A Zen exploration of the Bahiya Sutta

Lol.. what Alex said!

Indeed, knowingness or clarity, or luminousity, is not a sense experience. Knowingness is that which apprehends sense experience(s). Which is not to say it is any of the sense consciousnesses; however, thoes are inseperable from it.

Knowingness or luminousity is that which is pointed to but cannot be reduced any further. Suchness. Knowness or awakeness is intrinsic or fundamental to Suchness; inseperable, as is emptiness and phenomena, as I and Alex said earlier.

Those are the basic premises. Alex has provided the scriptoral support, and I, for what it is worth, assert my own experience as support, as does Alex. Beyond that, I cannot say if it is true of not.

Bit clearer?

Adam.

In early Zen rooted in the Lankavatara sutra brought to China by Bodhidharma, the focus was on this '˜luminous mind' or '˜bright mirror' that must be disembedded from 'incoming defilements' to reveal its unstrained luminous nature. This view was summarized by Shen-hsiu's famous poem :

The body is the wisdom-tree,
The mind is a bright mirror in a stand;
Take care to wipe it all the time,
And allow no dust to cling.

Based on his deep insight triggered a verse of the Diamond sutra, Hui-neng emphasized the fact that the luminous mind or bright mirror is empty from the beginning, expressing what was later seen as a deeper understanding, in his equally famous reply:

Fundamentally no wisdom-tree exists,
Nor the stand of a mirror bright.
Since all is empty from the beginning,
Where can the dust alight

This famous Zen story also illustratres the transition from "Mind is the Buddha" to "No Buddha, No Mind" together with the transition from Kenneth's 1st and 2nd Gear to 3rd Gear practice.

"Bit clearer?"

Not really. The Pali suttas say that there is the unconditioned, and if it is realized during life (arahantship), then, after death, when all phenomena are done away with, there is still the unconditioned. Untouched by all sense-experiences and completely unrelated to them.

As far as I can see, the Pali suttas consider all sense-experiences to be conditioned (generated by causes and ceasing when the causes cease), so what they point to as "unconditioned" is specifically something outside of causality, which means not seeing-hearing-smeling-tasting-touching-thinking and not linked to seeing-hearing-smelling-tasting-touching-thinking. (As the suttas say in a few places, it does not partake in the Allness of the All.)

Again, as far as I can see, the basic claim of the Pali suttas is that realizing the unconditioned element is the goal of spiritual life, and parinibbana (the unconditioned element only) is the ultimate end of suffering.

Perhaps you have a different take; that's what I'm curious about.

"After placing Bahiya's body on a litter, carrying it off, cremating it, and building him a memorial, they went to the Blessed One and, on arrival, having bowed down to him, sat to one side. As they were sitting there, they said to him, "Bahiya's body has been cremated, lord, and his memorial has been built. What is his destination? What is his future state?"

"Monks, Bahiya of the Bark-cloth was wise. He practiced the Dhamma in accordance with the Dhamma and did not pester me with issues related to the Dhamma. Bahiya of the Bark-cloth, monks, is totally unbound."

Then, on realizing the significance of that, the Blessed One on that occasion exclaimed:

Where water, earth, fire, & wind have no footing:
There the stars do not shine,
the sun is not visible,
the moon does not appear,
darkness is not found.
And when a sage,
a brahman through sagacity,
has known [this] for himself,
then from form & formless,
from bliss & pain, he is freed. (Bahiya sutta)"

Staying on topic re: the unconditioned being unrelated to sense-experiences (during life).

What is 'unconditioned' is the non-abiding mind of nirvana, unborn, uncreated, free of opposites, beyond birth and death, existence and non-existence. But can we really talk about it, since it is not a think that can be known or seen? Where does an arahat go after death? The Buddha remained silent.

This, for me, is clear and beautiful. In very deep meditation of the "just sitting" variety one can get extremely still and find a certain "place" (that's my best approximate language) that is without sense input, without "movement" and at that point one realizes this luminous nature of knowing. It is the glow of the "CPU of the mind" as I conceptualize it. No input, no output, just pure mind. There is no time there, no space, no self, no referencing of any kind. Just pure mind. Knowing, without object. Consciousness, without object. Unconditioned. Timeless.

