Diamond Sutra - Zen Exposition - Dispelling certain Zen and Buddhist Myths What exactly should Buddhism really

y be for the Buddhist Lay Practitioner Unless we clarify this matter Buddhism might be falsely presented to West as a panacea for their spiritual dearth. I dedicate this discourse to my spiritual sister Julie Boon and my sister Molly; both for allowing me to guide them slowly but surely by expedient means in the early stages to the stage now where they are awakened to the Truth that Buddha taught. This discourse was prompted by the 10 Zen wood prints depicting the boy cow-swain and the black cow which I found for sale recently at http://www.dharma.net/monstore/product_info.php?cPath=83_79&products_id=249 and that then reminded me of my contribution on a thread about the same matter entitled The 10 cows scroll painting/calligraphy some two years ago in http://www.asiawind.com/forums/read.php?f=11&i=163585&t=162726 and in turn that reminded me of a promise I made to Julie Boon some long time ago about expounding the Diamond Sutra to her. The discourse herein will therefore proceed at an advanced level, that is at the Zen Mahayana level, for both Julie and Molly have completed their course of studies on the Heart Sutra - refer http://www.usashaolintemple.org/chanbuddhism-heartsutratranslation/ and http://www.scribd.com/doc/61178184/Heart-Sutra-Lessons-1-11-by-Vincent-Cheok which was consolidated into one module by my friend in metta George Lim. At the advanced level, and as summed up in the Heart Sutra (The Prajnaparamita-Hrdaya Sutra), we must cast aside the expedient means taught by Buddha. Therefore we proceed on the basis that there are no Five Skandhas nor the Eighteen Senses Realm nor the Twelve Causal Links nor the Four Noble Truths nor the Eight-Fold Noble Path and also that there is no worldly wisdom or attainment of worldly wisdom or any of the other Paramitas in the Six Paramitas. Please refer to The Seekers Glossary of Buddhism Sutra Translation Committee of the United States and Canada Bronx New York as to what these terms mean. Prajnaparamita means "the Perfection of (Transcendental) Wisdom". The word Prajpramit combines the Sanskrit words praj ("wisdom") with pramit ("perfection"). The Prajpramit mantra at the end of the Heart Sutra - "Tadyatha Om, Gate, Gate, Paragate, Parasamgate Bodhi, Svaha!" is translated - Thus Om, Gone, Gone, Gone Beyond, Gone Well Beyond, Enlightenment *i.e. Awakened and Illuminated Transcendental Mind+, Hail! The Heart Sutra encapsulates or is the synopsis (a nutshell) of the Diamond Sutra. Refer to http://www.drba.org/dharma/vajrasutra.asp or to Describing The Indescribable A Commentary on the Diamond Sutra by Master Hsing Yun translated by Tom Graham Wisdom Publications Boston. From the title you might think that the sutra is illuminating like a diamond. That is not the meaning. The earliest known Sanskrit title for the stra is the Vajracchedik Prajpramit Stra, which may be translated roughly as the "Vajra Cutter Perfection of Wisdom Stra." But Vajra can also mean thunderbolt as well as diamond. I suggest that the spiritual wisdom knowledge that you gain in understanding the Diamond Sutra is like a thunderbolt that can cut through diamonds. But I wish you to Page 1 of 12

note that both the Heart Sutra and the Diamond Sutra are Prajpramit Sutras i.e. dealing with "the Perfection of (Transcendental) Wisdom" In summary the Diamond Sutra says that all worldly phenomena (as in lakshana in Sanskrit), including ourselves and all dharmas, are empty (as in nyat in Sanskrit) as we have learned from the Heart Sutra. The Buddha similarly ended the Diamond Sutra as follows And how should this sutra be taught to people? By not grasping lakshana, by remaining immobile in this consciousness. And why is this? All conditioned dharmas are like dreams, like illusions, like bubbles, like shadows, like dew, like lightning, and all of them should be contemplated in this way. That is, all worldly phenomena are nyat. All is but a dreaming! The exposition of the Diamond Sutra herein is therefore a further or more advanced exposition of the Heart Sutra as such. I will be doing my exposition in the abstract, i.e. from first principles, in the Zen tradition of explaining it by reference to life experience or seeking analogy in or inferring by deduction from the world or nature or phenomena around us. If there were to be a Buddhist theology or doctrine, there would be three subject headings Morality, Meditation and Wisdom, although the headings have a Buddhist meaning that is quite different from their ordinary Western or English meaning. Meditation would be like a twin-edged fulcrum connecting and balancing Morality on one hand and Wisdom at the other end. The side of the Meditation fulcrum attending to Morality I will conveniently call Mind Control (it is the side dealing with control of the monkey of the worldly mind and the five senses). The other side of the Meditation fulcrum attending to Wisdom I will conveniently call Contemplation. Morality here in a