Buddhist Ethics and Modern Dilemmas
Spring 1993 Vol. 9 #2
Spring 1993 Vol. 9 #2
The Fall 1992 issue of Inquiring Mind (Volume 9, Number 1) prompted more response from our readers than any other issue in the history of this journal. The theme of the issue was “Teachers of Non-Duality,” and featured articles about Advaita master Hari Lal Poonja, Tibetan Dzogchen teachers Chagdud Tulku Rinpoche and Lama Surya Das, and nondenominational dharma teacher Toni Packer, originally trained in the Zen tradition. Our journal ordinarily covers the ideas and practices of vipassana teachers of the Theravada tradition, but as editors we felt that it was important and timely to examine these other Eastern wisdom schools, especially because a number of vipassana teachers and senior students had gone to sit and study with Hari Lal Poonja and various Tibetan Dzogchen masters. We first sent out a questionnaire to people who we knew were investigating these other teachings, asking them to compare the perspectives and practices they were learning with the Theravada and vipassana approach to the dharma. However, since several people felt that our questionnaire invited a kind of invidious comparison, we decided to drop the idea of presenting a forum, and instead asked people to simply describe their experiences in these other traditions. Our primary intention throughout was to present some of the teachings of non-duality outside of the vipassana tradition, to examine the resonances among different schools, and to question the nature of the distinctions between them. Furthermore, we hoped to inform our readers about the current themes of exploration undertaken by some of the vipassana teachers. We welcome the vigorous dialogue prompted by this issue, and we encourage continuing discussion on any and all topics that arise in Inquiring Mind.
—The Editors
The way in which several people framed their discussion of non-dual dharma seems to me to miss the essential point. The Third Zen Ancestor expressed this very clearly when he said: “There is one dharma, not many. Distinctions arise from the clinging needs of the ignorant.”
Freedom and compassion are the reference points of all practice. Everything else is skillful means. There are many experiences along the way. As soon as we take a stand any place at all, thinking, “This is it,” we have already overshot the great jewel of Emptiness, creating yet another sectarian view.
One Dzogchen teacher voiced what I think is true for all traditions, practices, techniques and views. He said, “Unless the practice of Dzogchen [or vipassana or Zen] cools the fires of greed, aversion and ignorance, it is worthless.” This is the measure of everything we do.
And all Buddhist traditions talk about the need for practice. There is a wonderful story of Milarepa, the great Tibetan yogi. It seems that at the end of his life Milarepa took his foremost disciple to a remote mountainside in order to transmit the most secret teachings. With great reverence and devotion the disciple requested the transmission. Milarepa then bent over, exposed his backside, and pointed to the leather-like calluses that had developed from his years of sitting.
I think this pointing-out instruction is particularly relevant to us in America, where we seem to have a penchant for the “quick fix,” even in spiritual practice. Intimations of freedom are not liberation. They can either inspire us further or lull us into complacency. It is up to us.
What is truly wonderful about dharma in the West is the opportunity for practitioners of all traditions to meet and learn from one another. Each of the great traditions, Theravada, Zen and Vajrayana, have so much to offer. As the Buddha said, the dharma has one taste, the taste of freedom. This is what it is all about.
Joseph Goldstein
Insight Meditation Society
Your Fall issue headlined what at first appeared as an open and inviting forum featuring non-dual and vipassana dharma practices. What a wonderful way to serve the dharma: the Journal of the Vipassana Community editorially hosting and honoring various traditions of practice. Understanding sister schools and different dharma traditions can foster respect, cooperation and appreciation not only of other valid vessels of liberation teachings but also of one’s own tradition. After all, perhaps the subtlest and most insidious of all forms of attachment, hatred and delusion lies in spiritual tribalism or chauvinism.
Just the other day at the IMS three-month retreat the following question came from a student: “Given the present reality in our world of tremendous strife and friction rooted in religious conflict, what is the Buddha’s wisdom in relation to other traditions and practices? How do we guard against Buddhist and religious chauvinism?”
As we read through the Inquiring Mind columns an adequate answer to the young women’s poignant concern felt lacking; something seemed considerably imbalanced. We discovered erudite words were expressed, but it was difficult to see the wisdom in them. Comparisons were made (between non-duality and vipassana practices), but they seemed sharp, and we found it hard to experience any compassion in them. Both an editorial tone and an undisguised slant from some of the teachers and students revealed a somewhat naive attitude: a clutching toward their own and disparaging of others’ practices. It does not speak well in response to the above student’s earnest and weighty question.
