The Platform Sutra: Sections 12 + 13 and commentary, p125-132 (131-138 on Kindle)

[Kokuu]

Dear all

This week we will look at parts 12 and 13 of the sutra and Red Pine's commentary.

The first section of the Platform Sutra is the best known, with most people having previously heard about the poetry contest and Huineng’s humble background, even if not his flight with the robe and subsequent hiding out.

So, now we continue with part two of the sutra in which Huineng, having laid out the autobiographical detail in section one, now begins to talk about the dharma, telling everyone present that they are connected through many past lifetimes. He says that what he will be teaching them is not something that he has discovered but rather that which has been passed on, ancestor-to-ancestor.

Huineng tells everyone that they already possess what they are looking for – their buddha nature – and that this nature does not differ between the ignorant and wise, but that the wise have woken from their delusion.

Dōgen echoes this in Genjōkoan saying, “Those who totally realize delusion are buddhas. Those who are totally deluded about realization are ordinary people.”

Red Pine says that Huineng taught for forty years and only taught one thing – awakening to our true nature of perfect wisdom (prajnaparamita). It has similarly been said of the Buddha that he taught just suffering and the end of suffering.

In part 13 Huineng makes a statement that should be familiar to anyone reading Dōgen – that practice and wisdom are not two separate things. Buddhism is often portrayed as having three limbs – ethics (sila), sitting practice (dhyana) and wisdom (prajna) – with wisdom coming as a product of sitting practice resting on a foundation of ethical conduct. Huineng’s words depart from this traditional understanding and set the foundations for the Zen which is to follow, and sudden awakening rather than gradual awakening.

Questions
1. How do you see the idea that we have all been connected through many lifetimes?
2. Huineng says that there is no separation between practice and wisdom, as does Dōgen. Should ethical conduct also be seen as not separate from those two?

Wishing you all a good week.

Gassho
Kokuu
-sattoday/lah-

[Chikyou]

1. How do you see the idea that we have all been connected through many lifetimes?

Makes sense to me. It’s hard for me to explain how I feel that this is true, but I feel that this is true.

2. Huineng says that there is no separation practice and wisdom, as does Dōgen. Should ethical conduct also be seen as not separate from those two?

I think that if you have wisdom, ethical conduct is inevitable. Therefore if practice and wisdom are one, ethical conduct is included by default.

Gassho,
SatLah
Chikyō

[Seiryu]

I have a copy of this book, so I am happy to jump in, catch up, and just absorb

Huineng’s words depart from this traditional understanding and set the foundations for the Zen which is to follow, and sudden awakening rather than gradual awakening.

It takes a long time for a tree to grow, it takes a long time for the fruit to ripen, for all the conditions to come together, for all of creation to dance and move in just to right way to enable that fruit to come into what it is…and then…suddenly….it falls

Questions
1. How do you see the idea that we have all been connected through many lifetimes?
2. Huineng says that there is no separation between practice and wisdom, as does Dōgen. Should ethical conduct also be seen as not separate from those two?

1. “If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe.” ― Carl Sagan. One can get very esoteric in regards to past lives, future lives, but in a very concrete way, I feel that, quite literally, I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for everything and everyone that has happened before me. I owe my very existence to everything that has taken place before a single thought ever formed in my little head.

2. When this moment is seen as just this moment, when we can penetrate and see that all is exactly as it is and there is nothing we need to do to make it such, naturally the attention shifts from self to other. The fragrance of practice is morality, the fragrance of morality is practice, how can they be separated? To have practice without morality is to practice with an intellectual ideal and not from direct experience. To have morality without practice is to be directed by emotions and ideas often coming together from outside sources. As of now, I don’t think ethical conduct could be separated, as it is all looking at the same thing expressed in different ways.

Just thinking out loud with this one.

Gassho

Sat/Lah

[Kokuu]

I have a copy of this book, so I am happy to jump in, catch up, and just absorb

Please, feel free to.

“If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe.” ― Carl Sagan

That's one of my favourite quotes!


Gassho
Kokuu
-sattoday/lah-

[Onsho]

1. How do you see the idea that we have all been connected through many lifetimes?

200 years ago, a baby laughed. The mother smiled, The passer by wrote a poem about that smile. The poem inspires songs to be written and happiness snowballs through time. Now, I’m here steeped in the joy of the world. I have learned joy through the connections of many lifetimes. The seeds of that joy have been watered by everyone along the way. I water them now just as I did, when I was the baby, mother and poet.


2. Huineng says that there is no separation between practice and wisdom, as does Dōgen. Should ethical conduct also be seen as not separate from those two?

I recall Sekishi saying something along the lines of – When we sit Zazen, we are following the precepts perfectly.- So I would venture to say dhyana + prajna = sila

[Taigen]

Questions
1. How do you see the idea that we have all been connected through many lifetimes?
2. Huineng says that there is no separation between practice and wisdom, as does Dōgen. Should ethical conduct also be seen as not separate from those two?

1. I don't think this resonates as deeply with me as others who have posted here, but yeah, we certainly are. Like threads in a tapestry, our stories going back to the dawn of life on this planet are interwoven. Its like that game, 6 degrees of Kevin Bacon, in which you figure out how many degrees of separation there are between you and Kevin Bacon (i.e. I have a friend who was in an airport with Quentin Tarantino, who has probably met Kevin Bacon, so I'm 3 degrees separate. Now you all are 4, you're welcome!).

