help explain a tiny part of the Shurangama Sutra

[beoman]

I'm trying to read the Shurangama Sutra. I'm using this english translation, which includes commentaries: http://online.sfsu.edu/~rone/Buddhism/Shurangama/Shurangama.htm .

 

I'm reading part of Volume 3, where the Buddha talks about the Six Entrances. He says:

 

"Moreover, Ananda, why do I say that the six entrances

have their origin in the wonderful nature of true suchness, the

Treasury of the Thus Come One?"

 

First of all, what is "the wonderful nature of true suchness, the

Treasury of the Thus Come One?"

 

Next, I don't follow all his explanations. It seems the commentator also glosses over a lot of the explanation. For example, when talking about the eye entrance:

 

“Ananda, although the eye’s staring causes fatigue, the eye

and the fatigue originate in Bodhi. Staring gives rise to the

characteristic of fatigue.

“Because a sense of seeing is stimulated in the midst of the

two false, defiling objects of light and dark, defiling

appearances are taken in; this is called the nature of seeing.

Apart from the two defiling objects of light and dark, this

seeing is ultimately without substance.

“Thus, Ananda, you should know that seeing does not come

from light or dark, nor does it come forth from the sense organ,

nor is it produced from emptiness.

 

What is meant by "Bodhi" in the first paragraph? I think I get the next one - he's saying light and dark stimulate the sense of seeing, and we "see". I get his explanation for why seeing doesn't come from light or dark:

 

“Why? If it came from light, then it would be extinguished

when it is dark, and you would not see darkness. If it came from

darkness, then it would be extinguished when it is light, and you

would not see light.

 

That makes sense to me. Here's the point of my post, though - I don't follow his reason for seeing not coming from the sense organ at all. He says:

 

“Suppose it came from the sense organ, which is obviously

devoid of light and dark: a nature of seeing such as this would

have no self-nature.

 

Well that's not a lot of explanation at all, and the commentator just rephrases Buddha's words without expanding on it at all. This nature of seeing would have no self-nature? What does that mean, first of all? And secondly, why does that invalidate the fact that seeing comes from the sense organ? To me it seems pretty sound to say that photons hit your retina, which activate certain cells in your eye, which send electrochemical signals to parts of your brain, which someone then interprets as seeing. Everything except for the last part is just the sense organ of sight. It seems like it directly produces the sense of seeing.

 

He says something about why it doesn't come from emptiness, which I won't go into now. He then concludes:

 

“Therefore, you should know that the eye entrance is empty

and false, since it neither depends upon causes and conditions

for existence nor is spontaneous in nature.

 

Firstly, what does this conclusion have to do with the initial statement, that "the six entrances

have their origin in the wonderful nature of true suchness, the

Treasury of the Thus Come One?"? Here he's saying they are empty and false - that seems like the opposite of the first sentence.

 

Also why does the eye entrance not depend on any cause and conditions for existence? From what I described, it relies on all aspects of your sense organ, as well as the photons (and where they came from, and where that came from, ad infinitum), as well as some entity perceiving the brain signals as sight.

 

I'm not sure if this is the right place to discuss Buddhist philosophy, so if that's the case just let me know, and maybe indicate an appropriate forum I could ask this question? =). But hopefully some of you can provide insight on these phrases.

Edited July 29, 2010 by beoman

[Lucky7Strikes]

[forestofclarity]

Did you read the previous volumes where they talk about the location of the mind?

[C T]

Greetings Beoman..

 

You might find this commentary http://www.cttbusa.org/shurangama2/shurangama2.asp (same commentator, different format) slightly more useful? Its easier to read than the one you had linked (just my personal view, sorry).

 

This link presents a very clear audio commentary by Zoketsu Norman Fischer : http://www.everydayzen.org/index.php?Itemid=27&option=com_teaching&topic=Mahayana+Sutras&sort=title&studyguide=true&task=viewTeaching&id=audio-335-200

 

Feel free after to bring forth any points you think could be worth discussing - im sure there are a few guys around here who would have quite good insight into this particular teaching.

 

Best wishes.

 

 

 

 

@ L7S - _/\_

Edited July 30, 2010 by CowTao

[Procurator]

I'm trying to read the Shurangama Sutra. I'm using this english translation, which includes commentaries: http://online.sfsu.edu/~rone/Buddhism/Shurangama/Shurangama.htm .