How do we guard against religious chauvinism? Perhaps your issue has done the community a favor in displaying the very prejudice and pride that, hidden behind the cloak of “liberation spirituality,” is ripping the planet apart. Our vulnerability to such spiritual narcissism tends to weaken faith and confidence in the very practices that are intended to liberate. It’s five minutes to midnight; the world urgently seeks adequate leadership and guidance through a very dark time in human and planetary history.
We are called upon to heal the insecurities that breed presumptuous self-assessment and perpetuate self-aggrandizement; to see through the conceit of uncaring critical comparison and attachment to one’s view or path. Without including this in our practice we wonder if genuine spiritual maturity is not made difficult or impossible.
The meditation student’s question challenges us to transcend these spiritual tribalisms. She sees no point in following religious or Buddhist traditions that fail to actively purge their own house of divisive attitudes and intolerance, and instead wisely steward kindness, understanding and service.
Understandably, we might be quite enthusiastic about our chosen tradition(s) or teachers. Yet it seems to us that, as one’s path of healing and awakening becomes grafted into our hearts, all of us, from all traditions, are enlarged by greatness. Greatness not of our respective practice or even of our teachers, but from its fruits: the embodiment of balance, inclusive compassion and respect of other people’s practices.
An ancient aphorism from the Hawaiian elders of Molakai mountains is a powerful teaching of human spirituality: “Even if you don’t believe it you can respect it.” What refreshing gratitude for the gift of liberating dharma teachings.
Becoming one with our path, the path becomes quite transparent. One simply radiates kindness, walks the earth as a truly joyous one and is appreciative of the earth’s teachings. Such a one has no need to put other paths down. What is human spirituality for, if it does not break down the barriers and benefit all beings? This is the teaching of the Buddha and all wise women and men throughout history.
Michele McDonald-Smith and Steven Smith
Insight Meditation Society and Vipassana Hawaii
I enjoyed your issue on non-duality, and its willingness to grapple with “profound” dharma questions. In spite of some discomfort, such questioning is a healthy sign among our teachers and our community. Although the editors clearly tried to balance a number of viewpoints, I regret that it may not have been clear that many senior vipassana teachers, like myself, have sought to teach insight meditation from a non-dual perspective.
The real question has never been about vipassana versus Dzogchen and Advaita. It is about how we can best foster awakening and the unfettered practice of awareness. It is interesting to note that every vipassana teacher who contributed their experience with Advaita/Poonja or Dzogchen (Anna Douglas, James Baraz, Howie Cohn, Sylvia Boorstein, Sharda, myself and others) is still teaching vipassana and deeply committed to presenting it informed by a non-dual perspective.
Kedarnath’s very thoughtful article also makes many good points, particularly in discussing the subtle distinctions between anatta and sunyata, and articulating how vipassana can by used to maintain a dualistic perspective. However, he uses one major assumption that stands to be corrected when he equates his training in the Mahasi Sayadaw system with vipassana as a whole. It is true that Burmese Mahasi teachers do present vipassana as a goal-oriented, subject-object practice. But Mahasi practice is only one of fifty ways to do vipassana. And even Mahasi practice can be taught, as I and others have shown, from a non-dual perspective. There are other great Theravada masters (from Achaan Chah and Buddhadasa, to Maha Bua and Achaan Thong Rath) who have much of the spirit of Dzogchen and Advaita in their approach. Many western teachers like Christopher Titmuss and Christina Feldman have also presented vipassana as a non-dual way of practice.
But we should not get too caught up in the non-dual vision either. The Third Zen Patriarch warns us, “Although all duality comes from the One, do not be attached even to this One.” True practice must offer freedom in both the realm of the absolute and the relative, in the universal and the personal, otherwise we will not be truly free.
Jack Kornfield
Spirit Rock Center
While appreciating your openness to pursue your theme of non-dual approaches, we were nonetheless concerned both about the appropriateness of some of the material included and the way it was expressed.
There was a somewhat one-sided tone to the issue: a tendency not simply to describe the Dzogchen and Advaita practices, but to want to compare them favorably with other approaches—notably vipassana. In some pieces this gave the sense that a kind of competition was taking place (i.e. non-dual practice versus developmental practice). In addition to the odd fact that the “Journal of the Vipassana Community” should be so keen on such self-flagellation, it struck us as a charmingly dualistic way of administering the blows.