2. If you're sitting regularly on a cushion, making an implicit or explicit claim to wisdom or enlightenment or whatever, and then also being a jerk to the waiter, I question what you've been doing during that time on the cushion. I could see how a simplistic argument could be made that sitting -> wisdom -> ethical conduct, but I think that oversimplifies the equation. Perhaps it is a desire for wisdom (itself wisdom) and more ethical conduct that draws one to the cushion, which in turn gives rise to greater wisdom and better conduct, which reinforces the value of time sitting...a process of mutual arising, as it were. The problem perhaps comes from attempting to describe an organic process with the terminology of mathematics and linear thought (not to disparage either, just observing).

Gassho,
Taigen
Satlah

[Hokuu]

1. How do you see the idea that we have all been connected through many lifetimes?

I’d second what Taigen said. It doesn’t resonate with me much but I can make sense of it if I think how my existence depends on billions of prerequisites.

2. Huineng says that there is no separation between practice and wisdom, as does Dōgen. Should ethical conduct also be seen as not separate from those two?

From my perspective it doesn’t make any difference now we see things and call them - whether practice, wisdom and ethical conduct are separate, or not, or ethical conduct is combined with wisdom first or maybe practice, or it’s the basis for the practice or the practice is basis for ethical conduct, etc.
The real question is am I ethical, do I practice, am I wise? How do I react when I see pain, or experience pain, or cause pain?

Gassho
Hokuu
satlah

[Shigeru]

1. In this specific case, I believe the occasion of Huineng and the assembly meeting can be viewed as the result of karmic ties. Through causes and conditions brought forth by the assembled in past lives, they are now able to hear the Dharma as taught by Huineng. In the same sense, perhaps this is the case for us here as well? Even if one doesn't accept the idea of karma or rebirth, our lives are shaped by the causes and conditions that occur far before us ever being born, as Red Pine says, "Karma sets the stage". In some sense, all of us being here is the result of our past actions, so in some sense, we were all connected on the road we took leading us here.

2. I am not very well versed in this subject, so my thoughts may be very off course, but I believe that the three are necessary for liberation. If you lack in one of them, you will not attain the dharma. You can be a very wise teacher of the dharma and of practice, but if you continue to be a bad person behind the scenes and create suffering for others, you will not attain the dharma (and can you even be seen as wise if you do not grasp this?). You can be a very ethical person, but if you lack in practice and wisdom you will not attain the dharma. The three are connected in the sense that they flow into each other, the one enabling the other, and ultimately together leading to liberation.

Gassho
SatLah

[Hosui]

I've been sitting with that Carl Sagan quote, Seiryu, all week. Thanks for posting this . For me it explains our interconnectedness, our interdependence (as well as dependent origination), and the purpose of the Bodhisattva vows. Given which...

1. Our interconnectedness with each other, since forever, is demonstrated in that Carl Sagan's quote. How appropriate it came from his 'Cosmos' (1980): very Vairocana.
2. There's no separation between practice, wisdom and ethics - they're one. And even all of these, whether viewed separately or as one, are empty, e.g. prajnaparamita, or the direct realisation of that emptiness, which I'm creeping up on.

Gassho
Hosui
sat/lah today

[Kaitan]

1. How do you see the idea that we have all been connected through many lifetimes?

It can be supported by the other idea of wholeness and interconnectedness and most likely doesn't happen in a linear individual timeline determined by fate

2. Huineng says that there is no separation between practice and wisdom, as does Dōgen. Should ethical conduct also be seen as not separate from those two?

Yes, we talk about it here that practicing zazen is the embodiment of the precepts.


I will have some cake with my tea

Gassho

stlah, Kaitan

[Choujou]

Questions
1. How do you see the idea that we have all been connected through many lifetimes?
2. Huineng says that there is no separation between practice and wisdom, as does Dōgen. Should ethical conduct also be seen as not separate from those two?

1. Essentially, we are all connected through every lifetime, everywhere, in all of space and time. There is no separation in any of it, it is all one thing, a oneness beyond oneness. All empty.

2. Ah, “the three pillars”. Yes, I do feel the precepts/ethical conduct should also be considered one with practice and wisdom. You can’t separate any of it, as they all flow together.

A fresh baked orange scone with my tea would be lovely

Gassho,
Choujou

sat/lah today

[Kokuu]

Hi all

Great answers again and with respect to question 1, I totally get the feelings about this in terms of traditional Buddhist thought around rebirth and the stories that Shakyamuni Buddha and his chief monks were karmically intertwined over centuries. However, as most of you point out, we are all interconnected now and forever, and cannot ever not be.

In respect of question 2, I was fortunate to be reading D T Suzuki’s commentary on this sutra yesterday, The Zen Doctrine of No Mind, and he put it far better than I ever could:

To be pure and undefiled is Sila (ethical conduct). The mind unmoved remaining ever serene in all conditions is Dhyana (meditation). To perceive the mind unmoved, and yet to raise no thoughts ato its immovability; to perceive the mind pure and undefiled, and yet to raise no thoughts as to its purity; to discriminate what is bad from what is good, and yet to feel no defilement by them, and to be absolute master of oneself, this is known as Prajna (wisdom). When one perceives thus that Sila, Dhyana and Prajna are all beyond attainability, one at once realises that there is no discrimination to be made between them, and that they are of one and the same body. This is the simultaneous functioning of the triple discipline.

So, onwards to the next part!

Gassho
Kokuu
-sattoday/lah-