Daniel Ingram - Mastering the Core Teachings of Buddha - An Unusually Hardcore Dharma Book
Thus, even for pure concentration practice, what you are concentrating on, i.e. content, matters. Thus, the idea that content is everything is reinforced.
However, when it comes to insight practice, content will get you nowhere fast. In insight practice, everything the student has learned 106
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about being lost in the names of things and thoughts about them, i.e.
content, will be completely useless and an impediment. Here the inquiry must turn to impermanence, suffering and no-self. These characteristics must be understood clearly and directly in whatever sensations arise, be they beautiful, ugly, helpful, not helpful, skillful, not skillful, holy, profane, dull, or otherwise. Anything other than this is just not insight practice, never was and never will be.
It doesn’t matter what the quality of your mind is, or what the sensations of your body are, if you directly understand the momentary sensations that make these up to be impermanent, unsatisfactory and not self, then you are on the right path, the path of liberating insight.
However, as mentioned before, off the cushion the quality of your mind, your reactions, your words and deeds all matter. These are not in conflict. Insight practice is about ultimate reality, the ultimate nature of reality, and thus the specifics don’t matter. Morality and concentration are about relative reality, and thus the specifics are everything. Learning to be a master of both the ultimate and the relative is what this is all about.
Another reason that people don’t make progress is that they may be being taught by people who have no or little insight, and so are taught by those who are themselves fascinated by content and unskilled in going beyond this into insight practices. The scary truth is that there are far more people teaching insight meditation that don’t know what insight is than those that do, though this tends to be less true in big, established retreat centers. Thus, even if the students learn what they are taught, if those who do not know are teaching them, then what they learn is unlikely to be correct or helpful. While the teacher may have learned to parrot the language of ultimate reality, this is absolutely no substitute for direct knowledge of it. In the tradition I come from, they consider the second stage of enlightenment (Second Path, see Part III) to generally be the minimum level of understanding for a teacher. This is a very reasonable standard.
Another possible reason that people get lost and don’t follow the clear and basic instructions of insight practices is that they just can’t believe that doing something as completely simple as looking into the impermanence, unsatisfactoriness, and emptiness of the mundane 107
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sensations that make up their ordinary world could produce awakening.
It just sounds ridiculous to them, and thus they imagine that there are secret teachings somewhere that are the real way to enlightenment.
Thus, they may not try at all, may practice in their “own way,” or may keep trying to read more into the teachings than is there and come up with their own special nonsense. These unhelpful ways of speculating can become very engaging, but they won’t produce insight. These speculations can also lead to people trying to do very advanced practices that were originally designed for meditators that had already mastered concentration and insight practices to a pronounced degree (such as intensive Tantric retreats), and thus not deriving the full benefit from them or running into other problems.
How do I know that solely content-based practice won’t produce insight? Because there are only Three Doors to ultimate reality, that’s why, and they are utterly unrelated to content, though they can be found in all content if the content aspect is ignored. (Actually, there is sort of a fourth door that is accessible to very realized beings, see the Appendix.)
“Only Three Doors? But there are thousands of practices, many traditions! How can you say there are only Three Doors?”
There are only Three Doors, that’s how. I don’t care what tradition you subscribe to, what practice you do, or who you are, there are only three basic ways to enter into the attainment of ultimate reality, emptiness, Nirvana, or whatever you want to call it. These doors relate directly to profound and direct understandings of the Three
Characteristics of impermanence, suffering and no-self, and you have to understand the heck out of these to enter into the ranks of the Noble Ones.
“But there are many valid traditions that do not talk about the Three Characteristics!” It may appear so, but if the tradition is a valid tradition you will find these teachings in there somehow, in some other language or formulation, as these are the only way. You will find them in the works of Rumi, Kabir and Krishnamurti. You will find them in the Bible and Koran. You will find them in the writings of St. John of the Cross and many other Christian mystics. You will find them in all of the branches of Buddhism. You will find them in the Upanishads. You will find them in the writings of Carlos Castaneda. You will find them 108
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wherever you find a true spiritual path, and that is just all there is to it. It can help to consider that to completely understand compassion is to understand suffering and vice versa, as these are really two sides of the same coin. Also, to understand True Self practices is the same as understanding no-self practices, as these are also two sides of the same coin.
