(NON)-SPLIT THREAD: The Sentience of the Insentient

[Uran]

I wanted to know how we in this sangha define "sentient beings". But then I decided that I did not want to ask because no matter what our definition is, my definition is very important to me and is not likely to change no matter what anyone says. { Even you, Jundo ;-}

So, in lesson 20 when you say that you think sentient beings include the rocks and the Earth, I literally whooped with joy -- a great big, right-out-loud, touchdown-style whoop.

I believe that the breeze is sentient and the stars and the multiverses and the weeds, too. To learn that yet another of my beliefs fits so well here, this is just one more layer of why I feel so at home here.

((So, I am an accidental Buddhist and I am a cussing Buddhist and I am here to say...)) I f''''''g love this sangha.

Thank you all for being.

Gassho gassho gassho,
Aimee
sattoday

[Jundo]

I wanted to know how we in this sangha define "sentient beings". But then I decided that I did not want to ask because no matter what our definition is, my definition is very important to me and is not likely to change no matter what anyone says. { Even you, Jundo ;-}

So, in lesson 20 when you say that you think sentient beings include the rocks and the Earth, I literally whooped with joy -- a great big, right-out-loud, touchdown-style whoop.

Do you think that this will keep one sentient being (me) from commenting anyway?

Dogen and some other Buddhist folks thought that rocks and rivers and everything else is "sentient," but not in the sense of you and me. There is still something special in Buddhism about having been born a human being (between the less fortunate animals below, and the -too- fortunate "gods" above, in traditional rebirth schemes.) Rocks and rivers and other inanimate things are just off the scale (nobody is reborn as a rock or tin can in traditional Buddhism.)

But Dogen and others felt that we might call inanimate things "sentient" in a few special ways. One is a sense that there is some fundamental balance, beauty and vibrancy, goodness, intelligence, reason and harmony to all reality that we might call "Buddha" (with a big "B," although no name does the job), and Dogen could hear the sound of this Buddha's wordless "preaching" in the rivers and valleys.

There is also a sense that the world is so whole and integrated that the stones and trees and rivers and tin cans are part of you and me ... and -ARE- you and me in other guise ... just as we are them and each other. I like to say that "Aimee is the trees Aimeeing over here, and the trees are Aimee treeing over there." Your human sentient mind is ultimately this "Buddha." Your sentient mind is ultimately the stones, trees and tin cans because they are "Buddha," and also because you are each and all of them and they are each and all you and each other. You and I are "reborn" in every blade of grass and breeze, because the grass and wind is just you too. Maybe we can say that we are all this overriding "life force" which holds this whole fertile and creative universe together.

I guess the point that I am trying to get at is that, even so, don't expect to have a conversation about politics, philosophy or poetry (except in that "wordless" way perhaps) with a boulder or a pine tree (You can write a poem about pine trees, and the pine trees might be said to be a kind of living "poem," but the pine tree cannot write a poem about you ). While a forest or mountain may "feel" pain in some sense (e.g., ecologically), it seems unlikely that a boulder feels pain as you feel when you hit your toe on that boulder. Even if they speak some "language" and are alive in some sense, it is not our language (thus there is is a famous Koan about hearing the valleys and rivers without our ears). There is still a sense in Buddhism, as in biology, that there is a kind of scale of "sentience" up to humans, with dogs and worms sentient and feeling in some way, but stones and rivers not really (thus that famous question about a dog's "Buddha Nature").

So ... in other words ... don't expect to have a coherent conversation in words with a bush, bagel or a boulder, whether they are sentient or not. It is the main reason we don't have too many tin cans and turnips as registered members of this forum.

Master Tozan Ryokai, source of Soto Zen (the "To" in "SoTo") wrote ...

“Wonderful! Wonderful!
The preaching of the Dharma by the non-sentient is inconceivable.
If you try to hear with your ears, it’s hard to understand;
When you listen with the eye, then you know it.”

Gassho, J

stlah

PS - I hope it is okay if I split this off a bit.

[Jundo]

PS - If you would like to read a short scholar's article on the history of this debate in Buddhism, here is a pretty good one. Rather than say that insentient beings are "sentient," the Buddhists tended to ask if the insentient have "Buddha Nature" somehow ...