Given that this debate is one that has bedeviled the Buddhist community for centuries (cf. gradual versus sudden enlightenment in Zen), we would have hoped for a more balanced approach, one which respected the diversity and complexity both of human consciousness and the ways in which freedom, wisdom and compassion can be realized through the spiritual paths available.
At different times and different places, all these spiritual approaches (and many more) have been effective in a variety of ways. What matters is the degree to which people are able to free themselves from attachment, hatred and delusion and to manifest a life which embodies equanimity, compassion and wisdom. Can you honestly say that any tradition has had more or less success in this regard than any other?
Although the ultimate purpose of these approaches may be the same, there is a difference in how one “views” reality and practice, which in turn influences one’s attitude to meditation. It is true that in both the Dzogchen and Advaita, the danger of striving for something that already lies within us might be lessened and the misconception that “development” will eventually “cause” liberation is more likely to be discarded. But on the other hand, the risk of believing that there is nothing to practice and that no changes in one’s life are necessary is liable to increase. Yet once any tradition is properly and maturely understood, these traps and pitfalls will be seen, understood and eliminated anyway. This is not to dismiss the value of exploring other Buddhist (or related) practices in order to appreciate with greater clarity the essence of the dharma. It is only to point out the ever-present temptation to “pick and choose.”
A major problem in the West is our readiness to blame our own lack of understanding and spiritual well-being on our teachers and the disciplines and methods taught by them. Exposure to other perspectives and teachers can certainly be helpful in gaining fresh insights that make our previous understanding seem incomplete, even naive. This need not indicate a deficiency in that first tradition, merely an immaturity and impatience in oneself.
Opening oneself to new approaches shows that the spirit of exploration and inquiry is alive. But the need to denigrate what one previously saw as the one true way surely demonstrates that the same old insecurity is still at work. Is not an element of faddishness at work here? One wonders how Poonja-ji and Dzogchen will appear once they have become as familiar to us as boring old vipassana. What seductive and enticing spiritual diversion will be the next to appear a few years down the road?
May we understand that all the great dharma traditions have incredible riches to offer and that we as Westerners have the unique opportunity to apply them for the benefit and well-being of one and all.
Fred von Allmen, Damma Gruppe
Stephen Batchelor, Gaia House
Inquiring Mind certainly got into the spirit of today’s investigative journalism when they inspired dharma friends to go public with their “explosions.” Those who complied probably did so in the enthusiasm of sharing, not realizing the dualism that personal accounts of the non-dual can stir up in fellow seekers.
In the mid-sixties, when Yasutani Roshi conducted sesshins for N.Y. Zen Studies Society, those who experienced kensho were singled out to bow in gratitude to the sangha. As these ceremonies continued, many felt left out and under pressure to achieve the “in” status. Not a few had the need to establish their own spiritual credentials, to claim, in one way or another, that they too had transcended. Greed, envy and jealousy sat zazen. Everyone’s practice suffered. The Roshi, noting our competitive American spirit, discontinued the tradition. After that we were advised: “Those who speak do not know; those who know do not speak.”
A deep bow to the “not enlightened” (by his own admission) Bodhisattva Ram Dass. As the beyond-karma-view-from-above-viewpoint looks down, we shall continue to need Ram Dass’s refreshing, thoroughly grounded humility.
Jiryu Jill Bart
I read the latest Inquiring Mind (the only kind of mind reading I can manage) with great interest. There was a heap of fine material in there. I especially enjoyed Wes Nisker’s input and the “non-interview” with Poonja-ji. Some of the paragraphs in the Toni Packer piece were very memorable—“Me Somewhere Else Tomorrow finally Happy and OK”—that summed up the great dream very well, I thought.
I also appreciated Barbara Gates’s piece although I found it strange that she nowhere seemed to refer to the first five precepts as a guideline; maybe she is not aware of them, or the prominence given to them by the Buddha; maybe she avoids their use because of their “traditionalist” flavor and prefers to find her own way via her own mistakes. Anyway, I felt it was a lovely open and honest piece and full of a humanity that some of the others lacked, for all their philosophical sophistication. It’s all very well to have all the answers, and to be able to trump any opposing view with your non-dualist “Joker,” but do you really know how it feels when you don’t get your way? I felt she expressed her struggles beautifully and brought the “nitty-gritty” aspects of life into good focus. Good stuff.
