Mind here and
now is Buddha, Part 2
(Soku-shin-ze-butsu)
What does the sentence “Mind here and now is Buddha” imply?
In the records of Master Daikan Eno the
false or at least improper teachings are
discussed – within the course of a dialogue with a traveling Buddhist
monk. Master Daikan Eno was highly regarded by Dogen and was given the
honorable title Great National Teacher Daisho.
In this context the traveller explains to
the National Teacher that Dharma teachers of the South state “Mind here and now is Buddha” only refers to the
consciousness, not to the body.
Thus mind and consciousness are being
equated and perceived as being separate from the body.
According to the teachings in the South,
the core feature of a consciousness of this kind are the representation of the
essence of seeing, hearing, perceiving and knowledge and above all knowledge.
It governs all actions - especially the
realm of thought - of a human being and is therefore called “true, all-encompassing
knowledge”.
This all-encompassing knowledge represents the Great Buddha himself and there is
nothing else beside it.
For this reason, according to the Srenikan
doctrine, this all-embracing knowledge represents the supreme and the essence
of the universe.
By comparison, everything else, such as
matter and the body, are marginal
and less important. The spirit and knowledge are immortal. After death, the
spirit leaves the physical body, just like someone who abandons his burned,
useless house, or like a snake, shedding its old skin and leaving it behind.
Hearing these explanations, the Great
National Teacher Daisho found his opinion confirmed that, in the South, a false doctrine of the Buddha Dharma was common.
He bemoaned the fact that students
of so-called masters were taught in this way and therefore were headed in the
completely wrong direction on the way to the Buddha Dharma.
For this reason the true Buddha Dharma
was lost in the South.
The true teachings of the Buddha Dharma
transcend knowledge, consciousness and
sensory perception such as seeing,
hearing, feeling etc.
We cannot go beyond the rigid limitations
of thinking and reasoning relying just on the rational mind itself or on our
sensory organs. We would not have access to the true Buddha Dharma.
That is why the doctrine of the South was
its own dubious wishful thinking and the subjective, one-sided belief of the local masters. The great universal truth,
taught by Gautama Buddha himself and the predecessors of Dharma, simply could
not have been grasped and understood fully by the teachers of the South.
As mentioned, Nishijima Roshi regards the
realm of thought and ideas as idealism and the realm of perception and sensory
stimuli as materialism. Looking at them individually, both philosophies are not
entirely wrong. But they cannot do justice to the wonderful diversity of life
here and now, as they are one-sided and one-dimensional.
He,
who aligns himself with one of the limited philosophies, won’t be able to escape the ongoing cycle of suffering and
superficial pleasures. He will just be holding onto a straw, which is not
reliable once you look at it closely. Therefore, Nishijima Roshi strongly advocates
a third life philosophy, namely the philosophy of acting in the here and now,
in the present moment. The fourth philosophy, in Buddhism regarded as the
highest one, already contains the three philosophies previously mentioned. But
it goes beyond them and is called
awakening, enlightenment or emptiness. On this level, the highest of all, there
is absolute unity and harmony in morality and universal laws.