 

I'm reading part of Volume 3, where the Buddha talks about the Six Entrances. He says:

 

 

 

First of all, what is "the wonderful nature of true suchness, the

Treasury of the Thus Come One?"

 

those r good and deep questions, commendable of uto ask. the answers r simple too, except not many pple know .

 

The suchness is the consciosness undisturbed by the 6 senses.

[xabir2005]

My 2 cents...

 

Xabir, Vaj, Mikaelz, CowTao, or any other Buddhists would be better at explaining the passages above...

 

1)

 

"the wonderful nature of true suchness, the

Treasury of the Thus Come One?"

 

Suchness refers to the immediate non-dual experience of whatever that arises as empty, fleeting, and a mirage like transition of phenomena from one state to another. Probably same for Bodhi.

Yes... 'luminous' as well. The senses, dhatus and skandhas, the Transience itself IS the non-dual vividness, presence and awareness, the "bright substance of wonderful enlightenment".

 

..."Ananda, you have not yet understood that all the defiling objects that appear, all the illusory, ephemeral phenomena, spring up in the very spot where they also come to an end. Their phenomena aspects are illusory and false, but their nature is in truth the bright substance of wonderful enlightenment. Thus it is throughout, up to the five skandhas and the six entrances, to the twelve places and the eighteen realms; the union and mixture of various causes and conditions account for their illusory and false existence, and the separation and dispersion of the causes and conditions result in their illusory and false extinction. Who would have thought that production and extinction, coming and going are fundamentally the eternal wonderful light of the Tathagata, the unmoving, all-pervading perfection, the wonderful nature of True Suchness! If within the true and eternal nature one seeks coming and going, confusion and enlightenment, or birth and death, one will never find them."...

 

~ Shurangama Sutra

Edited July 30, 2010 by xabir2005

[xabir2005]

Also why does the eye entrance not depend on any cause and conditions for existence? From what I described, it relies on all aspects of your sense organ, as well as the photons (and where they came from, and where that came from, ad infinitum), as well as some entity perceiving the brain signals as sight.

Hearing has no origin, nor is hearing inherently existing with substance, nor is hearing spontaneously arising without conditions. All these false views are relinquished through the insight into Emptiness/Interdependent Origination.

 

You are thinking that seeing and hearing comes from senses organs or from objects, but that is due to a strong and unknowing conviction deep in us that the way of seeing things inherently is 'absolute' and the only way of viewing things... but in truth, it is just a 'convenient' mode of thought. It is nothing absolute.

 

As a result of our 'inherent/dualistic' mode of viewing things, you are thinking that D.O. implies things having origin, and causality as having 'hierarchy', or one thing leading to/becoming another... rather than seeing manifestation, seeing, hearing, as unconditioned and whole yet interdependent. The entire universe is coming together for this manifestation, and this manifestation has no origin as such, because it is something fresh: a complete-end-in-itself. For example: the previous thought does not become the current thought, each thought is a complete-whole of itself. Similarly, each manifestation is interdependently originated and yet has no origin and is a complete-whole of itself...

 

If you pinch your leg, and you ask 'where did the pain come from?' in actuality you can't find a 'where' - pain is just present, vivid, but with no origin! It is a complete and whole experience in and of itself... even though it is interdependent with the hand pinching and body part being pinched... but the pain is something fresh and complete and whole of itself.

 

You're thinking that everything you experience have a 'coming from' and a 'going to'... whereas in reality there is no coming and and going, whatever manifestation is unconditioned, complete and whole - for example if I move my hand from there to here, we think that our hand is 'inherently existing' as an entity that came from 'there' to 'here' and is 'going elsewhere' - where in actual experience it is just This Experience (e.g. visual experience of 'hand') that interdependently originated, yet is whole, complete and unconditioned without coming and going, origin, movement, etc: it is not in fact moving (there is no 'it' to move), but teleporting, from Here, to Here, to Here, as Bashar explains in his teleportation video in http://awakeningtoreality.blogspot.com/2009/11/non-locality-and-teleportation.html

 

I will paste three quotes for you to ponder... and they are very important to the understanding of D.O. What we experience from moment to moment can be explained better in terms of D.O. than 'inherently existing entities mode of perception'.