Ajahn Amaro
Amaravati Buddhist Centre
Of the many possible translations of that regrettable term hinayana, I am most fond of “the humble vehicle.” It is said that the Buddha taught the dhamma found in the Pali canon to those of his followers who had lesser capability to comprehend the more advanced teachings. I admit to being among these, for there are a number of things I find perplexing about the higher teachings.
One example is the phrase “we are already enlightened, but just don’t know it.” It feels good to hear, for it makes the task of awakening seem less daunting and less demanding of effort. But since my view of nibbana is influenced so strongly by what the Buddha said about it during his lifetime (at least to the extent we can regard the early Pali texts as more or less reflective of this), I can’t help but feel somewhat out of my depth.
The clearest articulation of enlightenment offered in the suttas is “the absence of greed, hatred and delusion.” These are the three roots from which all our suffering grows: greed making us crave and become attached to all that is pleasurable, hatred compelling us to deny and close down to whatever is painful, and delusion causing our egos to project such possessive nonsense upon all of our experience that we are incapable of seeing anything accurately. As long as any of these three factors are present in a moment of consciousness our view is corrupted, and we are incapable of insight or wisdom. A Buddha is someone in whom these tendencies latent to human nature have been completely extinguished (nibutto).
So, we are already devoid of greed, hatred and delusion but just don’t know it because of the influence of greed, hatred and delusion upon our faculties of understanding? I don’t get it.
Another matter that puzzles me is what is meant by the expression “non-dual awareness.” It emerges in the teaching that awareness which makes no distinction between subject and object is all that is needed to remove the obstacles to nibbana, because the illusion of duality is itself the only real obstacle. If we would just give up the constant bifurcation of experience into self and other, this and that, we would get beyond duality and break through to the non-dual reality which is nibbana.
Again I might be burdened by my tendency to look to the Pali texts for an understanding of Buddhist psychology. These texts say that consciousness itself, as a basic constituent of the cognitive process, arises only out of the interaction of the senses and their objects: the eye and forms, the ear and sounds . . . the mind and thoughts—these are what give rise to visual consciousness, auditory consciousness . . . mental consciousness. The very definition of consciousness is thus based on a fundamental duality, on the discernment of a distinction, and from this perspective the notion of an “objectless consciousness” appears to be an oxymoron. Just as light is only visible to us when there are objects off which it can reflect, so also we are only aware of anything when there is something to be aware of.
So, for awareness to be aware at all it must be aware of something; but being aware of anything is a mistaken awareness; so correct awareness is either aware of nothing, not aware of anything, or aware of awareness itself—but only if it is not aware of this awareness. I still don’t get it.
Non-dual language, I think, is more descriptive of attaining the goal than of treading the path.
This is why I’ve come to trust, as a passenger on the humble vehicle, that what has been said by Gotama for the attainment of the goal has been well said; and I’ve come to accept that many of the more esoteric points of the great vehicle escape my ken.
When I cross the flood I’ll give up the raft. But while still in midstream I’ll not fancy I can swim across just as well.
Andy Olendzki
Insight Meditation Society
After six weeks’ exquisite suffering at IMS my first read was the great To Duel or Not-To-Duel Debate. Oh Boy—only Americans could get that together—I went from wonder to amazement to anger (my mate Poonja-ji versus the Buddha) to laughter.
Last year, approaching sixty, I did my first India pilgrimage to Poonja. Three days of satsang and I had a massive shakti-pat hit and walked through raging monsoon rains like I’ve never seen before. The day I left with a special satsang for me in the botanical gardens (I was by far the oldest and tatooed like Poonja-ji and we had been in armies and stuff so there was an enormous affinity). Two days home with four hundred trees to plant and Steve Smith coming to do a retreat and I was sitting again. The joy lasted two to three months. Ram Dass’s article hits the nail on the head with his three steps. The danger (if there is any danger) is that the kids (the Rajneesh people moved in the day I left—tall languid women that I used to dream of) will think they are there! I have a letter from Poonja-ji stating, in an oblique way, that I was!
So now it’s the Great Divide: vipassana versus Dzogchen versus Poonja-ji. I personally find it most refreshing and, yes, exciting to be on the edge of this great, maybe merging, way of life. Thanks to you two.