Buddhist sense is non-judgmental as it pertains to the Immutable Law of Karma or the Law of Cause and Effect. This is merely a metaphysical version of the universal quid pro quo principle in Physics; that every action has an equal corresponding reaction. Here in a spiritual sense every thought and deed of a sentient being has its equivalence in karmic consequence. Note that although we speak in terms of a human worldly mind as a matter of convenience, because we are dealing with human meditators; strictly in Buddhism we are dealing with sentient beings and their worldly self-ego consciousness in the dreaming; in contrast to the selfless transcendental consciousness that is outside the dreaming. Morality through the auspices of the Immutable Law of Karma and karmic residue and consequences (a) results in rebirths (in different realms and different sentient beings) and further entrapment in Samsaric circumstances and (b) impacts on a sentient beings spiritual capacity and capability, and thus its propensity to be awakened and illuminated in the transcendental mind; i.e.to awake from the dreaming so to speak. Wisdom is of course the spiritual wisdom that the Buddha is hoping we will understand and believe as the Truth and the Ultimate Reality through his sermon in the Diamond Sutra. Will we be jolted into awakening like a thunderbolt? That of course depends on our spiritual capacity and capability, and how adept we are at Contemplation. Wisdom therefore deals with the practice or cultivation of spiritual insight or spiritual intuition and the spiritual science of metaphysics.

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I like to reiterate that this is a discourse for the lay practitioner; and in line with my recent discourse http://www.scribd.com/doc/130992796/TRUE-BUDDHIST-LAY-PRACTICE-%E2%80%93-THE-MODERNBODHISATTVA-SAMURAI - for in Zen there are no Western type monks or priesthood as such. Buddhist temples are not really temples in the Western sense. In a Buddhist spiritual sense you go to a temple to contemplate where you become conjunct with the temple. But as the word contemplate suggests, and that is what Zen meditation is all about, you contemplate in the temple of your mind. Contemplation is a mental deliberation or occupation. Buddhism is about the mind-consciousness, both the worldly mind and the transcendental mind. Buddhism is esoteric rather than exoteric. The inert temple building is just an ornate imposing monolith or edifice of wood, bricks and mortar, with gilded wooden Buddha statues within. It is a worldly phenomenon or form. In short, it is outside of the you the body and mind! Buddhist contemplation is about contemplating the vagaries, uncertainties and unsatisfactoriness of worldly life and existence, about impermanence, about nyat, about the you - who and why you are what and where you are, and when you destined to be ripen to experience a spiritual awakening, about the Bodhi or Buddha nature in your mind-consciousness or transcendental mind. This is Buddhism in a nutshell. It is a self-journey or pursuit of enquiry to seek the panacea to ones unsatisfactoriness with being a mortal being and the uncertainties of ones faring in life, whether in love, health or fortune. Contemplation involves an active confrontation in the spiritual metaphysical enquiry, with the persistence of Niels Bohr or Albert Einstein. Yes! You have to be like a nuclear or quantum physicist; except you are involved with metaphysics rather than physics. Except you use spiritual intuition and insight, that is more like gut feeling or vibes, rather than academic scientific reasoning and theory. To get to understand spiritually the dreaming that Buddha described in the Diamond Sutra, you have to enquire about the metaphysical Big Bang - What were you or what is your Original Face before your conception by your parents? You have to enquire about the metaphysical Theory of Relativity and Duality (Binary Theorem) - What is the sound of One Hand clapping? Why is there yin and yang (ve and ve) (subject-object) (opposites) everywhere? Can there be an object without a subject? Would the object still be there if the subject is gone? Can there be form without emptiness? You have to enquire about the metaphysical Theory of Time In absolute terms, outside of the sun clock and the Gregorian calendar, when exactly was I born? When exactly did I grow up? When exactly was Jesus born or when did he die? When did the chrysalis become a butterfly? Why does it feel a million years when my lover is late? Is time subjective? If not when is the beginning, when is the middle and when is the end? Where is the present without the past or future for a reference? If there is a present, why is everything seen like a photo taken or heard of a moment just past? If the past present and future are disparate points in time why do I see as present stars that no longer exist? On the morning just before the Buddha achieved enlightenment, he saw the Morning Star and then he realised that what he saw was past lakshana!

