Why It's Not Working and How It Can
Many here in our groups and at retreats have shared with me that even after 10, 20, 30, 40, and 50 years of diligent Dharma practice; they are still not stable in rigpa, have not had any "final breakthrough" and still suffer much as they always had. I then set out to try to figure out why people weren't able to find success in their practice.
I did discover the major flaw in the whole "enlightenment project" paradigm. Let me explain:
A student goes to a teacher with the basic problem of human suffering. They are looking for relief through applying the Dharma. The teacher gives them things to read, practices to do and a series of advices. They then check in with the teacher or a teacher from time to time for advice. Some have sufficient competency and just practice on their own. That's the typical model.
We have two issues always at work: the subject who seeks relief and the objective issues they seek relief from. In their interactions with a teacher the topic is always dealing with the "issues" side:
"Are my turbulent thoughts and negative emotional states becoming less intense? Are my occasional moments of clear awareness (rigpa) lasting longer and becoming stable? Are my problems within my life experience not being such a burden? Are my doubts regarding my inner states of recognition resolved?"
These are just some typical issues that one would being seeking to resolve in their exchanges with a teacher or as a lone practitioner. The teacher too is interested in resolving and improving on the practitioner's concerns.
The idea is that if we could manage resolution on all the above issues, the practitioner would end up being a living example of the workability of the Dharma and the proof that successful application of all teacher's advices and instructions assures success. The problem is, there is no or very little success occurring.
Since 1966 when I was 16 and began practicing Soto Zen under the instruction of Matsuoka Roshi, I have never met a single practitioner in any Buddhist (or any non-Buddhist) tradition who has had complete success according to their own assessments and standards.
So what was and is wrong with this picture? I believe with great conviction, that the problem lies with how the Dharma is being taught and applied. The model in the West is based on the notion of "what can the Buddha Dharma do for me?", with total focus on "me" and "my" benefit.
Our barometer for measuring our success is based on if "I" am feeling better, "I" am having more stable rigpa, "my" emotional states are less turbulent, "I" am experiencing more stable joy, "my" life is going better, "I" am suffering less. It's all about "me"!
As a result only one side of the process is getting attention and is being addressed; "my" issues and their resolution. That then becomes our basis for judging success in our overall "enlightenment project".
But no one ever asks or focuses on "to whom do these problems and issues belong?" This is the subject side of the subject/object dichotomy. It's the fundamental "workhorse" of our new approach:
"To whom do these problems and issues belong?"
We may answer "to me!". But then look if that "me" can be found as other than thoughts and feelings "about" a me without ever finding the "me" the thoughts are describing.
When in a difficult mind-state, look into this question to uncover the true underpinning to the whole issue. The "me" that owns the problems, issues or emotional states can't be found.
We can discover that all of our problems and issues (the object side) are mere daydreams or empty conceptual constructions. That can be accomplished with great success through vipassana meditation and diligent application of the emptiness teachings. However the one who "owns" the problems (the subject side) is usually left unscathed and perhaps only more emboldened that it is now free of its burdens. It may even have increased in self-pride due to its successes and "brilliant insights" in how well it has managed to overcome it's problems and can now better control it's world.
Unfortunately by all this focus on resolving the challenges and burdens on the "object side" the subjective "self" may have become only further reified and solidified by all the attention directed toward self-improvement and its "enlightenment project".
What's always missed is that without the conceptual construction of the fictional self, there is no one to own the issues and problems on the "object side". Take away the imaginary subject as the fictional "I" and it's "story of me" and instantly all the problems and issues disappear. This is how the Dharma needs to be applied.
Khenpo Tsulstrim Gyatso:
"When we realize the selflessness of the individual, however, this whole process stops. The wrong views that have their root in the belief in self cease, then the mental afflictions cease, then karmic actions cease, and as a result of that, birth in samsara’s cycle of existence ceases."
The cornerstone of the Buddha's teachings were centered on "anatta" or no-self. Today this teaching has been reduced to a "non-self" interpretation that implies that a self does exist but that it should be focused on its not being independent and inherently existing, it should see "it-self" as being an interdependent part of the whole. The subject "I" remains standing but in a new and more integrated garb. The mentally contrived self is believed to validly exist on its "own side" but that it should free itself of all egoic selfishness. This is THE
primary error. There is no valid personal self findable.
So perhaps the teachings should start on the "no self" teaching of anatta instead of on trying to reduce samsara. As most or many have discovered, it can take a lifetime to remove or dissolve all the karmic leaves on the samsaric tree through practices, study and effort.
One may even remove some major supporting branches. But nothing can compare to extracting and destroying the roots that support, nourish and assure the tree is held firmly in place by the mind's fictional belief and mental construction of an illusory self. Cut the roots and the tree falls all at once.
No Self
There seems to be a lot of misunderstanding regarding the question of selfhood and whether a personal, individual self of any kind actually exists. Some think there is a personal self that underlies the fictional self, which is only a conceptual construction. This is the view of an "atman" or "self-soul" that the Buddha thoroughly refuted. The so called conventional self can't be found to exist within the body-mind nor outside the body-mind. That leaves no other option for its existence except within imagination.
In a dark room, a rope may be mistaken to be a snake, along with all the descriptions about snakes that the mind contains. We feel anxiety, fear and our adrenalin and blood pressures go up, as well as heart beat.
But if we look closely at the rope in brighter light, we won't be able to find a snake within the rope, or upon the rope, nor outside of the rope. That leaves only the imagination as its residence.
It's the same regarding our snake-self. Our body-mind is like the rope. The mind infers a self as a personal "me" upon and within the body-mind in the darkness of confused mental functioning. We have real feelings felt about this imaginary "me" that create moods, altered bio-chemistry and sense of a "suffering me". But if we introspectively look within our mental events, we won't find a "me" anywhere; not in the body, not in the mind; we only find thoughts and feelings ABOUT a self, but no self is discovered. Then the lights go on and suddenly the subconscious mind ceases to generate the mistaken "me" belief. The personal self or "me" was no more real than the imaginary snake! There is no "liberation or enlightenment" beyond this direct insight and cessation of this cognitive error, and none without it.
"When we realize the selflessness of the individual, however, this whole process stops. The wrong views that have their root in the belief in self cease, then the mental afflictions cease, then karmic actions cease, and as a result of that, birth in samsara’s cycle of existence ceases."
Khenpo Tsulstrim Gyamtso
"We can formulate the following logical reasoning: Karmic actions and results are mere appearances devoid of true existence, because no self, no actor, exists to perform them. This is a valid way to put things because if the self of the individual does not exist, there cannot be any action, and therefore there cannot be any result of any action either."
Khenpo Tsulstrim Gyamtso
"Someone might ask, “Isn’t it nihilistic to think that karmic actions and their results do not exist?” In fact, this is not a nihilistic view because there exists no self to have any nihilistic view. There can be a nihilistic view only if there is someone to hold it, but since there is "no one" to have any view, then there can be no nihilism. Furthermore, since the thought of nihilism neither arises nor abides nor ceases, there can be no nihilism in genuine reality. Genuine reality transcends the conceptual fabrications of realism and nihilism. It transcends karmic actions and results, and the absence of karmic actions and results as well. If karmic actions and their results do not exist in the abiding nature of reality, then what is the quality of their appearance?"
Nagarjuna describes this in the chapter’s thirty-third verse:
Mental afflictions, actions, and bodies, as well as actors and results, are like cities of imaginary beings, like mirages, and like dreams."
Khenpo Tsulstrim Gyatso