Mountains and Rivers 3

I see that a lot of people are having real difficulties with Dogen's Mountains and Rivers/Waters Sutra, as I'm pretty sure the monks he delivered this sutra to in 1240 were bewildered and perplexed. 

There's no consistency to the sutra. It's formless, something like the Void I've mentioned in other Zen postings. Mountains are used as metaphors, but for what exactly? Mountains walking, mountains flying with the clouds, mountains flowing... what does this even mean?

I've tried to rationalize it with experience, but I realize that misses the point of Dogen's vision and message. It's not rational. Not meant to be. It's a knock upside the head, a call to Wake Up! at midnight, and recognize the nature of experience, things, people, mountains and rivers, and how transitory and ultimately false it all is. 

Mountains do walk and fly through the clouds and flow just so. They come and they go and they appear and disappear just as you do. For in the end, there is no difference between what we call "you" and the "mountain." It's all one thing/no thing.

Just so with the lakes and rivers and vast seas. It's all one, and you are part/no part of that one. 

You know, the monks in Zen monasteries become complacent too easily, and knocking them upside the head from time to time is routine. They become attached to routine, to practice on command, to the sounds of the bells and clackers, to the feelings of comfort at meals, washings up, robing and disrobing, to the sensations of tatamis and wooden floor boards and running from hither to yon.

Relieving them of attachments to any of that often takes the form of a shock, a kick in the butt, a push into the mud, an impossible challenge in a koan, a struggle engaged. And an understanding that no matter how close you are to Enlightenment, you're held back by attachment -- like the tail of the ox that won't go through the latticed window (thank you Kozan, 🙏.)

We are attached, all of us are attached to something, someone, all of the time. That is part of our being, and detaching is an elemental part of Buddhism. Which in a sense means self-destructing. Or deconstructing the self.

Dogen lets on that mountains and rivers do it -- so can you. The very green mountains we are so attached to... aren't really there at all. What we see and feel and respond to is an illusion. The mountains we climb aren't actually there. The rivers that flow -- and by the way, rivers that wear down the mountains till they're no longer there -- are as illusory as mist.

Revere the mountain and the river, but don't become attached to them. 

The struggle is not to climb the mountain but to let go of it.

I gave a khata scarf from Nepal to a friend in Santa Fe earlier this year, thinking that he knew what it was and knew what my giving it to him symbolized. He... did. And then he mentioned that his son had gone to Nepal the previous year and circumambulated Annapurna with some friends and how exhilarating it had been for him. 

I said, "Please feel free to pass on the scarf to someone else if you're so inclined."

I don't know whether he has or not, but I wouldn't be surprised if he gave it either to his wife or his son.

And I've just reached the point in Gary Snyder's epic poem "Mountains and Rivers Without End" where he is about to begin the circumambulation of Mt. Tamilpias in California. Because he learned the significance of going around mountains in Nepal and India. It's what you do.

You circumambulate as a form of reverence and honor. And when I was in California in October with a friend from Gallup, we had a discussion about what was a "hill" and what was a "mountain," noting that in California they were not the same thing, and what would be considered a mountain somewhere else would be considered little more than a hill in California.

And I considered where I lived a child -- a smallish valley near the coast surrounded by mountains (as I saw them when I was little, but maybe they're only hills now) and considered where I live now, a rather larger valley surrounded by mountains and mesas and ridges, enclosed (and once a glacial lake) on all sides. It's the same. 

And all of it is an illusion. 

"Why Are You All So Grim?"

A story is told of Thich Nhat Hanh, Vietnamese Zen Master, visiting Green Gulch Farms in Marin County, California, sometime in the '80s during a period when the San Francisco Zen Center (of which Green Gulch like Tassajara was a part) was going through some very stressful times.

As he walked around the farm and walked the path of kinhin (walking meditation) used by the residents, visitors and monks, a path that led through forest and toward the sea, he is said to have said:

"You have one of the most beautiful kinhin pathways in North America. Why are you all so grim?"

And when I heard that from a long-time worker, student and teacher at Green Gulch, I had a sudden flash of enlightenment (satori) that yes, students of the Dharma, whether through Zen or some other way, are often, too often, far too grim -- at least appear to be.

We sometimes become attached to adversity and suffering. I witnessed it a few minutes ago when reviewing yesterday's Dharma talk by the Zen center's Roshi.  And when we are attached, we suffer and become grim, even in the presence of natural beauty such as that at Green Gulch. We are not, in other words, in the moment, experiencing and appreciating what is there and then. We are instead immersed in our misery or as we learn from the sutra of Vimalakiriti, in the delusion of our misery.

It's been interesting to see how Vimalakirti's teaching has been approached during this practice period. Many have said they never knew of it, never read it, never studied it, and some at least have not read it even now during the practice period. Of those who have, they seem somewhat off-put by it; it's not in the standard pattern of Buddhist sutras, in fact it's far outside the mainstream. It's in a word: radical.

It's a pageant, it's magical realism, it's a knock upside the head, not unlike the whap with the tomahawk I experienced in July from a stranger who invaded my home.