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You have to enquire about the metaphysical Theory of Space - If you compute space by reference to matter, what if there was no matter? Can space itself be differentiated into different points of space? Is there an inner or outer space? How many dimensions has space then, 3D, 4D, a thousand D? How do you measure space? How big or small is space? Why did Buddha say that there are as many realms, (dimensions) as in space, of Buddha-lands, as there are grains of sands in the River Ganges, and yet they can all fit at the tip of ones fingertip (metaphorically meaning within a single mental thought)? Can space shrink and expand at will or do so at someone elses will? Who is that someone? Is space itself an artificial conception or perception if it cannot be quantified? Is space subjective? What we see as space another sentient being with infra-red or extrasensory eyes might see form! Does space have form or colour? If not why did the Buddha say that form is void and void is form? Why are some holy ones described as having coloured halos around them? You have to enquire about the metaphysical Theory of Matter Why did the Buddha say that form (matter) is empty, that when you keep breaking matter (form) down it is eventually empty of self? If matter is empty at the beginning, when does it become form (matter)? Is matter then only a subjective conception or perception? To rephrase, does matter as an object only appear when there is a subject? What if the subject is not a sentient being; i.e. has no spiritual consciousness? You have to enquire about the metaphysical Theory of Evolution Do dogs have a Buddha-nature? If not why is there a form of rebirth as animals? What is the significance of the 4 main characters in the Journey to the West being a human being, a monkey, a pig and a fish? If they are all travelling West to the sunset (metaphor for beyond death) out of the dreaming, who is the one really travelling West to the sunset, to the other (spiritual) shore? Is it just the man alone? Or, is it something that is inherent in all four of them, in a transcendental sense? If all four are travelling, what has worldly human knowledge got to do with this spiritual journey or with Buddhist practice? I rephrase, does a dog have a Buddhanature? Should not the spiritual journey then be without or beyond human words, if not all travelling are humans or possibly the ones travelling are not the superficial forms that they appear to have? Who then is this non-human travelling in transcendental consciousness and lost in the dreaming? You have to enquire about the metaphysical theory of Chaos What does the Buddha mean when he said we are all one and one in all [refer Huayen Sutra also commonly known in the West as the Avatamsaka Sutra]; and that a karmic action has an impact on everything else; metaphorically described as one reflection on a jewel in the Brahma Jewelled Net is simultaneously reflected in all the other jewels? What is this reflection, which can mean perception or thought energy of supraconsciousness? In Chuan Tzus Butterfly Dream; what if it was in fact the reverse, that it was the butterfly (as a sentient being) dreaming that it was Chuan Tzu the human being? If sentient beings are one and all with all other sentient beings; is not the human body or the butterfly body just different pieces of clothing or vehicles of travel? If there is mutual interdependence of one in all and all in one, is that mutual interdependence just within the dreaming or is it outside the dreaming? If it is relative (the mutual interdependence) only within the dreaming, is it the absolute outside of the dreaming? What is the absolute outside of the dreaming? One or Zero? Furthermore, if it is one in all and all in one, then is it not nonsense to talk of individual enlightenment? There is no such thing as (individual) enlightenment then? Is not that what ego versus egolessness is all about? Isnt that all about a certain Page 4 of 12

state or partial state of consciousness within consciousness at large? Does not that come down to egolessness dreaming it has an ego within the confines of the dreaming? Now that is Buddhism in action and it is certainly not passive! If Buddhism is a process of spiritual enquiry into the metaphysical to awaken to the transcendental mind as well as to control your karmic destiny, you cannot and must not shut off your mind. Meditation in Buddhism is about actively controlling the monkey of your mind; so that you can actively focus and spiritually contemplate as to how to (a) end the suffering of the unsatisfactoriness of mortal being and life and (b) awaken from the dreaming. When you contemplate spiritually, it does not matter what hat you are wearing, and whether you are a monk or lay practitioner, in this life, or were perhaps in earlier lives. Self-Enlightenment, the awakening and illumination of your mind-consciousness or transcendental mind depends on how far or the level you have reached in contemplation (i.e. spiritual capacity and capability) in this life and/or previous existence and lives. Zen centres are therefore more like spiritual retreats that you can come and go as it suits you like a time out place, to spruce up your spiritual capacity and capability. In Chinese we call it the Way Place *for Buddhism is about the Middle Way, a spiritual self-journey+; but a Way Place can also be a quiet room or a solitary hike up the hills or even a