No wonder the Buddha remained silent.

"What is 'unconditioned' is the non-abiding mind of nirvana, unborn, uncreated, free of opposites, beyond birth and death, existence and non-existence. But can we really talk about it, since it is not a think that can be known or seen? Where does an arahat go after death? The Buddha remained silent."

I think there is nothing concrete that can be said about it, apart from denying concrete things that it is (e.g. seeing-hearing-smelling-tasting-touching-thinking or linked to them).

As you are interested in aligning various traditions, I wonder what you would say about this:

"All phenomena gain their footing in the deathless.
All phenomena have Unbinding as their final end."

Thanissaro Bhikkhu interprets this to mean that, at lower levels of enlightenment, nibbana is perceived as a phenomenon, whereas at arahantship, nibbana is seen to be the end of phenomena.

I don't know (as a matter of direct understanding) if this is true, but I personally take it on faith for now, and it matches some theoretical ideas I have. So, I have considered that when we talk about the purity and richness and unconditionedness (!) and etc. of phenomena, we are talking about nibbana perceived as a phenomenon (specifically, phenomena with a "footing" in nibbana). You have done an impressive job of explaining how this understanding is mirrored in other traditions. I wonder how other traditions mirror what Thanissaro says is the ultimate understanding, and what the Pali suttas seem to be talking about when they talk about parinibbana / the Unconditioned unlinked to phenomena. (I am confident that the Pali suttas don't have a monopoly on understanding this, but I don't know other traditions very well at all.)

"
This, for me, is clear and beautiful. In very deep meditation of the "just sitting" variety one can get extremely still and find a certain "place" (that's my best approximate language) that is without sense input, without "movement" and at that point one realizes this luminous nature of knowing. It is the glow of the "CPU of the mind" as I conceptualize it. No input, no output, just pure mind. There is no time there, no space, no self, no referencing of any kind. Just pure mind. Knowing, without object. Consciousness, without object. Unconditioned. Timeless.

No wonder the Buddha remained silent.

"

There is a state which some of us have aligned with sanna-vedayita-nirodha (9th jhana) which, as far as I can tell, has no sense experience, but yet an experience of some kind. (It is not the same as NS as has been described here; at least, it is not attained the same way as NS.) Do you think this is what you're describing?

Concerning my experience with this state, I have thought about whether this is what the suttas indicate by nibbana, and entertained the idea in the past, but at the moment I personally think it isn't.

Chris, if you are familiar with this state, please send me a private message if you have any suggestions on how to prolong it. (I can enter it at will, but only for a split-second.) I find it very useful in terms of development.

EndInSight, what I described is not Nirodha Samapatti and is not a jhana of any kind or level. The only coaching I can provide to you is to just sit frequently. Be aware and let go as completely as you can manage to do. Do not take an object. Drop all concepts, drop the following of sensory experience. Do not do anything. Just be.

"
EndInSight, what I described is not Nirodha Samapatti and is not a jhana of any kind or level. The only coaching I can provide to you is to just sit frequently. Be aware and let go as completely as you can manage to do. Do not take an object. Drop all concepts, drop the following of sensory experience. Do not do anything. Just be.

"

Chris, would you describe it in any way other than "no sense experience, no thinking, but yet not absolutely nothing"?

(EDIT: Alternatively, "no experience, no feeling, nothing that can be described or conceptualized or thought about or objectified, but yet still something.")

I agree that what I'm talking about is not a jhana (in the sense of a state that can be pointed to or conceptualized). It is not 8th jhana (though the linguistic description does sound similar).

Trying to see if we're talking about the same thing.

"
"All phenomena gain their footing in the deathless.
All phenomena have Unbinding as their final end."
"


Thanks, EndinSight. It seems impossible to describe it without falling into something that will sound wrong or silly.

But, yes, I can relate to this (if we are talking about the same thing). It is not that we find ourselves in a dark bottomless pit. Even when the senses are functioning, self and phenomena are somehow known to be non-arising, unborn and uncreated. There is the realization: "nothing ever happened", "there is no suffering, no end to suffering; ni ignorance and no cessation of ignorance; no path and no enlightenment". There is the realization that the sense of being, life and death are just temporary experiences that never really took place.