 

Mahasi Sayadaw:

"...Before a drum is beaten, its sound does not exist in the drum itself, the drumstick, or anywhere in between. Even though a sound occurs when the drum is beat, the sound does not originate from the drum or the drumstick. The physical phenomena of drum and drumstick are not transformed into a sound nor does the sound originate from anywhere in between drum and drumstick. In dependence on the drum, the drumstick, and the hitting of the drum, the sound is a completely new phenomenon each time the drum is hit. The drum and the stick are different from the sound.

 

In the same way, before you see something or someone, seeing does not exist in the eye, in the visible form, or anywhere in between. The seeing that takes place neither originates in the eye nor in the visible form. The seeing consciousness neither originates in the eye nor in the visible forms, which are physical phenomena. It also does not originate from anywhere in between. Seeing is actually a new phenomenon that arises due to the combination of the eye, the visible form, light, and your attention. Thus, the eye and the visible form are different from the seeing. The same is true for the other senses..."

 

- http://awakeningtoreality.blogspot.com/2010/06/magical-illusion-of-self.html

 

David Loy:

 

"...the hierarchy that causality constructs must collapse into an interpenetration in which each event is equally conditioned by the whole and manifests that whole as the only thing in the universe.

"...we find ourselves in a universe of sunya-events, none of which can be said to occur for the sake of any other. Each nondual event -- every leaf-flutter, wandering thought, and piece of litter -- is whole and complete in itself, because although conditioned by everything else in the universe and thus a manifestation of it, for precisely that reason it is not subordinated to anything else but becomes an unconditioned end-in-itself..."

 

"...the hierarchy that causality constructs must collapse into an interpenetration in which each event is equally conditioned by the whole and manifests that whole as the only thing in the universe...""

 

Zen Master Dogen:

"Firewood becomes ash, and it does not become firewood again. Yet, do not suppose that the ash is future and the firewood past. You should understand that firewood abides in the phenomenal expression of firewood, which fully includes past and future and is independent of past and future. Ash abides in the phenomenal expression of ash, which fully includes future and past. Just as firewood does not become firewood again after it is ash, you do not return to birth after death.

 

This being so, it is an established way in buddha-dharma to deny that birth turns into death. Accordingly, birth is understood as no-birth. It is an unshakable teaching in Buddha's discourse that death does not turn into birth. Accordingly, death is understood as no-death.

 

Birth is an expression complete this moment. Death is an expression complete this moment. They are like winter and spring. You do not call winter the beginning of spring, nor summer the end of spring."

 

- http://awakeningtoreality.blogspot.com/2009/03/genjo-koan-actualizing-fundamental.html

 

 

What that dependently originates is empty, unborn, does not come, does not go, does not arise and does not cease

Edited July 30, 2010 by xabir2005

[C T]

 

Zen Master Dogen:

"Firewood becomes ash, and it does not become firewood again. Yet, do not suppose that the ash is future and the firewood past. You should understand that firewood abides in the phenomenal expression of firewood, which fully includes past and future and is independent of past and future. Ash abides in the phenomenal expression of ash, which fully includes future and past. Just as firewood does not become firewood again after it is ash, you do not return to birth after death.

 

This being so, it is an established way in buddha-dharma to deny that birth turns into death. Accordingly, birth is understood as no-birth. It is an unshakable teaching in Buddha's discourse that death does not turn into birth. Accordingly, death is understood as no-death.

 

Birth is an expression complete this moment. Death is an expression complete this moment. They are like winter and spring. You do not call winter the beginning of spring, nor summer the end of spring."

 

- http://awakeningtoreality.blogspot.com/2009/03/genjo-koan-actualizing-fundamental.html

Excellent. Thanks!

[xabir2005]

Just updated my previous reply.

Edited July 30, 2010 by xabir2005

[beoman]

Did you read the previous volumes where they talk about the location of the mind?

I don't think I read that part. I read part of Volume 1, then skipped to this part. I will go back and read it =).

[beoman]

[beoman]

Greetings Beoman..

 

You might find this commentary http://www.cttbusa.org/shurangama2/shurangama2.asp (same commentator, different format) slightly more useful? Its easier to read than the one you had linked (just my personal view, sorry).