Tim Wyn Harris
Te Moata
Though I study and feel myself to be blessed by the teachings of many traditions, I had some misgivings about the last issue of Inquiring Mind. I thought many of the articles had elements that were inspiring, moving and thought-provoking. My concerns are about the overall slant of the issue rather than with any particular piece.
The difficulty I have is with subtle things—questions of tone, presentations that are not balanced by other viewpoints. There is almost no discussion of different schools of vipassana, or people’s non-dual experiences within the vipassana practice. There is very little mention of compassion, or a defilement-free mind, defined by many traditions as the necessary outcome of going beyond duality.
Many distinctions being made seemed to me to be about practicing from a place of realization, as compared to practicing prior to that realization—regardless of school or tradition—but this viewpoint is not really considered in the journal. In our time, when traditions are meeting, there are certainly powerful topics to examine. Perhaps we will examine them and find that they are very different after all, or perhaps not. Somehow the last issue of the Mind didn’t feel like an examination.
I believe this is reflected in comments others have made to me. These include: “It sounds like the teachers are now pooh-poohing vipassana,” and “This seems to reflect some sort of self-hatred on the part of the vipassana community.” I myself do not feel alienated from the practice or teaching vipassana, but I have had to explain that several times since the Mind came out. Although I’ve urged many people to write their own letters to the editors, I have no idea if they will actually do so. I hope they will.
In regard to this, I would also like to make a comment to the readership of the Inquiring Mind. In personal conversations and in some letters published here, a view has been expressed that the paper seems to be censored by a few teachers. This is not the case. The content and the tone of what appears in the Inquiring Mind is determined by the contributors and the editors. At times teachers are consulted about certain issues, and at times our views do not prevail. The excitement, inspiration, confusion or disagreement anyone feels about the Mind should be offered to the editors.
Certainly the Inquiring Mind is a special contribution to the dharma, and I honor all the work done by everyone to bring it about. From my point of view the last issue had tremendous promise, which it did not succeed in fully living up to.
Sharon Salzberg
Insight Meditation Society
Regarding the latest issue of the Inquiring Mind on “non-dual” practices: I recognize that such inquiry may be useful but I question the appropriateness of such a presentation in this journal of the vipassana community. It is my impression that most of us who have found ourselves on the path of awakening often shop around the various options available and many eventually recognize the wisdom of settling into one most suitable to our needs. Vipassana appears to be the choice of those who receive the Inquiring Mind. One of the crucial factors in that choice is the development of sufficient confidence in oneself, one’s teacher and one’s practice so that the mind can rest assured in the efficacy of one’s endeavors to awaken. Different teachings offer various ways and means to arouse that level of confidence. The presentations on “non-dual” ways and means undoubtedly have appeal to some readers; however, considerable confusion can result in the minds of many who currently practice vipassana.
The adversarial and “dualistic” criticism of vipassana confuses theory and practice, and appears to be based on a superficial experience of insight. So much for non-dualism! This comparing, evaluating and choosing is a graphic display of the nature of the mind that our cultural conditioning particularly cultivates. This issue of Inquiring Mind attempts to elevate this conditioning to a spiritual practice! It is questionable whether such criticism is conducive to stable, clear seeing (being) into the nature of experience that we all seem to recognize as necessary for realization of the free mind. Given that most of the writers have practiced vipassana, their use of vipassana as the standard of practice to compare with indicates the power and efficacy of it, even if they cannot currently express their appreciation and gratitude for it.
The strength and wisdom of vipassana practice are in maintaining a dynamic balance between confidence in the theory of practice and experientially verified understandings of practice. These are reciprocally supportive and develop incrementally. Diligent inquiry into the nature of all experience, understanding, freedom or “enlightenment” makes this balanced development possible. Not having a teacher to point out: “That is it,” “Stay with this,” or some similar affirmation of attainment or realization contributes to an increasingly durable, strong, deep, balance of verified appreciation of vipassana practice and understanding of the nature of mind.
Not having met Poonja-ji nor having practiced Dzogchen I cannot comment on their teachings as skillful means for myself. However, this issue’s superficial overview of the currently popular personalities and practices does little to enhance deep appreciation of the skillfulness of these means.
Steven Armstrong
Insight Meditation Society
The non-dual issue of Inquiring Mind inspired a lot of discussion among the community in which I live. After it came out, it seemed like everyone I knew was involved in drafting a letter to the editor in response. At one point, someone encouraged me to also send a letter but, upon reflection, I saw that there was nothing that I felt I needed to say.
