attributes or states without any underlying self in which they inhere, that this does violence to common modes of thought and language; it fails as a correct picture of the empirical; nor [as we have already seen] can it be taken as true of the unconditioned real’ wrong on both counts, as it were.” (pp.720-1)

    This has a lot of implications for path and practice. The “I” (UL) is every bit as real as “the body” (UR). The body (UR) is our reference point for moving around, a tea ceremony, sex. And the “I” (UL) is our reference point for inter-subjective relations, reading, mantra.

    A denial of the “I” could result in stunted ethical development. I think we have to consider this possibility when contemplating the misdeeds of Zen masters and the like, people who have had decades of training but who don’t behave like well-developed individuals.

    People usually tend to blame the individual in these cases, but a reliance on pre-modern dharma could be another factor.

    This also clarifies the sudden-enlightenment versus gradual-enlightenment issue. If we accept the experiential distinctions Wilber makes in One Taste (peak experience, plateau experience, and stage adaptation), it quickly becomes clear that one can have a peak experience or plateau experience suddenly, but a stage adaptation takes decades (because, according to Kegan, people need a few years to develop each structure).

    That’s not to rule out important leaps along the path, just that true embodiment of emptiness is the work of decades.

  2. Hokai

    22. Dec, 2011

    The view of no separate self is indeed common to all Buddhist schools. It’s just not the ultimate view for most (see post on Ten Levels, specifically comments on Abhidharma in 4 and 5). It’s also clear in this post from the fact that it represents only the first of the three kalpas, namely the coarse self-identity.

    That said, integral jargon wasn’t necessary:)

  3. David

    22. Dec, 2011

    I think we need the two-truths distinction here. The metaphor of “no self” is common to most Buddhist schools for the absolute truth, and there is nothing wrong with that at all. But what’s the relative truth?

    The relative truth for some is that there is a relative self as much as there is a body, no? Here is the way Wilber put it:

    “Not that a phenomenal self gives way to a no-self (for pure Emptiness is neither self nor no-self); and not that a phenomenal no-self gives way to pure Emptiness (there is no phenomenal no-self); but rather, a phenomenal self gives way to pure Emptiness (that strictly speaking is neither self nor no-self nor both nor neither).”

    I think the importance of this distinction is that while the self can be said to be a “delusion” from a standpoint of the absolute truth (in varying degrees of subtlety), from the standpoint of the relative truth it is a necessary, positive emergence.

    How we view this may have some impact on relative development; that is, cognitive development, moral development, inter-personal development, intra-personal understanding, etc.

    I also think that in order to complete all ten stages of Shingon, for example, an “I” will have to consciously decide to devote his or her life to the task, or at least go along with it. The personal choice is necessary, though not necessarily causative. So why not foreground it and make it explicit?

    Okay, I’ll spare you the integral jargon. :) But not because I believe the “integral without the jargon” crowd. I believe it may be possible to make it more simple and accessible, but every field and school has its jargon, without which they wouldn’t be able to discuss things in an easy, coherent manner.

  4. Hokai

    22. Dec, 2011

    Thanks.

  5. David

    23. Dec, 2011

    But I’m curious–you do seem to have a much different attitude and worldview now than you did during the days of “Hokai’s Blogue.” I remember a post you wrote arguing that the deeper psychic should be accepted in Buddhism and another where you decried Buddhists who were “obsessed” with negative metaphors. You used to be pushing for a fourth turning of the wheel. Am I right you’ve changed your views? If so, would you mind sharing why?

  6. David

    23. Dec, 2011

    I do find the exposition on Shingon very interesting, though. I’ve been curious about that for a long time as well, not having found much about it on the web.

  7. Hokai

    23. Dec, 2011

    I never found parroting myself enjoyable.

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