Y Series - Eyeball
63 – Eyeball
I have been attempting to complete the Treasury of the True Dharma Eye, Zen Master Dogen’s work from the Shobo Genzo for about a year now. Granted, moving to Japan, starting a PhD program and just generally having a lot of requirements means that I can accept the slow pace, but I find myself needing to lean on more philosophical discourse lately and have increased the study attempts.
It’s a slog.
The Zen Master is a quintessential Zen master. Nothing but riddles and contradictions to stretch your brain and disrupt operating mechanics. He is difficult. Which is probably why I appreciate him.
I started reading this after my second failed attempt to join a sangha, which is the primary form of community study/worship associated with Buddhism. As a rather hard-core lay person, I am supposed to rely on my peers and a teacher for guidance in the sangha. But, unfortunately, all I found was hypocrisy and stumbling blindness. And I can do that on my own.
The mysticism of Tibetan Buddhism is too much for me. It relies heavily on the past practices of shamanism and local Tibetan folk cultures that are profoundly alien to me. I cannot read the Pali sutras with anything approaching interest, as they, too, seem focused on Brahmin traditions long dead. But Chan…Chan is something a little more interesting.
Born in China in the sixth century AD, it grew from Confucian and Daoist principles that were less focused on deities and spirituality and more focused on nature and physical laws. Structures that were already present in daily life. The faith was not focused on believing in hells and spirits and dragons (though those do exist and I love it), but more for the examination of the universal order. The structure of life itself. Very science-like.
And I love science.
So, after several hundred years in China growing from this rich humus of natural order, it made its way to Japan and changed its name to Zen (which is obviously a much prettier word– which is why we know it better). The Japanese stripped it down to bare bones spirituality. They removed much of the instruction, structure, and ‘heart’ of the Chan in their quest to plumb the depth of the human psyche. Zen is, as a result, very difficult. It takes for granted all the centuries of structure and learning built on Pali, Tibetan, and Chan systems and dives right into the mysterious bits. The student is supposed to arrive at enlightenment spontaneously, though more physical means. And they are supposed to experience the emptiness of truth directly – no study can bring the Zen student the kind of enlightenment and understanding that the Tibetans have crafted the path to so carefully. In Zen, there is not really a path so much as a cliff you either jump off or not. And though it ostensibly claims ties to the bodhicitta of Mahayana Buddhism (loving kindness for others, so that masters do not go directly to Buddhahood/enlightenment, but rather stick around to guide others), there is a profound ‘self’ orientation more consistent with the Arhats of the Pali tradition (where achieving enlightenment of the self is the highest goal. Everyone has to take the journey themselves and that once you hit Buddha-hood, you don’t need to stick around to make sure all other sentient beings make the grade).
This is an interesting conundrum for the religion. We are supposed to seek freedom for all sentient beings, but you have to be very self-focused to reach your own enlightenment – to ‘jump off the cliff’ and embrace the emptiness before you can guide and lead others. And Zen makes it tricky in that they don’t tell you where the cliff is, how/if you can even jump it, what’s at the bottom, or any of the structures that other Buddhist forms spend a lot of time making the student memorize and ‘discover’ for themselves. Zen is very much a fan of just letting students hop off rocks and random ledges to see what happens. While annoying, I do find myself rather drawn to the whole ‘try it and see’ method. Especially when no one knows what will actually happen to my brain when doing some of these methods.
One of my teachers (several, actually) mentioned that falling into emptiness of samadhi (really thinking about nothing. No, not what you do when you sit quietly and tell yourself you’re thinking about nothing. Not existing anymore. Seriously. It’s a trip.) is actually dangerous. That the student can ‘fall’ into the bliss of non-existence and not come out again. Now, there’s a legend that if you do this, you get reborn into another plane of existence which I have interpreted to mean that you get reborn as a rock, tree, bolt of lightning, or something natural and self-organizing, but that’s an internal interpretation. There’s also a legend that if you embrace enough of the meditations, achieve samadhi, etc. or conversely, samsara, you can be reborn as a godling, dragon, or demon. This also intrigues me.
My life so far has been an experience in being ‘other.’ I do not feel particularly human. Never have. Most humans confuse and annoy me and, since achieving sentience, I have been inclined to reduce time spent with them because of the abrasive nature of their personalities on my software. But the idea of being human, yet not-human and trapped on a plane of existence that is just diagonal to the parallel of what others experience is very, very interesting to me, partially since that is one of the hallmarks of the Zen ‘cliff.’ There’s even a whole book of koans to help define this mind-altering opportunity in the Blue Cliff Record. Coincidence? I think not. Alienation is one of the greatest tools in flinging yourself off the edge into enlightenment.
So. Back to Treasury of the True Dharma Eye.
Today, we are reading about the Eyeball. As we know, Avolakitasevara has a million eyeballs on a million hands, so he/she can see all the suffering of the world’s sentients and provide vision and compassion to them. So that’s a little context of why Dogen might have chosen this lecture. Anyway. He begins:
Upholding study through a billion eons and turning it into a ball is eighty-four thousand eyeballs.
When Rujing, my late master, Old Buddha Tiantong, was abbot of the Ruiyan Monastery, he ascended the teaching seat and said:
Autumn wind clear, autumn moon bright.