 

This link presents a very clear audio commentary by Zoketsu Norman Fischer : http://www.everydayzen.org/index.php?Itemid=27&option=com_teaching&topic=Mahayana+Sutras&sort=title&studyguide=true&task=viewTeaching&id=audio-335-200

 

Feel free after to bring forth any points you think could be worth discussing - im sure there are a few guys around here who would have quite good insight into this particular teaching.

 

Best wishes.

 

 

 

 

@ L7S - _/\_

 

thank you for the links! i'll try reading that version as well.

 

do you know what the "K2, L1, M1, N1, O1" numbers mean at the top? just curious, that was in my commentary too.

 

also where did you get your name from? it's interesting =P. mine just sounded funny to me. "beo" is an onomatopoeia I made up for a strange echoing noise.

[beoman]

those r good and deep questions, commendable of uto ask. the answers r simple too, except not many pple know .

 

The suchness is the consciosness undisturbed by the 6 senses.

 

Thanks for the reply! not directly related to your comment, but why are only 6 senses mentioned? Along with phrases such as "seeing, there is no seer". What about phenomenon that we can't directly perceive, like x-rays, radio waves, etc? Are there ever insights about that part of the universe for which we haven't developed sense organs to sense?

[beoman]

Hearing has no origin, nor is hearing inherently existing with substance, nor is hearing spontaneously arising without conditions. All these false views are relinquished through the insight into Emptiness/Interdependent Origination.

 

Does it not inherently exist with substance for the same reason that nothing exists inherently with substance?

 

You are thinking that seeing and hearing comes from senses organs or from objects, but that is due to a strong and unknowing conviction deep in us that the way of seeing things inherently is 'absolute' and the only way of viewing things... but in truth, it is just a 'convenient' mode of thought. It is nothing absolute.

 

If it's not absolute, why do we always come back to it? I feel like there is some 'baseline' that we come back to. for example, with drugs. you get drunk, you see the world differently, but then you sober up and come back to it. or you can take LSD and be so far removed from reality, but eventually you come back. I've read a story on erowid of someone who took too much Ketamine and thought he was on another dimensional plane, and forgot how he got there, and was sure he would never be able to return to this world, but that too wore off after an hour. what is so special about this way of viewing the world? Am I just the only one here, so as long as I'm here, everyone in this world will see the world this way?

[beoman]

Similarly, each manifestation is interdependently originated and yet has no origin and is a complete-whole of itself...

 

Speaking about things having no origin, here is an interesting theory of how the universe exists that explains the universe without the need for a "Big Bang": http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/arxiv/25492/

[xabir2005]

[beoman]

..."Ananda, you have not yet understood that all the defiling objects that appear, all the illusory, ephemeral phenomena, spring up in the very spot where they also come to an end.

 

What if I flick a lighter on, move it, then release the gas pedal? Wouldn't the flame have originated where I turned it on, and disappeared when I turned it off? Or is it that the flame, at every moment of "time" from when I was "moving" it, has actually been a different flame, one separate but interdependent with all the other flames, and all the flames come into existence and go out of existence as I am "moving" it?

 

Their phenomena aspects are illusory and false, but their nature is in truth the bright substance of wonderful enlightenment.

How are illusory and false things, in nature, the substance of enlightenment? I still don't understand this phrase.

 

 

Who would have thought that production and extinction, coming and going are fundamentally the eternal wonderful light of the Tathagata, the unmoving, all-pervading perfection, the wonderful nature of True Suchness! If within the true and eternal nature one seeks coming and going, confusion and enlightenment, or birth and death, one will never find them."...

~ Shurangama Sutra

 

If you wouldn't find coming and going within the true and eternal nature, how can coming and going fundamentally be the true and eternal nature?

[beoman]

Mahasi Sayadaw:

"...Before a drum is beaten, its sound does not exist in the drum itself, the drumstick, or anywhere in between. Even though a sound occurs when the drum is beat, the sound does not originate from the drum or the drumstick. The physical phenomena of drum and drumstick are not transformed into a sound nor does the sound originate from anywhere in between drum and drumstick. In dependence on the drum, the drumstick, and the hitting of the drum, the sound is a completely new phenomenon each time the drum is hit. The drum and the stick are different from the sound.