And yet there is the realization that everything continues to manifest. Nothing ever happened, yet everything continues to manifest.

Here again, Dogen expressed it beautifuly in his Genjokoan:

"As all things are buddha-dharma, there is delusion and realization, practice, and birth and death, and there are buddhas and sentient beings.

As the myriad things are without an abiding self, there is no delusion, no realization, no buddha, no sentient being, no birth and death.

The buddha way is, basically, leaping clear of the many and the one; thus there are birth and death, delusion and realization, sentient beings and buddhas.

Yet in attachment blossoms fall, and in aversion weeds spread."

Dogen sounds like he was a cool dude.

"Dogen sounds like he was a cool dude. "


I love his "yet in attachment blossoms fall, and in aversion weeds spread"

"
EndInSight, what I described is not Nirodha Samapatti and is not a jhana of any kind or level. The only coaching I can provide to you is to just sit frequently. Be aware and let go as completely as you can manage to do. Do not take an object. Drop all concepts, drop the following of sensory experience. Do not do anything. Just be.

"


So simple, yet so difficult. Thanks, Chris.

Getting back to the clear luminous nature of phenomena, the bright clarity experience during what some like to call "PCEs" is just that.

"
Getting back to the clear luminous nature of phenomena, the bright clarity experience during what some like to call "PCEs" is just that.


"

PCE = "all phenomena gain their footing in the deathless"?

The pieces are coming together for me...thanks, Alex.

I love me some Dogen.

I also love the term 'consciousness-without-an-object.'

Language always fails us. Lean too far in one direction, and we fall into eternalism. Wander off in the other direction, and we meet nihilism.

The language of awakening, therefore, finds its way into the form of a dialectic (e.g. the Dogen quote above, or Nagarjuna's verses).

The language used by a skillful teacher is used to steer one away from extremes, leading to direct knowledge of the way things are. I don't think it would be possible to settle the issue '“ the 'controversy' '“ once and for all. Again, this may be why the Buddha remained silent on the issue.

Awakening does not lead to annihilation. Yet, we can't say that it leads to apprehension of some 'thing', or the addition of some attribute or quality. Even to suggest the removal of something is to evoke a discussion about whether we can even talk about 'things' in an reliable way.

What remains in emptiness?

Isn't emptiness empty, too?

What remains when conditions 'wink out' (dying before death)? What's left when dualistic fixations cease?

Ultimately, nirvana is beyond concept. Though, personally, I think 'consciousness-without-an-object' is as close as it gets.

I would say, I take Thanissaro's interpretation as my guiding light at the moment, and so profess ignorance as to the ultimate nature of nibbana. I understand the luminousness of phenomena and the inclination to take these luminous self-perceiving phenomena which are craving-free and nondual as the Ultimate, and take that to be an intermediate perception which indicates that I am not an arahant. If I were to become an arahant, I expect I would have a different understanding...but, I also accept that this different understanding is inaccessible to me currently (for that reason), and so not worth worrying about.

But, hearing what others think is always worthwhile.

Just for the sake of clarification, I would like to make it clear that I never said that "these luminous self-perceiving phenomena which are craving-free and nondual are the Ultimate", if there could still be any ambiguity about that.

On the contrary, I said that what I used to take for an eternal, empty, uncreated, nondual, primordial awareness, source and substance of all things, turned out to be nothing more than the luminous nature of phenomena, themselves empty and ungraspable, somehow crystallized in a very subtle witnessing position. The whole topic of this thread is the deconstruction of this Primordial Awareness, One Mind, Cognizing Emptiness, Self, Atman, Luminous Mind, Tathagatgabha, or whatever we may call it,

As shocking as it may seem, the Buddha was very clear to say that this pure impersonal objectless nondual awareness (that Vedantists called Atma in Sanskrit, Atta in Pali) is still the aggregate of consciousness and that consciousness, as pure and luminous as it can be, does not stand beyond the aggregates.

"Any kind of consciousness whatever, whether past, future or presently arisen, whether gross or subtle, whether in oneself or external, whether inferior or superior, whether far or near must, with right understanding how it is, be regarded thus: 'This is not mine, this is not I, this is not my self.'" (Anatta-lakkhana Sutta).