secret Zen garden for solitude and quietude. But once you are in control of your monkey of a worldly mind, you can contemplate or meditate undeterred any place anywhere, even among the din and cacophony of a crowded bazaar or market place. The Zen Master is just a spiritual tutor, a learned adviser. But like in real life there are different grades of Zen Masters, as one would have had by way of kindergarten, primary, high school teachers, and college and university lecturers or professors. They teach you but you are the one doing the learning. Do not be emotionally or physically or platonically attached to or be infatuated with the teacher. Close your eyes and listen with your ears. Buddhism is like that. It is about listening to the thought waves going through your mind. The six knots of illusion of the six senses sight, hearing, smell, taste, feeling and mind, of the self-ego, can only be untied or controlled within the mind. This is the Mind Control aspect of Meditation (the side dealing with the control of the monkey of the worldly mind and the five senses). Bodhisattva Avalokitesvara (Guanyin) tells us that Self-Enlightenment is through hearing to hear your Bodhi-mind or Bodhi-nature [refer to Part IV of the Surangama Sutra http://www.buddhanet.net/pdf_file/surangama.pdf ]. For you cannot see your Bodhi-mind or Bodhinature. It is formless! Hearing as used here is like listening to the thought waves, the spirit and substance and not the oral sound or form of words as such. The stars you see might already be nonexistent but the pulse of their radio waves as invisible black holes or dark matter can still be heard by sonar. The ego-self can never see the selfless. But if we trust and believe Bodhisattva Avalokitesvara (Guanyin), the ego-self can hear the selfless. To get from our self-ego worldly mind to our selfless egoless original state of mind-consciousness, our transcendental mind, we like radio astronomers have to listen for the pulse of transcendental mind in our long distant past, going back beyond the beyond, to many existences before. This is why Manjushri said to Ananda and the rest of the disciples in the Surangama Sutra Ananda and all you who listen here should inward turn your faculty of hearing, to Page 5 of 12

hear your own (Buddha) nature, which alone achieves Supreme Bodhi. That is how enlightenment is won. The teachers are the face and instrument of teaching; but the students and what they actually end up succeeding in learning is the foundation of education. It helps to have a good Zen Master but it is more important to be a good student. A good student will still get there to the post but a bad student will never get there no matter how good the Zen Master. So, focus on your own learning and meditation (mind control and contemplation) and on being a good learner rather than on how lovely or grandiose or ostentatious the temple or how illustrious or sagely or reverential the Zen Master is. If you have friends who are Buddhist monks [even if he is or were to be the Dalai Lama] who doubt what I say, tell them this; that all Buddhist Sutras have in main as an interpolator either Shariputra (who embodies wisdom among the Arhat disciples) or Manjushri (the Bodhisattva who embodies all the transcendental wisdom of all Buddhas) . But as clearly illustrated in The Vimalakirti Sutra, refer to http://www2.kenyon.edu/Depts/Religion/Fac/Adler/Reln260/Vimalakirti.htm or The Vimalakirti Sutra Translated by Burton Watson from the Chinese version by Kumarajiva Columbia University press New York the layman Vimalakirti surpasses Manjushri in wisdom. Vimalakirti also illustrates that letting go of self-ego and becoming awakened and illuminated in the mind-consciousness or transcendental mind has nothing to do with being a monk or that it might be inhibited or impossible to do if you are extremely rich and wealthy and living a luxurious opulent life or if you are married and have a family and have many servants or that you are tied up as a normal human being with your trade, profession or occupation. As propounded in the Diamond Sutra, Buddhism has nothing to do with worldly or conventional words, labels, assumptions or appearances. Tibetan Buddhism is good like that. It inundates you with tantric mandalas full of images of beautiful abstract designs and motifs or conversely grotesque deities and demons and bones and skulls until you are accustomed and untouched and impervious to and become equanimous to both the beautiful and the grotesque and treat all as Mara as illusions. Mara means many things in Buddhism [almost akin to Satan and Eve the Temptress in Christianity] but I prefer to see it as representing the aberration or dark side of the mind-consciousness that sneers and reviles the purity and egolessness of the supra-consciousness and blinds and steers and tempts and seduces it towards worldly sensuous and sensual desires and lusts and pride of self-ego and thus traps man in the bondage of samsara and the immutable Law of Cause and Effect. In other words, Mara epitomises the six knots of illusion of the six senses sight, hearing, smell, taste, feeling and mind - of the self-ego. The Westerner is either enchanted by or horrified by the Tantric Mandalas but the seasoned Buddhist practitioner will see it as another expedient means to achieve equanimity in the mind, for that is a prerequisite to transcendental meditation or contemplation. Equanimity in the mind is required for us to see beyond the conventional reality of Duality and Relativity in the Samsaric World, to enable us to see Ultimate Reality. For from the vantage view of Ultimate Reality of the Bodhi-Mind (the Transcendental Mind), the conventional reality of Duality and Relativity in the Samsaric World is just the dreaming, a delusion of the false self-ego. Mind you, the Buddha stated quite emphatically in the Diamond Sutra that the Prajnaparamita ("the Perfection of (Transcendental) Page 6 of 12