In contrast, the doctrine of insentient beings’ Buddha-nature goes against the
prevailing Mahayana belief in all sentient beings’ inherent Buddha-nature and instead
emphasizes that insentient things also possess this nature. The significance of this innovative
theory continues to be a challenge to and a reflection on human capacity and self-understanding.
Do human beings alone, among all living beings, have the privilege to engage in spiritual
practice and achieve enlightenment? Do stones, water, and bricks reputed to be insentient have
no feelings, sentiments, or mentality? In other words, is there a clear distinction or delineation
between the “active, subjective” sentient beings and the “passive, objective” insentient world?

https://www.academia.edu/20419837/Buddha_Nature_of_Insentient_Beings

[Tomás ESP]

Gassho, Tomás
Sat&LaH

[Uran]

Thank you for this, Jundo. This helps to take my beliefs a step father, make them a bit clearer, and gives me the language to not sound like a crazy lady.

I do believe that trees and stars and rocks have a form of consciousness, though certainty different from what we humans have. The concept that all things have Buddha nature brings it all together beautifully.

[emoji1374][emoji1374]

Aimee
sattoday lah

[Uran]

"...and, in a larger sense, some teachers such as Master Dogen included even mountains and trees and roof tiles as 'sentient life'." -Jundo


"The Diamond Sutra teaches us that it is impossible to distinguish between sentient and non-sentient beings. " -Thich Nhat Hahn


And yet, and yet…


Maybe the difference is that we're conscious of being sentient beings?

...


And if that's the differentiation, who's to say that octopi with their gardens and elephants with their graveyards and whales with their families and language aren't also conscious of being sentient? Maybe they do write poetry just in a form that we don't recognize.


But they don't build cities or have radio stations. So maybe that's the difference.


Gassho,

Aimee

sattdy


Sorry to run so long; my mind is still trying to make sense of this even though it seems so simple.

[Jundo]

... octopi with their gardens and elephants with their graveyards ... But they don't build cities or have radio stations. So maybe that's the difference.

Oh, I am perfectly ready to say that octopi, elephants and whales are sentient and, quite possibly, much more intelligent than people in many ways.

But the question is whether gardens and graveyards, cities and radios are sentient, not to mention stones, mountains and rusty tin cans. Could be.

Gassho, J

stlah

[Uran]

I was more wondering if we can tell if a species is sentient by the gardens and radio stations they create.

Gassho,
Aimee

stlah

[Jundo]

[Seiko]

Well, at an atomic level, all objects are constantly moving, constantly fluid. The table, a rock, your shoe. In the forest, trees look after each other. If one is sick, his friends send nutrients through their root systems to try to help. No matter whether sentient or not, we care for everything.
Gasshō
Seiko
stlah

[Tai Do]

Master Dogen also said:

Those who greatly enlighten illusion are Buddhas; those who are greatly deluded about enlightenment are sentient beings.

So, am I wrong in thinking that, for our precepts and Bodhisattva vows practice, sentient beings are those who suffer from dukkha?

Gassho,
Mateus
Satlah

[Jundo]

Master Dogen also said:



So, am I wrong in thinking that, for our precepts and Bodhisattva vows practice, sentient beings are those who suffer from dukkha?

Gassho,
Mateus
Satlah

Hmmmm. Sentient beings are Buddhas, Buddhas are sentient beings.

I had a look at how Nishijima-Cross put this:

Those who totally realize delusion are buddhas. Those who are totally deluded about realization are ordinary people.

The Japanese is ... 迷を大悟するは佛なり、悟に大迷なるは衆生なり with the operative term being 衆生. Which is correct? Yes! If you read the following on the history of 衆生's translation, you will see that this is still far from black/white ...