I read the issue as I often do: in bits and pieces over a long time. It was not until just now that I got to Barbara Gates’ piece about the danger of the non-dual message, and killing snails and Jews, and raising a garden and a family. Having finished the article, I realize why I had nothing up to now to say about the issue.
In the article, the danger is raised that the non-dual out of context can justify and inspire any and every selfish and irresponsible behavior. I don’t know the workings of any mind other than my own (and mine none too well either), but I can’t imagine that a non-dual license makes much of a difference in anyone’s actions. People don’t commit crimes, large or small, because they suspect that everything is one and perfect. They commit crimes because they are full of hatred, and fear, and confusion, and hurt. Perhaps it can happen that, rather than recognizing these powerful and unpleasant motives, we can become completely numb and detached and claim that it was a philosophical perspective that inspired us, but that’s just bullshit.
Likewise I had not much to say about most of the non-dual issue, because I didn’t find it very interesting. Many of my friends have had their lives profoundly affected through contact with Poonja-ji, or practicing Dzogchen, but to read the message secondhand is just a bunch of words. I think the problem of the non-dual message out of context is not that it is dangerous, but that it’s boring. Speaking of the Tao, Lao Tzu warns that those who know don’t say and those who say don’t know. I have a friend who likes to argue endlessly in favor of the non-dual model over the more linear, goal-oriented approach. To me this is like arguing that the Tao could beat God in a fight! About nothing we can only say nothing.
Thus, I didn’t really get involved in this issue until I got to Barbara’s article. It was about something. It was small and personal and real. It didn’t dwell on universal abstractions but on real conflicts in her mind and life and garden. These issues were used to point to the universal, but at the same time I never lost the smell of soil and song of three-year-olds. It was an article that I had to read carefully, had to stop and reread a paragraph now and then to make sure I got the implication of what was being said. Many of the articles, I just read because they were there; if you asked me what they were about a day later, I would be hard pressed to recall.
So I guess I’m writing in support of articles that ground emptiness in the dirt. I would like to encourage topics that explore the dhamma as it issues forth from the joys and sorrows of everyday life. Real life seems to be an endless overlapping series of koans that delight in tricking us and teasing us and confusing us and pissing us off until suddenly everything turns inside out and everything makes unnameable perfect sense and all questions and conflicts dissolve into emptiness. I don’t expect the Inquiring Mind to print the answers to these mysterious questions. Just offering a few ingredients to inspire me to stir the stew is plenty. Keep it up.
David Berman
I find the current upheaval in the vipassana community quite fascinating and very revealing. When I began teaching in 1986 the degree of cynicism was such that it was a serious faux pas to even dare to mention the word Enlightenment. How things have changed! Over the last six years I have been speaking out about the profound limitation inherent in the practice of vipassana meditation as a vehicle for Enlightenment. I have been very harshly criticized by the teachers and even censored by this journal for doing so. Why did I speak out? It was because it was obvious to me that something vital and essential was missing from the practice. What was it that was missing? Enlightenment is what was missing! What do I mean by that? What I mean by that is that none of the teachers that I had met could speak freely and spontaneously from their own experience about the fact of Enlightenment itself. The only one who attempted to do so was Christopher Titmuss. What was being offered was a method and a technique which to my eyes wasn’t working. If it was, then why was psychotherapy gradually overtaking even the practice of meditation as a vehicle for self-discovery? Up until recently the current model that was being presented to seekers was a mixture of vipassana meditation and psychotherapy. Now the current model is vipassana and Poonja-ji, vipassana and Dzogchen.
Apparently, many more in the vipassana community, teachers included, now agree that the vipassana path is not complete, and because of that teachers and students alike are flocking to Lucknow and to Dzogchen teachers. Who is it that is leading these mass conversions? It is the vipassana teachers themselves. The teachers themselves demonstrate through their own continuing search that the practice itself has not led them either to the end of the path nor has it revealed to them a truly comprehensive understanding of the human condition. And if those who are leading the mass of meditators are still looking for final answers, then I feel a dangerous and questionable precedent is being set that needs to be addressed. It may be one thing for a seeker to eclectically mix and match different teachings and teachers in the attempt to find their way, but it is indeed a different matter altogether when those who are leading the way do so.