Wisdom") is not really such; that it is just the name given to it. It is like the yin in yin and yang realising that that the other is yang; but that realisation is not an enunciation of wisdom nor was there anything taught or was there to teach that enabled that realisation. We are therefore only dealing with SelfEnlightenment or Bodhi as a manner of expression. Ego-self and selfless, yin and yang, form and emptiness are to be taken in the same tenor as this is this and that is that without subjective configuration, characteristics or judgement or connotation. Conventional human language and words and terms are inadequate to express or conceive the inconceivable or describe the indescribable. Another myth to dispense with is that there is anything religious, sacramental or hermeneutical about Buddhism in a Western sense. Any Buddhist rituals, tenets or ethos are not authoritative or canonical as such, in a Western sense. Buddhism is about spiritual self-discovery, better described as spiritual intuition or insight. Buddhism is not a religion. There is no God or Creator in Buddhism. It would be a gross mistake for any Buddhist to defend Buddhism as a religion. That is why Buddhism should not be preached or proselytised. It defeats the whole purpose of an individual at his own volition seeking the Truth for himself through metta (loving kindness) and understanding nyat. Buddhism is in simple pragmatic terms, when you take away the appendages and embellishments of mysticism and mystery and eschatology and esotericism, a process of individual spiritual enquiry. More particularly, it is a mental process; and it therefore depends on your spiritual capacity or capability in a mental intuitive or gut feeling or sub-conscious transcendental sense. It has really nothing to do with worldly knowledge or intelligence or intellectual capacity or religious faith or devotion or morality or conscience or desiring happiness or an end to suffering or fearing and thus seeking salvation from death. But yet it helps if you have or possess these attributes or have experienced these values or feelings or emotions. For unconsciously these invocations, oblations, prayers, worship, prayers, devotion, adoration or veneration and reverence and submission to the monks, are expedient means whereby they degrades, subordinates or diminishes your self-ego. A self-ego I fear is better than a self-ego I do not fear. The former is closer to a selfless no I and thus a nobody with nothing to fear. However, the fidelity and quality of these invocations, oblations, worship, prayers, devotion, adoration or veneration and reverence and submission to the monks, if they are faithful and true will through karmic effect, effect a better rebirth and enhance your spiritual capacity and capability. Unlike a religion or a cult or faith or system in a Western sense, Buddhism is not to do with absolute values or parameters. If Buddhism is set in its values or rituals or norms or possess inherent characteristics that makes it exclusive or sets it apart then it is no longer Buddhism. There is no Churchlike hierarchy, no priesthood, and no judgment in Buddhism; in fact Buddhism has nothing to do with this world or this existence, as it is all an illusion, a dream or a dreaming. Otherwise the Bodhisattva Avalokitesvara (Guanyin) would not have said that there are no Five Skandhas nor the Eighteen Senses Realm nor the Twelve Causal Links nor the Four Noble Truths nor the Eight-Fold Noble Path and also that there is no worldly wisdom or attainment of worldly wisdom or any of the other Paramitas in the Six Paramitas. These essential and paramount Buddhist spiritual tenets or doctrines, together with sutras, mantras, mandalas, Buddhist chanting, Buddhist hymns, Buddha statues, stupas, Buddhist temples, josssticks, Buddhist rosary beads, Zen meditation and koans, bonsai, Japanese tea ceremony, origami, ikebana, tai-chi, kung-fu are all expedient means; like the rafts that take you across to the other Page 7 of 12

(spiritual) shore. Note that rafts are rafts! They have their intrinsic purpose and function. When you get across to the other (spiritual) shore you have to discard your raft! Its utility as a raft is spent! But there is another important element or problem in a self-journey of spiritual enquiry to find your Bodhi-nature. You have to be your own rower or steer your own raft! You have to travel yourself in this self-journey according to your own spiritual capacity and capability. This is why unlike Christianity you do not come equal at the starting blocks. In Buddhism the equaliser is provided by the immutable Law of Karma, the Law of Cause and Effect. Karma and karmic residue impact on your spiritual capacity and capability. In every existence in the World of Samsara, you have to learn from your own mistakes. You have to know bad to know what is good. You have to be burned once to know the danger of fire. You have to suffer the consequences or enjoy benefits to know what gives good or bad