It's a "Hey!" 

Vimalakirti is saying "Hey!" to all the gods and goddesses, Buddhas and bodhisattvas, monks and laypeople alike that, "Hey! You're doing it wrong!" Why are you all so grim?

Vimalakirti has taken on the sickness of the world, as a bodhisattva would, and he is therefore physically "sick" -- ie: feigning sickness. But his realization and teaching is that "sickness" and "suffering" are illusions, delusions if you want, and attachment to them perpetuates them. Detach, liberate yourselves, and even if you are physically ill -- or the world is sick -- on the material plane, that is not, by any means, the ultimate reality. 

I've been reviewing some of Suzuki Roshi's teachings from back in the day. He tries over and over again to get this very point across. Ultimate reality is that there is no "reality"; it's all an illusion. Words fail, however, because our concepts are illusory themselves. The ground state -- what I call the ground state -- is inexpressible. It is neither there nor not there. Neither real nor unreal. It's beyond that. Beyond duality.

But saying so doesn't tell us much. You have to experience it, which Vimalakirti does... But having done so, the challenge is to communicate it. Ever the challenge. Communicate it to the gods and goddesses, Buddhas and bodhisattvas, monks and laypeople alike. 

Pfft. 

Well, he tries. And they all say they understand. But of course they lie.

Maybe the trick really is to just ask:

Why are you all so grim?

Buddh...

This is our Buddha shrine. There's more to it, but you get an idea. It combines some of the aspects of the Buddha stories including the elephant, horse, other animals and plants, followers, centered meditation, and so on. It's not a place of worship, it's a place of reminder. As are a number of other shrines in the house, some focused on Native elements, some on St. Francis, some of them unfocused, such as the one in the bedroom that includes several carved birds, a dinosaur model, a tiny black and white cat, and cornmeal offering.  Not to forget the skull images from Dia de los Muertos. Of course.

This is New Mexico where a polyglot amalgam of faiths is relatively commonplace. Honoring tradition is a basic cultural element in these parts, and tradition plays a huge part in faith communities. What was done hundreds of years ago is for the most part the same cycles and rituals done today.

I don't know the history of Buddhism in New Mexico, but there is a strong and growing community of practicing Buddhists and a diverse community of laypeople professing some aspect of Buddhist practice. I wouldn't call it "belief" because there isn't anything in particular to believe in Buddhism. One practices. One sits, one meditates for varying lengths of time, one goes about one's day. One studies the sutras or not,  one questions, one takes action to be kind, compassionate, joyful, and "detached." One is not what one does or says or thinks or believes. All of that is illusion.

Even the concept that one is is an illusion. But this path of thought cannot lead to Enlightenment. It is more like an eternally turning wheel, not the Dharma Wheel, but not not it, either. Letting go of the concept of Is-ness is itself an element of Buddhist practice, but even perfect letting go is not sufficient in itself to achieve Enlightenment or Buddha-hood. Not that that is necessarily desirable in and of itself. It is simply something that may happen -- or not.

I've had the Diamond Sutra on speed dial lately. It never struck me as particularly profound, and I'm not sure it's meant to be. It's more in the nature of a reminder of how transitory our corporeal existence/experience is, and how false in some ways (all ways, no ways) it is. We live in illusion, creating that illusion as we live.

A talk on the meaning/not meaning of the Diamond Sutra is appended herewith:

Zazenkai: Inside the Buddha’s Body

(email sign up required to listen, but it's relatively stress -- and marketing -- free)

In Defense of Percival Lowell

I've spent some time looking at Mars in a telescope and looking at other people's pictures of Mars taken with their telescopes, and I've spent some time looking at Percival Lowell's drawings of Mars from which he derived his famous (or infamous) interpretations about canals and civilizations. I've also been to the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, AZ and heard the stories they tell there of his observational acumen.

No one claims there are canals on Mars now, but for some time it has been customary to denounce Lowell's observations as "optical illusions," and to declare that there is "nothing really there" where he said he saw canals. Carl Sagan was among those famous for doing it.

And I never felt it was entirely fair. Lowell was said to have been one of the finest planetary observers of his era, though he lacked academic training in the field. His observatory was located in one of the finest observing locations in the country, and Lowell Observatory is still one of the nation's premiere observatories and research centers.

In an earlier post, I juxtaposed an illustration of Lowell's freehand drawing of what he saw in the Solis Lacus region of Mars in 1896 with three telescopic views taken with a CCD camera in 2006, 110 years later in the UK. The similarities are striking.

There are differences to be sure. Especially the size of the "pupil" of the Solis "eye." Lowell's is small and discreet, the "pupil" in the CCD image is large and extended. But many of the other features correspond almost exactly. Those features we now know include dark-floored craters, "fossae," dark and light terrains, volcanoes, and clouds among other things. I was able to toggle easily between the images, so it was startling to see the correspondences and to spot more of them each time I toggled.

Among the most striking correspondences is the appearance of lines on the CCD images, several of them in remarkably similar positions to those delineated by Lowell.