Earth, mountains, and rivers reveal an eyeball.
I, Ruiyan, glance with this one eye and encounter you.
Alternating the stick and shout, I test the patch-robed monks.
In this way, all-illuminating study is to ask for an eyeball. To engage in the endeavor of the way in the cloud hall, to get to the dharma hall, to enter the hall for sleeping, are all asking for an eyeball. To join the assembly as it arrives and to join the assembly as it leaves is no other than asking for an eyeball. It is clear that the eyeball is not self, and not other.
What Yunyan [story of Koan, not included here] showed is that an eyeball asks for an eyeball, water draws water, and mountains flow to mountains. His statement is an expression [of compassion] for us to journey among other types of beings and to be born among the same type of beings.
Buddhas in the past, present, and future stand and listen to the eyeball turn and expound the great dharma wheel. Inside the chamber of investigating thoroughly, buddhas leap into the eyeball and arouse aspiration, engage in practice, and realize great enlightenment. This eyeball is neither self nor other. As it has no hindrance, these great actions are without hindrance.
A wild fox spirit hides in grass for six years,
Leaps—its entire body is twining vines.
Smashing the eyeball, there is nothing to seek.
Deceived, people call it enlightenment at the morning star.
When Gautama’s eyeball is smashed
Plum blossoms in snow, just one branch,
Become thorn twigs, here, right now.
Laughing, spring wind blows madly.
Great rain keeps pouring.
The great clear sky is wide open.
A toad sings and an earthworm murmurs.
An ancient buddha has not left,
Raising a diamond eyeball.
Damn! Twining vines, twining vines.
The sun is in the south, the day is longest.
Within the eyeball there is illumination.
Within the nostrils there is exhalation.
This morning marks the first day of the second month.
The whisk pulls out the eyeball.
This is as clear as a mirror,
As black as lacquer.
It rushes to leap and swallows the universe—one color.
Yet my disciples hit the fence and hit the wall.
What is it?
Exhaust your thinking and burst out laughing.
Ha ha! Leave everything to the spring wind till nothing is left.
-presented to the sangha at Yamashi Peak, Echizen Province, on the seventeeth day, twelfth month, the first year of the Kangen Era (1243).
There is more, obviously. But here is what I think of when I read this lecture.
The eyeball is the image of clear sight and compassion. It’s the picture of true sight of samsara and the nature of reality. To smash the eyeball is to stop seeing with the senses and to instead see everything. To lose attachment to that clear sight, to that illusion of achievement. Once the ‘goal’ is smashed, then the student can properly study. Hence, the plum blossoms start to bloom. Letting go of the goal and of the destination – the attachment of one thing allows something new to blossom. In the poem, this is the blossoming of the spring wind, changing flowers to thorns. It is not bad, it is not good, it is what must happen through joyful effort and part of the enlightenment process.
As this process continues, the student has to be part of the rain. The sky is clear – there is no limit to the understanding that is possible, but there are always clouds and weather (events) that hide that understanding in the present confusion. The great rain will pour during this time. It is the way of everything. There is no need to fight against natural events or judge them. The toad sings. The earthworm murmurs. The rain feels good. There is no need to see or to strive for anything. An ancient Buddha has not left – the Buddha nature, the enlightenment is still there. The understanding is always there, no matter what the weather is like. What you thought you smashed was just an image of an eyeball. The diamond eye is not something that can be smashed. It is not something that can be seen. It is the process underneath all things and can cut through the rain and hold everything together.
Twining vines wrap around themselves, twining vines grow and tangle, twining vines grow in the rain. They are the samsaric vices, but they are also the opportunities we have to reach new heights. Living things grow and suffer, enlightenment is seeing that the growth must be tempered by cutting down, tangling and untangling are both the goals of cutting free of the worldly requirements and living within them. This is the nature of being a Buddha – to both live in the world and not live in the world. To see the clarity that others can’t, even when you are beaten, cast out, cut apart – the diamond eye will still show clearly what is. Buddha’s are caught in the vines, just like everyone else. Only they can easily uncut what twines around them and guide the growth of the vines, not just tangle in their midst.
The sun is in the south. When the days are long and there is nothing but light, you can easily see what is happening. The rain stops in the heart of the summer. There is nothing but the light. That is the illumination of the diamond eye. It is so simple to see things clearly as they are, but so difficult. When these difficult things wrap a Buddha up, try to tangle or obscure things through lies, anger, greed, or attachment, the Buddha exhales. A simple act, done completely, can reorient the clarity of sight back into what is real, what can be changed and what needs untangling. There is nothing more complicated or simple than this moment of clear understanding and refocusing. Those that don’t understand this, who don’t remember the teachings, hit the wall. They fall back into the vines or drown in the rain. It is a choice for each of us, what color we want to paint the universe. When we stop painting colors, or making judgments, or grasping after false ideas and ego-driven nonsense, our thinking is exhausted and we can see things clean. The spring wind blows away all of the extra, all the trash that we colored into our expectations and egos until there’s nothing left. There’s just…what is…simple. A simple breath, in and out, can be the spring wind and restore clarity and compassion.