results. Buddhist awakening comes from self-experience. As one Zen Master said to his disciple I cannot pee for you. You have to experience it yourself. Buddhism has no fixed values or expectations for everyone are a potential Buddha, in the sense that all sentient beings (not just human beings) have a Bodhi-nature. The beauty and flexibility and accommodation that are inherent in Buddhism are reflected in the saying that an evil man can be your learned adviser, as he shows you what not to do. Your Buddhist journey is individual to yourself, you set your pace, you set the itinerary, and you chart your own course and you take your own time. There is no competition and no expectation. Like in a game of golf, you think you are competing with others but you are only competing or playing against yourself. Whether you pass or fail has nothing to do with whether someone else should pass or fail. In Buddhism you do not judge others. Your karma is your own making and yours alone. You are in sole control of your own karmic destiny. New Western Buddhist practitioners should concentrate solely on understanding the immutable Law of Karma in the first few years of practice rather than start straight on Zen meditation. It is very simple Good begets good and bad begets bad. If one were to sum up the two main ethos of Shakyamuni Buddha Gautama, it would be metta as in loving-kindness and nyat (Emptiness). It is obviously hard for a novice to understand nyat (Emptiness), but he can practise metta (loving-kindness of a mother for her child) immediately and thus gradually enhance his spiritual capacity and capability. I reiterate that essentially it is your spiritual capacity and capability that determines your potential success in making the self-journey to Bodhi. Thus in Buddhism you have to be yourself to understand yourself so as to know yourself and your spiritual capacity and capability. But of course it is more than that. For in spiritual terms in Buddhism you have to forget or lose your worldly self-ego self to find your spiritual selfless egoless self. It is like you have to die in the self-ego or ego self to live the selfless or egoless self; but since you are not dead but still alive, you have to be like the living selfless with a dead self-ego! If anything the journey across to the other (spiritual) shore is a metaphor for the journey from the ego self to the selfless that are both comprised in your sentient being. So, the Prajpramit mantra "Tadyatha Om, Gate, Gate, Paragate, Parasamgate Bodhi, Svaha!" which means - Thus Om, Gone, Gone, Gone Beyond, Gone Well Beyond, Enlightenment [Awakened and Illuminated Transcendental Mind+, Hail!, when applied in a present participle active sense to a lay practitioner, provides the requisite progressive stages of our Page 8 of 12

self-journey - Going, Going, Going Beyond, Going Well Beyond, Enlightenment [Awakened and Illuminated Transcendental Mind], Hail! When you begin your journey you are an egocentric being, you have a self-ego. When you get to the other (spiritual) shore and you awake to your illumine transcendental mind, you are then by definition of end-result selfless and egoless. Buddhism is about the self discovering the selfless. Do not misunderstand the Buddhist scriptures when they say that there is no self or soul. If there is no self then who is it who feels the pain when you pinch yourself? So there is a real worldly ego-self that is a mortal human being but that ego-self is also selfless in the indescribable inconceivable eternal consciousness. Let me explain. As a newborn child, one is selfless and ones mother exudes metta. The newborn child grows up and at some point develops a sense of a separate identity or ego of self and he then becomes embroiled in the six knots of illusion of the six senses sight, hearing, smell, taste, feeling and mind, of the self-ego; he becomes a slave to his senses. It is at this point that we are caught up in creating more karma in the Samsaric world. This ego-self is a false ego, an illusion. This is what the Buddha meant when he said in the Diamond Sutra By not grasping lakshana, by remaining immobile in this consciousness. And why is this? All conditioned dharmas are like dreams, like illusions, like bubbles, like shadows, like dew, like lightning He said the same thing about his own appearance in this world (that the Tathagata may not be perceived by lakshana), about the Bodhisattvas and Arhats (because they cannot be such if they have an I), about all sentient beings (that in reality there are no living beings); because all lakshanas are not in fact lakshanas but is a delusion. All are part of the dreaming. In Ultimate Reality there was nothing to be taught by Buddha nor were there any sentient beings to be saved! The Buddha said that we should not allow our mind to abide anywhere or on anything. He was of course referring to our ego-self and our self-ego mind and about the dreaming. Let us now dispense with the myth that Buddhism is passive. Our self-journey of self-discovery has to and takes place through our mind. We are active and not passive when we are - Going, Going, Going Beyond, Going Well Beyond, Enlightenment [Awakened and Illuminated Transcendental Mind], Hail! We are not sedentary or stationary when we have to go back in our mind to the time before we developed a separate self-ego, no longer identifying as one with ones mother. Meditation and contemplation are active nouns reflecting the verb of the