Any teaching or path that is indeed complete reveals the path in its entirety. Any complete teaching of liberation reveals and addresses every aspect of the human condition. Even though in theory the path of insight meditation may be complete, the practice of it, as recent evidence suggests, certainly seems not to be. It also seems that neither Poonja-ji’s Advaita teaching nor the Dzogchen teaching are complete enough for most teachers of the vipassana community because those pursuing Advaita or Dzogchen still teach and/or practice vipassana as before. So why then do they continue to fiercely cling to vipassana practice as the bedrock of their path?
I think it has to do with the fact that the oft-quoted last words of the Buddha, “Be a light unto yourself,” have been taken far too literally by too many of the leaders and long-term practitioners of the vipassana community, considering that this was said by a man who had thousands of followers. The cult of individuality so prevalent in the minds of the modern western intelligentsia has deeply influenced thousands of sincere seekers after liberation. The effect of this has been and is profound. The depth of surrender and real abandon necessary to truly discover the vast view that indeed reveals a complete picture of the path and goal, directly and literally, lies beyond the reach of those who will never dare to give up the illusion of control and independence. It is for this reason that most of those vipassana teachers who search for experience in Dzogchen or Poonja-ji’s Advaita seem unwilling to take the risk to fully commit themselves to Dzogchen or Poonja-ji’s teaching as path and goal to final liberation. Sooner or later it is going to become obvious to more people than myself that something is certainly awry here.
Andrew Cohen
EnlightenNext
The Fall 1992 issue was indeed one for inquiry. Being myself a student of vipassana for seventeen years and guiding others here in North Idaho, I see vipassana as all things pointed out in the “mind.” Having had the good fortune of being in the presence of great teachers from all of the traditions mentioned, having spent many years in Asia, having spent quality time at IMS (both as staff member in the late 1970’s and as a student) etc., I find that the greatest teachers are the ones so easily missed—children, nature, our own struggles, the homeless, etc.. Oftentimes we can miss the miracle of the ordinary and the joy of the very simple. It seems that the more study and life experiences that occur, the less I know.
Having experienced the “without words upliftment” of a great teacher and the smile on my daughter’s face, I feel there is no difference. Only the mind that makes the distinction.
“One thing, all things:
move among and intermingle,
without distinction.
To live in this realization
is to be without anxiety and non-perfection.
To live in this faith is the road to non-duality
Because the non-dual is one with the trusting mind.”
Sengstan
Third Zen Patriach
To practice vipassana, I feel, is a great path. It does not suffer in comparison to anything. It is simple. Sit. Practice mindfulness. Be patient and all things will come to us.
Sharon Kreider
It has always been my understanding that duality and non-duality could never be described as the territory of any particular tradition, technique, practice or lineage. Dualistic seeing surely is the offspring of ignorance, just as the understanding of non-duality is the child of awakening to truth. It is also my understanding that every Buddhist tradition is dedicated to the dissolving of ignorance and to liberation. I actually have never come across any teaching that guarantees liberation as a result of a practice. The dynamics of awakening are surely more profoundly subtle than just doing a particular practice, being with any particular teacher or belonging to any particular tradition. If awakening involved no more than allegiance there would be an abundance of Buddhas in this world.
It is interesting that in the East enlightenment is pretty much a household word. My impression in practicing in the East is that enlightenment was actually the only reason for meditation. This did not mean, in my experience, that there was a neglect of ethics, motivation, compassion, service and generosity nor that their development was sidelined in pursuit of a greater goal. The great beauty of Buddhist teaching I encountered was the wonderful interweaving of the relative and the absolute. It is true that in the West enlightenment tends to be idealized into a state available only to particularly blessed people while the rank and file is reduced to working out their karma, their personalities and their problems. I do believe that for many people their approach to practice is influenced by the cultural backgrounds they come from and for Westerners this often means that they come to meditation with their own agendas and menus. One item on the western menu for meditation is unfortunately the belief in the need for personal perfection. I feel it is true that for a number of people enlightenment actually comes in as a poor second to the achievement of perfection. Is this a problem of the path, a problem in the teaching, or is it that we all need to be acutely aware of our own motivation in meditation?
I do also have some questions about a few of the assumptions I picked up from the articles. I would like to say that there is no such thing as “vipassana” practice in a standardized form. There are as many forms of vipassana practice as there are teachers—each teacher brings to the practice their own flavor and emphasis. Mindfulness may be emphasized as much as emptiness. It is true that probably most, if not all, vipassana teachers emphasize clarity, oneness of mind, sensitivity, compassion, renunciation and openheartedness but I was not aware that these were obstacles to liberation.