“But we are tantric practitioners, and the Three Characteristics are merely a low-brow Hinayana teaching.” Tantra primarily cultivates the emptiness door, that of no-self, which is one of the Three
Characteristics. It can also be useful for transmuting energy into more skillful forms, a bit of which will be discussed later. However, those who consider themselves to be mahayanists or vajrayanaists should read the fine print. You will find that all Three Characteristics are there, and in fact that you are highly encouraged to master the “Hinayana” practices before moving on to the Mahayana or Vajrayana practices anyway. I strongly suggest checking out Lama Yeshe’s Introduction to Tantra.
Further, the Hinayana is often confused with the Theravada, and while there are similarities, the Theravada is much more extensive than the Tibetan division of the Hinayana and contains extensive teachings on compassion and emptiness as well as helping others, but this is a topic for another time.
In short, should you enter ultimate reality or emptiness, it will be through one of the Three Doors. This is just the way it is. It is not negotiable. The nature of the mind and reality are just the nature of the mind and reality. You cannot change this, but you can understand it.
“But we are Zen students. We realize Buddha Nature! We don’t need the Three Characteristics, as we sit zazen!” Read any good book on Zen, such as those by Dogen, Chi-nul, or the excellent Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind, by Shunryu Suzuki. The Three Characteristics are in there in abundance, and those who think they can enter ultimate reality in some other way are fooling themselves. Paying direct attention to bare reality with clarity and precision will result in directly observing the Three Characteristics regardless of whether or not you wish to call them that, as they are absolutely the truth of all conditioned things in all times and in all beings.
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Thus, the practice, tradition, and all of that, i.e. content, are irrelevant in the end. However, you need them right up until the last moment, so don’t think that I am advocating not following a tradition. I am just advocating actually following the tradition correctly and thus clearly penetrating into the nature of your actual experience just as it is.
Nothing helps in the end but understanding the fundamental nature of reality, i.e. the Three Characteristics.
It may often be true that people simply are not in a position where insight practices are appropriate for them. Insight practices are not for everyone. One of the clear marks of whether or not they are
appropriate for someone is their ability to even do them in the first place. If despite clear instructions and appropriate support a would-be insight meditator is simply unable to do anything but spin in content and fixation, they should try something else until such time as they can hear, understand and then follow the extremely basic but specific instructions of insight practices.
The last and perhaps most pernicious of the reasons that students don’t really apply themselves is that they don’t actually believe it can be done, that they could actually get enlightened or that anyone else except a rare few get enlightened. Further, if they do know of an potentially enlightened person, such as a lineaged teacher, that person typically becomes thought of as being “other,” an aberration, one of “those over there,” one of the chosen ones, and somehow surreal, like an imagined demi-god.
This has been a terrible problem since the very beginning of all mystical traditions, and is unfortunately unlikely to go away any time soon. Part of this is due to the “Mushroom Factor,” but there are many other complex reasons for it. Suffice to say, it can be done and is done today by students using these simple practices. Find someone enlightened who is willing to talk more about this if you want specific examples, and see the chapter called More on the “Mushroom Factor.”
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16.A CLEAR GOAL
Many of the possible reasons for why people can get so into
“Buddhism” in every way except clear, well-defined, focused and precise practice are directly related to a lack of a clear goal. If you have no clear idea of what you want or why you are doing something, then the results are likely to be just as murky, vague, and fragmented. Why are you doing all of this? This is a very important question.
People may wish to go on a retreat and have the whole thing be relaxing and blissful. This can actually be attained temporarily if they then gain some mastery of concentration practices, though their clarity will almost certainly shatter the instant they leave the retreat, as concentration practices produce no long-term stability on their own.