activity rather than the appearance of a sitting rock with a comatose mind Any Zen master who teaches you to numb your mind till you think of nothing and eradicate every thought from your mind so that you are totally at inert repose is not a Buddhist. You will be reborn as a microbe on a cliff-face! Buddhism is like that. We are using our self-ego mind, if we can control and manage it through meditation technique, to go back in our mind in time when our mind was a selfless egoless mind. That is what going beyond means. That is why the Buddha said that we must not abide in anything or anywhere within our ego-self mind. We have to get out of the dreaming that is our ego-self mind. And going well beyond is when we are back where we were in our Bodhi-nature, our origin, even before our parents consummated. At that point one will be in a stage of meditation where the meditator is so lost in his meditating, lost in supreme samadhi, that he is egoless and has no consciousness of self. He is no longer lost in the dream world of lakshanas; where All conditioned dharmas are like dreams, like illusions, like bubbles, like shadows, like dew, like lightning. When you let go of the dream, you are then Page 9 of 12

awaken to your original Bodhi-mind or Bodhi-nature. Note that nothing in the dreaming goes outside the dream, when you awake from your dream. That is what the Buddha meant, when he said that lakshanas are nor lakshanas that is why they are called lakshanas. You are released from the dream-like illusions of transitionary reflections on a mirror and reverting back to the permanent reflectivity backing of the mirror. If the awakened and illuminated is not the false self-ego but the original selfless; and all lakshanas within the dreaming (whether they be Bodhisattvas or sentient beings or dharmas or goodness or charity or enlightenment) are not lakshanas but are only so called lakshanas, then obviously Buddhism is not a learning or an education (there being no teaching to be taught, nobody to be taught or anybody to do the teaching) or a philosophy or a kung fu like practice (for nothing is actually achieved). We therefore say, only as a matter of convenience, that Buddhism is about the awakening and illumination or realisation of your Bodhi-mind or transcendental mind. But what Buddhism is, is simply beyond human conventional words and labelling or language. As the Chinese would say it, if you can describe it, it is no longer the Tao (the Way). Buddhism is the Middle Tao (Way). Similarly Buddhism cannot be faithfully described. If you can put it in words it is no longer Buddhism. So the Zen doctrine of instantaneous transmission without words is only a myth. If Buddhism cannot be transmitted by words, then in the same realm it cannot be transmitted without words either. If there is no learning why speak of transmission? When Buddha held out a flower and Mahakashapa was the only disciple who smiled and indicated he understood; this was because he was the only one at that level of spiritual capacity and capability to see that he and the flower were one. That is not transmission; that is unilateral self-realisation! Both the flower and Mahakashapa are karmic consequences appearing in the same dreaming in time. In the Jataka Tales about the Buddhas 500 past lives (it could have been thousands but we describe 500 for convenience) on several occasions he rebirthed as rocks and plants. Maybe there is truth in the benefit of talking to plants! In our basic building blocks of karmic thought energy we are hardwired or hotwired with the same pulse of life despite the different forms or characteristics or lakshanas. All lakshanas are lakshanas, are forms, are phenomena and are empty in the nyat of the dreaming of the false self-ego. In the selfless we are all one in all and all in one; for in egoless there is no sense of differentiation of identity of self or form. [Refer again to the Huayen Sutra also known as the Avatamsaka Sutra for the Doctrine of All in One and One in All, commonly described as the Doctrine of the Brahma Jewelled Net (Brahmajala)]. I mentioned earlier that if one were to sum up the two main ethos of Shakyamuni Buddha Gautama, it would be metta as in loving-kindness and nyat (Emptiness). For the next Buddha to be the Maitreya Buddha, his ethos is said be the slogan Let Go. The historical Buddha of course also discoursed on not clinging to the Six Senses (the Six Knots or the Six Thieves) and not attaching to Ego of Self. Letting Go appears simple in principle but it is very difficult in practice. In Buddhas time many of his followers were not true followers but members of his family and royal retinue. Many of his ordinary subjects attached themselves to him even after he became the Buddha because he was still their Crown Prince. They were not really letting go. They were clinging to Buddha when he said in the Diamond Sutra that they should not see Buddha in a lakshana, in a human form. Buddha was trying to instil in them to see potential Buddha in themselves and not the Buddha in him alone. In modern times Page 10 of 12