What I realized also is that authoritative self-realized students of direct students of both Ramana Maharishi and Nisargadatta Maharaj called me a 'Jnani', inviting me to give satsangs and write books, while I had not yet understood the simplest core principles of Buddhism. I realized also that the vast majority of Buddhist teachers, East and West, never went beyond the same initial insights (that Adhyashanti calls "an abiding awakening"), confusing the Atma with the ego, assuming that transcending the ego or self-center (ahamkara in Sanskrit) was identical to what the Buddha had called Anatta (Non-Atma).

It would seem therefore that the Buddha had realized the Self at a certain stage of his acetic years (it is not that difficult after all) and was not yet satisfied. As paradoxical as it may seem, his "divide and conquer strategy" aimed at a systematic deconstruction of the Self (Atma, Atta), reduced to -and divided into- what he then called the five aggregates of clinging and the six sense-spheres, does lead to further and deeper insights into the nature of reality. As far as I can tell, this makes me a Buddhist, not because I find Buddhism cool and trendy, but because I am unable to find other teachings and traditions that provide a complete set of tools and strategies aimed at unlocking these ultimate mysteries, even if mystics from various traditions did stumble on the same stages and insights often unknowingly.

"Just for the sake of clarification, I would like to make it clear that I never said that "these luminous self-perceiving phenomena which are craving-free and nondual are the Ultimate", if there could still be any ambiguity about that."

I am sorry if I intentionally or unintentionally lumped you in with those who have made that claim.

(I have definitely made that claim in the past, but, on theoretical grounds, am not so sure about it anymore.)

"The whole topic of this thread is the deconstruction of this Primordial Awareness, One Mind, Cognizing Emptiness, Self, Atman, Luminous Mind, Tathagatgabha, or whatever we may call it,"

I would like to ask you a question about this...I am not sure I ever had a belief in such a thing (as an explicit view) in the past, so I am curious about how yours came about, as I have no personal reference for it. Was it from a temporary experience of the luminosity of phenomena that got distorted by the mind's dualistic tendencies? Or, was it some kind of ongoing change in perception related to technical 4th path? Or, are these two possibilities (a temporary experience, a permanent change) somehow not capturing how things were for you?

I first had experiences of non-dual awareness when the sense of self vanished completely, that lead me to conclude that this was IT. Later came a deeper insight revealed a deep layer revealing the unborn, timeless essence of the mind (certified as 'Satori' by Zen masters). The latter triggered a permanent shift that some call technical 4th path. I could then fully agree with Daniel Ingram's "True Self vs No-Self" chapter and his "A Simple Model", yet somehow kept the sense of being essentially a pure non-dual awareness that contains everything, yet is not a thing and is therefore empty. This luminosity had taken the form of a clear bright objectless impersonal consciousness that could, or could not, be called a True Self or a No-Self depending on what we mean by that, yet gave an impression of oneness and completeness. Since this did match the description of the highest realization of Zen masters, Advaita gurus, Dzogchen adepts (including Padmasambhava), I had no reason to look for anything beyond. All that was needed was to disembed more, getting more and more identified with this 'cognizing emptiness'.

And yet, there was still as sense of self. And yet, this was not the end of suffering. Collecting more and more evidence of deeper insights and high stages from various sources, I started to understand what I was missing. Gradually, I also started to realize that the Buddha, as well as Eihei Dogen the founder of the school of Buddhism in which I was ordained in 1997, had also been told that there was nothing beyond what their teachers had taught them. They nevertheless took the risk of losing their companions, colleagues and friends to deconstruct what they had all held as the absolute.

This is just the first step of a new journey, that it not about gaining anything, but only about seeing through finer and finer layer of delusion.

It seems that my case in not uncommon, especially for the yogis who have been influenced by the teachings and techniques focused on tracing awareness to its source. It appears however that some yogis (and Kenneth seems to be a good example) reach technical 4th path first to discovering primordial awareness on a later stage. Others, like Daniel it seems, flirted with it around 3th parth, and rejected it on a later stage. For some, both 4th path and primordial awareness came together, in a bundle. Finally, some yogis only experienced 4th path and moved on from there without any life changing experience of primordial awareness. This shows also that there is no universal map that applies for everyone, even if most people tend to go in the same general direction.