Side by side comparison; features seen on the CCD image are marked with arrows on the Lowell drawing [Note: South is at the top of the images.]

Side by side comparison of Mars Solis Lacus quadrant
left drawing by Percival Lowell, c. 1896
  CCD telescopic image by D. Peach, 2005
Correspondences noted on Lowell drawing

If you are able to relax your eyes a bit, you will see many -- many! -- linear markings on the CCD image, both light-toned and dark, some of which correspond to Lowell's markings, some of which don't. The correspondence of spots between the drawing and the CCD image taken more than 100 years later is remarkable, especially given the differences inherent in the, telescopes, the techniques and the tendency of the eye and hand to diverge when attempting to record visual impressions. (Think of courtroom drawings.)

The faint linear markings on the CCD image are NOT "optical illusions." They are on all the CCD images from that sequence so they are real in the sense that the CCD camera was able to record them. But there are many other CCD images taken by others around the same time that do not show linear markings as this one does.

What gives?

The "optical illusion" argument tends to fail when CCD images show linear markings similar to those Lowell recorded 100 years before. So other arguments have been put forth proposing that the linear markings are actually a telescopic artifact. Something in the optics of the telescope makes them "appear." This argument was offered in part because other astronomers also reported seeing linear marking corresponding to Lowell's canals, and Lowell for his part reported linear markings on the surface of Venus and Mercury when he trained the telescope on them.

I'm more inclined to accept the optics argument than I am the illusion argument, but even so, it seems to me there's something about the surface of Mars itself that allows and requires the appearance of linear markings in some telescopes but not in others. Given the fact that Lowell's telescope was a huge 24" refractor, and most of the modern amateur CCD images are made through a much smaller reflector or Schmidt/Maksutov Cassegrain telescopes, the "optics" argument becomes difficult to fathom.

[Note (as of 9:30pm Friday, August 10, 2012): a huge limb just broke off a eucalyptus tree down the street, blocking the road, exploding street lamps and power transformers, and causing much to do in the neighborhood. Power went out briefly, but there are wires crossed all over, and the exploded transformer is a big problem. Will probably lose power again as repairs are made. That tree has been there since God was a boy, and it periodically drops fair sized limbs, but this time the branch that snapped was enormous. Good thing nobody (that we know of) was under it at the time. Another big tree on the same property fell a few years ago in a storm, destroying the garage and badly damaging a neighbor's house. A neighbor said he witnessed the whole thing tonight, and he thought it was the end of the world...]

The point I'm making is that Lowell was a very accurate observer who honestly recorded what he saw when he observed Mars. Many of his contemporaries saw similar features. And similar features can still be seen and recorded on the surface of Mars with much different telescopes. I have seen some of them myself. It has never looked to me like the surface is crisscrossed with canals, but it is quite possible to resolve straight lines -- both dark and light colored -- that appear to connect various dark and light spots.

It's not an illusion.

There is something which produces the appearance of these lines, and given the absolute abundance of linear features of all kinds on the surface of Mars -- some of which have never been adequately explained, especially the "searchlight" and other linear features that Mariner 9 revealed, many of which are no longer seen in orbiter images -- it seems worth investigating how the surface features, the Martian atmosphere, the terrestrial atmosphere and telescopic optics all interact to produce the appearance of "canali" as described by Giovanni Schiaparelli in 1877.

Cerberus Fossae, set of deep troughs with dark interiors, about 1600 km long

The image above is from Google Mars and shows some of the most prominent linear features on the surface, the Cerberus Fossae, a paired set of dark-floored trenches, some 1600 km from one end to another, that are still something of a mystery. I did a brief survey of "fossae" using Google Mars, and there are literally thousands of examples, dozens of them 1000km long or more.

The conventional wisdom is that relief on the surface of Mars cannot be detected with Earth-based telescopes even today, and that the various and numerous fossae on the surface are so narrow -- at most, a few kilometers wide, in the case of the Cerberus Fossae above, only about half a kilometer -- they cannot be resolved by Earth-based telescopes. While volcanoes and craters have long been seen on the surface of Mars, including the vast Valles Marineris canyons, they weren't recognized for what they were because it was impossible to detect surface relief. In fact, prior to spacecraft explorations, it was assumed that Mars had very little surface relief because none could be detected.

This is an unlabeled US Air Force map of Mars from 1962, which will give you an idea of how widely  the linear features of Mars were accepted prior to the arrival of spacecraft:

USAF map of Mars, c. 1962. Clickage will embiggen.

I got the map from this site where the development of Mars mapping is explored. Lowell's maps of Mars are not nearly as sophisticated but they are not dissimilar.

Lowell's map of Mars, c. 1894 for comparison:

Map of Mars drawn by Percival Lowell, c. 1894

Some observers have seen surface features very much like those recorded by Lowell throughout the history of telescopic observations, and some of them can be detected by modern CCD cameras. The appearance of linear markings on the surface of Mars is quite real. They are well and truly there, and they are there at many different scales.

In another post, I may get into the scale issue, for in some ways it may be a key to understanding what is going on.

[Today and tomorrow are travel days....]