Buddhist practitioners are not letting go when they see Buddha in the scriptures; particularly when Buddha said in the Diamond Sutra that dharmas are not dharmas and that is why they are called dharmas; and that he has nothing to teach or living beings to save. Monks are becoming monks thinking that is letting go when they have not really awakened to the requisite spirituality. Letting go is of the self-ego and not the home life! There are too many Buddhist monks parading around on their expertise on sitting in comatose under the coconut tree. That is not letting go. Letting go of the attachments or enticement or allurement of the Six Senses does not mean a vacant comatose mind. Meditation through mind-consciousness is negated when the mind is not acutely intuitively aware and active keeping watch on the Six Thieves. Buddhism being passive does not mean a passive mind. A passive mind cannot be alert. A mind that is not alert cannot be transcendentally wise. Not truly contemplating or meditating but clinging, praying, chanting and lighting joss-sticks to and making oblations in simple blind faith and hope to the Buddha in ones mind or the gilded wooded Buddha statues in the Buddhist temples is not letting go. Unless you let go of the raft you will not get to the other (spiritual) shore. Let go of everything that pertains to the dreaming of the ego-self so that you can awake as the selfless. Buddhism is about waking up from a bad dream! That takes us back to the starting point about the boy cow swain and the black cow prints. The boy is looking for his self-consciousness in a who am I? situation. First of all he looks for his infatuated selfego stubborn mind. This is represented by the black cow. The boy manages to rein in and control his self-ego mind. This is represented by the cow turning white. The self-ego mind turns out to be a mirage or an illusion or is empty as in nyat. This is represented by the cow disappearing from the prints. Then the boy realises that he is a self only in the same nyat or dreaming that the cow was in. The dreaming itself is empty as in nyat. Emptiness itself is empty! This is then represented by the boy disappearing from the prints. So nyat in the dreaming itself is empty. This is finally represented by the brush stroke CIRCLE or ZERO. If you contemplate deeper into the allegory of the boy and the cow, and ponder on the use of the cow as representing the self-ego worldly mind (and disappearing) and the boy as representing the alter ego sub-conscious spiritual mind (and disappearing), you must ask why? You must not stop asking why in your contemplation. Otherwise you are still stuck in the dreaming. You have to go beyond the beyond, to get off the dreaming. In Zen we say that when we get to the top of the 100 foot bamboo pole we have to have faith and believe that all is nyat, let go and jump into the void of transcendental consciousness. Let go of the world! Let go of the dreaming! Let me approach it another way. You have to decipher the nature of this dreaming esoterically, i.e. with a spiritual mind. It all comes to your level or depth of spiritual capacity and capability, your transcendental consciousness. This is why in Zen and Tantric Buddhism you need a good Master. I do not quite agree with this personally. I think it all goes back to the immutable Law of Karma and how you sow the seed to Self-Enlightenment in previous lives and existences. It is no coincidence that I am writing this and you are receiving my writing. Is not that what was described by the Buddha as one lit candle lighting up the flame of another candle? But who gets to be a candle?

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Earlier I made various references to a cow, dog, butterfly, monkey, pig and fish. In fact I asked the koan question Does a dog have a Buddha-nature? Ask yourself, if both a dog and a human are sentient beings, what is the difference between both of them, other than their bodily form? Could it be that as spirits (metaphorically speaking) that they have a different level or depth of spiritual capacity and capability or transcendental consciousness. Worldly evolution is also replicated in spiritual evolution in the metaphysical sense! The transcendental consciousness of a dog is not as developed as that of a human being within the dreaming. Does a dog dream? We have to assume that a dog or even a butterfly (as sentient beings) does dream in their limited or lesser spiritual capacity or capability. But that should not trouble us as each sentient being should work on its own Self-Enlightenment. It is a spiritual self-journey after all. When a worldly being is asleep and dreaming, the worldly six senses sight, hearing, smell, taste, feeling and mind, of his self-ego are turned off or on stand-by. But yet in his dream he can see new even futuristic things, hear new or futuristic sounds and smell, taste, feel in similar vein, until we get to his mind that can invent new things. In the Surangama Sutra, this is what the Buddha was trying to get his cousin Ananda to understand, and at that stage Ananda was so bewildered and confused, he was about to go mad that worldly seeing by the false worldly self-ego is not seeing; the seeing that is worldly seeing is not the same seeing by the Bodhi-nature seeing. If you wish to be awakened and illuminated in the Transcendental Mind, you have to do a role reversal. Hypothesise the worldly existence as the dreaming so that you can seek the Bodhi-nature that is doing the transcendental consciousness seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, feeling and inventing. The creation that is us and the world and the inventing that is scientific progress are all comprised in a dreaming of the Transcendental Consciousness! Metta. Vincent CHEOK Hong Chuan 7/5/13

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