However, they may think that they wish to get enlightened by doing insight practices. Insight practices involve hard work and clear, non-anesthetized examination of suffering, among other things. Thus, these two goals of maintaining bliss and developing insight simultaneously are in direct conflict, and the student’s practice will surely be conflicted.
This is just one of many possible examples.
Having a clear goal is absolutely fundamental to the practice in more ways than may be initially obvious. In fact, if you understood your actual reality right now clearly enough to get to the root of why you were doing all of this and where all this motion of mind comes from, you would be highly realized. You would penetrate to the heart of compassion and suffering, of ignorance and emptiness, and be finally free.
I do not write this lightly. It is completely vital that your motivation be as clearly understood as possible as it actually is and that all of its energy be channeled into realizing you goals. Wishy-washy practice brings wishy-washy results, and determined, well-guided, brave, and wholehearted practice may bring the desired results.
Knowing what is possible helps, i.e. what each of the trainings can and cannot accomplish. I will spell out the details of such things in Part III. The specifics of our goal may change with time as we become more familiar with the realities of these, but the core motivation for all of this never changes. That is quite a statement, given that all things are impermanent, and about as big a hint as can be given. Whatever
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ultimate truth you want on the spiritual path is to be found in the sensations of the wanting itself.
Thus, don’t look out there except to find wise guidance about how to look inward, for what you are looking for is “nearer than near.” It is in the looking. It is in the motivation. It is in the suffering, which is why this was the First Noble Truth that the Buddha taught. He went right for the heart of the thing. It is in the question itself, which is why koan training can work. The experience of the question contains the answer to the content of the question. It is in the undying love that drives our every wish for happiness.
Strangely, the process of creating the illusory sense of a self arises out of compassion, but confused compassion, which is desire. This may sound odd, but it is as if there was an eddy in reality that befuddled empty and compassionate awareness, which is not a thing nor separate from things. Thus, somehow it seems that there is something to defend, some separate self that must be protected. Thus, out of confused compassion, barriers and defense mechanisms continue to be erected to defend this territory, this illusion of a separate self. Spiritual practices are designed to systematically debunk this illusion and penetrate these barriers by providing clarity, whereas all of the traditions can easily become part of these barriers, cultures to defend, knowledge to assume is self or owned by self, and that sort of thing.
It is as if reality got caught in an unfortunate loop, and this is what we have to work with, as this loop of illusory duality thinks it is us. The natural tendency, given “our” lack of clarity, is to continue to defend this
“self” out of compassion and a lack of understanding that there never was such a thing. This defense and identification is the process of ego.
Interestingly enough, all of the phenomena that make up this process, i.e. all of the “defilements,” are themselves empty, intrinsically luminous and non-dual, though they seem otherwise by their own contrivance.
Teachings such as “you are already enlightened, but you have yet to realize it” point to this (see Moon in a Dewdrop, The Writings of Zen Master Dogen, edited by Kazuaki Tanahashi, for a particularly profound discussion of the uses of this dangerous point of view). Thus, realization is not something created but instead is discovered as being an intrinsic aspect of phenomena.
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Thus, with enough stability and clarity (concentration and wisdom), this natural, compassionate process of manifestation can begin to function more skillfully, as it has better information to go on, and can begin to see that creating the illusion of a separate, permanent self was not at all helpful (though it seemed to be). At this point, “it” will then let go of the illusion it has been perpetuating and return to understanding its natural state, which is freedom and non-duality.
This is something that absolutely cannot be accomplished by an act of will. It only arises when the level of clarity is high enough and the heart accepting enough of things as they are. One might say that Grace favors the well-trained mind. The pronounced tenaciousness of this process of defending an illusory and arbitrary “self” demonstrates clearly just how much compassion and how much confusion there is in this. Work to see clearly so that the knot may begin to untie itself.
I include all of this in the section called “A Clear Goal” because the very sense of a drive to find something is actually the thing it is seeking.