A being; living being; all living beings. This term has pre-Buddhist roots in the Chinese classics, such as the Liji 禮記 「衆生必死、必死歸土」 and Zhuangzi 莊子 「幸能正生、以正衆生」. It was used to translate the Sanskrit sattva (Skt. jana; Tib. skye bo, sems can). A creature (Skt. prajā; Tib. skye dgu). [Charles Muller, M. Mohr; source(s): Nakamura, Stephen Hodge, JEBD, Yokoi, Iwanami]
All beings, including all beings in the six planes of life 六趣. In Buddhist scriptures, sentient beings are mentioned in contrast to buddhas, as those who are still bound in the suffering of saṃsāra, who are not yet enlightened; in this meaning, synonymous with 凡夫, which means 'regular person,' or 'worldling.' On the other hand, it is the awareness that is present in sentient beings—exactly their 'sentiency' that is the quality of Buddhahood itself. Therefore there is the Mahāyāna doctrine of 'all sentient beings are originally buddhas.' [Charles Muller]
After the time of Xuanzang 玄奘, this term was translated into Chinese as 有情 'having sentiency.' In the Nirvāṇa-sūtra, it is clearly stated that sentient beings means all things, even those things that we would normally consider inanimate, such as minerals, and that all of these things possess the Buddha-nature. [Charles Muller]
Produced in great number; manifold production; myriad activities. 「言衆生者、諸現行也。」 〔梵網經古迹記 HBJ 3.428a12〕 [Charles Muller]

http://www.buddhism-dict.net/cgi-bin/xpr-ddb.pl?q=%E8%A1%86%E7%94%9F

By the way, I take the meaning of "Those who totally realize delusion are buddhas, Those who are totally deluded about realization are ordinary people" as follows: Buddhas known that realization is found right in this messy world of delusion, in the delusion yet seeing through the delusion, turning the delusion to enlightenment activity in this world. On the other hand, ordinary folks think of enlightenment as someplace distant.

Gassho, J

stlah

[Guest]

By the way, I take the meaning of "Those who totally realize delusion are buddhas, Those who are totally deluded about realization are ordinary people" as follows: Buddhas known that realization is found right in this messy world of delusion, in the delusion yet seeing through the delusion, turning the delusion to enlightenment activity in this world. On the other hand, ordinary folks think of enlightenment as someplace distant.

Gassho, J

stlah

Thinking that one is enlightened is not it. Thinking that one is not enlightened is also not it. Does a dog have Buddha Nature? No. But we have to fully understand this "No."

It is said that all sentient beings have buddha nature, why does a dog not have buddha-nature? It is because a dog has karmic nature. In the case of a dog, body, mind and the whole world is the realm of the dog's karmic nature. So, there is nothing extra such as buddha-nature. ~Menzan- Jijuyu-zanmai

As Jundo says it is found in the messy world of delusion, yet seeing through delusion and turning this into enlightened activity and helping all beings.

Gassho,

Bill (Daiman)

Sat Today/LAH

[Gustaf Källvik]

I think something that resolved the question about sentience or non-sentience for me was something that came into my head some time ago:
"Perhaps what I experience and the rest of existence are of the same quality? I am not unique. The qualities that I see in me are everywhere, perhaps to different degrees. There is something that I experience here and now, that is present in everything."

A problem when we define stuff - I think is that we define them from our preconceptions about them - not with an entirely open mind. Of course that is natural, otherwise we would have problems handling the world, I guess.

So what if we open up and try to look at the concepts and try to see that they are not what we think they are. What is "sentience"? What is "me"? What is the world "etc"?

~ Sat today ~

[Tai Do]

Hmmmm. Sentient beings are Buddhas, Buddhas are sentient beings.

I had a look at how Nishijima-Cross put this:

Those who totally realize delusion are buddhas. Those who are totally deluded about realization are ordinary people.

The Japanese is ... 迷を大悟するは佛なり、悟に大迷なるは衆生なり with the operative term being 衆生. Which is correct? Yes! If you read the following on the history of 衆生's translation, you will see that this is still far from black/white ...



By the way, I take the meaning of "Those who totally realize delusion are buddhas, Those who are totally deluded about realization are ordinary people" as follows: Buddhas known that realization is found right in this messy world of delusion, in the delusion yet seeing through the delusion, turning the delusion to enlightenment activity in this world. On the other hand, ordinary folks think of enlightenment as someplace distant.

Gassho, J

stlah

Thank you, Roshi.
Gassho,
Mateus
Satlah