Kamakura Daibutsu from Wikimedia Commons
So I'll try to join a Rohatsu sesshin from December 1 through December 8 as a celebration of Shakyamuni's "awakening"under the Bodhi Tree oh so long ago.
Our text for this sesshin is a translation of the Avatamsaka Sutra called "The Flower Ornament Scripture" that attempts to describe the Buddha's enlightenment. Oh well, good luck with that!
The initial descriptions actually parallel something I experienced -- was it Enlightenment? I don't know -- many years ago, nigh on fifty years back, I think. I may have mentioned it somewhere in these blog pages. I was sitting zazen in my apartment in San Francisco. Something happened. A Void opened up as it were and I was no longer a sitter in a room in an apartment on Geary. I was no longer "I" but All. The Void was the ground of Being. Which encompassed Everything. The Void was not perception, could not be perceived, was not part of the Material World but spontaneously gave rise to it as well as many other Material Worlds simultaneously. The Void was Nothing -- No Thing -- but gave rise to Everything. All Things and much more besides.
Understanding, was this the Awakening that Buddhists yearn for? Oh, I don't know. No one can actually say, for when the Awakening comes, there are no words; it just Is.
So this happened while I was sitting zazen in a semi-dark room in my apartment on Geary in San Francisco some fifty or so odd years ago -- I don't remember the year -- and when I ended the sit, my perceptions had changed in ways I had never encountered before. The semi-darkened room appeared to be glowing with crystalline light of many colors, not the drab gray I knew it to be. The main room to the apartment had a view to the garden behind the building where a jungle of plants and flowers flourished. I briefly glanced at the garden -- now glowing with an inner light as well -- as I passed by on the way to go outside.
As I went through the lobby, every step and wall and decoration including the wrought iron gate to the old building I lived in glowed with auras of many colors, and the sky outside was a color I'd never seen before, and the color changed as I walked down Geary toward Union Square a few blocks away. Every thing and every person on my way had multi-colored auras.
I won't describe the whole experience because when I have tried to do so in the past, I've been accused of either "being on drugs" -- I wasn't and did not use drugs in those days (nor do I now) -- or reporting a dream, not something that actually happened.
"Not something that actually happened..." Well, wait. What does "actually happened" really mean?
What I experienced was an altered perception that grew out of Non-Perception, the Void as it were, and I saw it as a means to recognize the Illusion (or Delusion) of what our Minds tell us is Reality.
What we see and think we know in the Material World is all Illusion, a construct, we're told, of the Mind. And it has no real existence at all.
Our thoughts and feelings and perceptions are all Mind-created, not Reality. By experiencing an altered perception I was able if only for a moment to recognize the Ground Truth both of the Mind and of the spontaneous arising from Nothing.
And so it was. Is this what the Buddha experienced after sitting under the Bodhi Tree? I don't know, but it could be. Is it what the Avatamsaka Sutra is attempting to describe? I can't say for certain, but sure, why not?
Sparkling jewels figure heavily in the Sutra; fragrant flowers, multicolored silks, everything and more that an East Indian adept might treasure; all were revealed and made manifest after Enlightenment. Well, yes. Of course! But is that what Enlightenment is? Of course not!
No, I see it as a metaphor -- a long and beautiful metaphor -- for something ineffable that cannot be described in words written or spoken. Beyond the jewels and silks and fragrant flowers, beyond the multitude of universes which figure as prominently, there is... No Thing. Or...? What? No, the question is wrong.
One of the principal tenets of Buddhism is that we are already Awakened. We are already Enlightened. It is our natural state of being. We don't have to go on a quest to find it -- as the Buddha did. We don't have to yearn for it. We already have it; we are already there.
What we -- usually -- lack is recognition of the fact. Gaining recognition may take enormous effort and lead to many wrong turns along the way, or it may come in an instant with no effort at all. We all follow different paths. But once we gain the recognition, we're essentially unified on the same path, and in Zen and Mahayana Buddhism in general, it's a Bodhisattva path, then we're all chopping wood and carrying water together. Even as we go our own ways.
The translation I have of the Avatamsaka Sutra is over 1,600 pages long. Now that's absurd. 1100 pages is the Sutra itself, the rest is commentary.
Buddhists love to speculate on Meaning and write commentary on the Sutras. Thus to possess and explain that which cannot be possessed or explained.
Of course I'm doing it myself!
So Rohatsu is coming up shortly. I already have some scheduled events during that week, including doctors' appointments and possibly appearing at the trial of the man who assaulted me a year ago in July. I won't have any teeth, either, as all are scheduled to be pulled next week, and nothing is to replace them until January.
What fun.
Since the Rohatsu is online, though, it will be possible to catch up. I suppose.
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Koan:
What did the Buddha perceive as he Awakened under the Bodhi Tree?
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