 

The sound doesn't come from the drum itself, but it comes from the air molecules being pushed by the taut skin on the drum vibrating. Isn't that how the sound originates? I agree that the drum and the stick are different from it, but the sound depends on the drum to be "created".

 

In the same way, before you see something or someone, seeing does not exist in the eye, in the visible form, or anywhere in between. The seeing that takes place neither originates in the eye nor in the visible form. The seeing consciousness neither originates in the eye nor in the visible forms, which are physical phenomena. It also does not originate from anywhere in between. Seeing is actually a new phenomenon that arises due to the combination of the eye, the visible form, light, and your attention. Thus, the eye and the visible form are different from the seeing. The same is true for the other senses..."

 

Hmm... I agree it arises due to all those factors. Is he simply saying that the eye and the visible form are different from the seeing, because for the seeing to occur, all those factors must take place, so it is a separate but interdependent phenomenon?

 

When trying to trace out the full "organ" of the eye I got stuck at the part where the neurons get activated in the brain. Because what is reacting to those neurons to see? What are we exactly? I sppose that is the point of all this =).

[beoman]

David Loy:

 

"...the hierarchy that causality constructs must collapse into an interpenetration in which each event is equally conditioned by the whole and manifests that whole as the only thing in the universe.

"...we find ourselves in a universe of sunya-events, none of which can be said to occur for the sake of any other. Each nondual event -- every leaf-flutter, wandering thought, and piece of litter -- is whole and complete in itself, because although conditioned by everything else in the universe and thus a manifestation of it, for precisely that reason it is not subordinated to anything else but becomes an unconditioned end-in-itself..."

 

"...the hierarchy that causality constructs must collapse into an interpenetration in which each event is equally conditioned by the whole and manifests that whole as the only thing in the universe...""

 

Ah so there is no hierarchy. It's not that A causes B. It's that A, along with everything else in the universe (including B?), causes B, which then affects the rest of the universe?

 

But a leaf on one side of the planet is so far from a leaf on the other. How do they affect each other? The slight pull of gravity?

[beoman]

Zen Master Dogen:

"Firewood becomes ash, and it does not become firewood again. Yet, do not suppose that the ash is future and the firewood past. You should understand that firewood abides in the phenomenal expression of firewood, which fully includes past and future and is independent of past and future. Ash abides in the phenomenal expression of ash, which fully includes future and past. Just as firewood does not become firewood again after it is ash, you do not return to birth after death."

 

Hmm but apparently, there wasn't firewood "before", and then there "was" firewood, and "then" there "was" no more "firewood", but ash instead. Why is it wrong to say firewood is the past of ash?

 

What is "the phenomenal expression of firewood"? (I understand it doesn't mean "wonderful" =P). Is it its manifestation as phenomena, like the smell it emits, the way it looks, etc? Why does it fully include past and future? at some point those molecules weren't combined in such a way as to produce firewood in the past, and then at some point they break apart to form something else. It feels like the "firewood" really only exists at one point in time, not encompassing all of past and future.

[beoman]

Greetings Beoman..

 

You might find this commentary http://www.cttbusa.org/shurangama2/shurangama2.asp (same commentator, different format) slightly more useful? Its easier to read than the one you had linked (just my personal view, sorry).

 

It is easier to read, but it still glosses over at least this point. Maybe it's more obvious than I think it is?

 

If you say the seeing is produced from the eye, suppose it came from the sense organ, which is obviously devoid of light and dark. If it came from the eye, it would not be composed of the two kinds of defiling appearances of light and dark. According to that explanation, a nature of seeing such as this - the seeing essence - would have no self-nature. If it came from the eye, it would not have its own substantial nature. So it is not brought about from the sense organ.

 

I thought nothing had its own substantial nature, so why is that a reason for refuting that it comes from the sense organ?

[beoman]

[beoman]

Also in general how would I go from rationally understanding these things to actually understanding them? Meditation? Self-inquiry? Should I direct it towards these thoughts or let whatever happens happen? In the latter case, why talk about anything at all?

[beoman]

About the link on the emptiness video: http://awakeningtoreality.blogspot.com/2009/11/non-locality-and-teleportation.html . If it's all an illusion, and we have these self-imposed restrictions.. wouldn't enlightened people be able to teleport themselves and other beings around at will? Why don't they?

[Raymond Wolter]

Xabir, great information. Thank you!