I have some grave reservations about the use of testimonials to give credibility to anything at all. Certainly I could ask a number of students to give accounts of their openings and awakening but what does it prove? I could equally find a number of students who could testify to their disappointment in vipassana for not giving them the experiences they sought. I tend to think this is true for most teachers. Testimonials seem to be a way of eulogizing a teacher or teaching. It is wonderful when we warm with gratitude for the teachers and teachings that help us on our paths. The danger, it seems to me, is that eulogizing rather tends to invest the power to liberate in particular people or styles. I do feel that this expresses a rather dualistic way of seeing. Awakening to truth surely is not an experience that can be bestowed upon us by someone else and if truth is unconditioned, unborn and uncreated, it must surely transcend the boundaries of experience altogether. We all know the conditioned nature of experiences, their beginnings and endings and the unfortunate presence of the experiencer. The whole teaching on non-duality, I feel, is to awaken to the truth that is not bounded by anything and not separate from anything.
Christina Feldman
Gaia House
Your recent issue featuring “Teachers of Non-Duality” was excellent, and I salute your effort to shed light on the important issues now percolating through the vipassana community. However, the introductory article, “The Shape of the Question” by Andrew Cooper, did not fully outline the situation in which many vipassana meditators find themselves today. While his discussion of non-dual traditions was very helpful, these were not adequately explained relative to Theravada vipassana practice which has a philosophic basis that is fundamentally dualistic. In short, our question is not the same as Dogen’s because he was expressing himself through the Mahayana perspective, in which nirvana is considered to be inherent within samsara. In contrast, the Theravada Abhidhamma presents us with a view of reality in which nirvana and samsara are essentially separate and discrete.
In order to see the present situation more clearly we need to go back in history one thousand years before Dogen and examine the questions then current among Buddhists in ancient India. At that time the Prajnaparamita sutras of the Mahayana were relatively new and the debate concerning the fundamental nature of reality was very similar to what we are seeing in the vipassana community today. This may seem to be mere historical detail, but the nature and goal of a person’s meditation practice is directly related to the concept or map of reality we use to explain the phenomena of existence. Where the dualistic view will encourage one to renounce samsara for nirvana, the non-dual perspective encourages the practitioner to find nirvana within samsara.
Faced with this fundamental distinction, one has three choices: 1) We can adhere strictly to the concept of reality as dual where samsara and nirvana are distinctly separate. This, in fact, is the position taken by Theravada Buddhism over the centuries. 2) We can embrace the non-dual approach in which nirvana is inherent within samsara, while seeing the perspective of duality as provisionally true in a limited way. This has been the position of Advaita Hinduism as well as Mahayana Buddhism, which encompasses Zen and all of the Tibetan traditions including Dzogchen. 3) The third alternative is to hold both the dual and non-dual views as models that need to be carefully examined and tested through one’s own experience. Both can provisionally be accepted and scrutinized on the basis of their merits without assuming that one view is necessarily more correct than the other. This approach provides a perspective from which the various traditions may be investigated without the pressure to make an immediate judgment as to their relative validity.
Today we are fortunate to be able to learn from the deep reservoir of spiritual thought that has been preserved over the centuries in Asia. We have the opportunity to examine each of the doctrines and practices with a fresh perspective. It is important for us to be both acutely aware of the differences between the various traditions we examine, as well as to attempt to see them in a non-sectarian and open minded manner. To this end the current exploration of Dzogchen and other non-dual practices by many vipassana meditators can be seen as a significant and desirable development; however, we should be careful not to lose our perspective in the process and simply assume that somehow all of these traditions really are the same. In fact their fundamental assumptions are often very different. The challenge for the vipassana community is to examine each of the traditions carefully, while learning how best to apply these unique models of reality which have been so carefully preserved for us over the centuries.
Robert Pryor
Antioch University
From the Spring 1993 issue of Inquiring Mind (Vol. 9, No. 2)
Text © 1993–2021 by Inquiring Mind and each of the authors
Author
Artist
Suzie Rashkis is a San Francisco artist whose work includes oil pantings, water colors and cartoons. Over the years, she was a frequent contributor to Inquiring Mind.