In Mahayana, Buddha-nature is the Universe Itself

The Watercooler
126

Yes, James Legge’s translation has it’s quirks. His translation of the ending couplet of DDJ II is… ‘interesting’ to say the least when compared to any other translation.

Cleary I would not rely on at all. I can PM you some information shortly regarding this as there is no point going into detail on this forum. The same with Dwight Goddard. There translations are frequently even more irregular than Legge’s.

John C. H. Wu, IMO, has one of the best translations of the DDJ available. He renders the opening clause:

In keeping the spirit and the vital soul together,

This is still displaying the same soul dualism as 三魂七魄, though.

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He’s almost universally praised for his translations of Eastern texts by experts in those languages, as far as I know.

Please also keep in mind that the distinction between philosophical Taoism and religious Taoism is an ancient Chinese classification, rather than a modern one:

The word “Taoism” is used to translate different Chinese terms which refer to different aspects of the same tradition and semantic field:[10]

“Taoist religion” (Chinese: 道教; pinyin: dàojiào; lit. “teachings of the Tao”), or the “liturgical” aspect[11] — A family of organized religious movements sharing concepts or terminology from “Taoist philosophy”;[12] the first of these is recognized as the Celestial Masters school.

“Taoist philosophy” (Chinese: 道家; pinyin: dàojiā; lit. “school or family of the Tao”) or “Taology” (Chinese: 道學; pinyin: dàoxué; lit. “learning of the Tao”), or the “mystical” aspect[11] — The philosophical doctrines based on the texts of the I Ching, the Tao Te Ching (or Daodejing, Chinese: 道德經; pinyin: dàodéjīng) and the Zhuangzi (Chinese: 莊子; pinyin: zhuāngzi). These texts were linked together as “Taoist philosophy” during the early Han Dynasty, but notably not before.[13][14]
Taoism - Wikipedia

When early Chinese Buddhists wrote commentaries on the Tao Te Ching or explained Buddhist concepts in Taoist terms, it was not with the intent of promoting Taoism as a religion.

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The Dharmakaya is one of the three aspects of Buddhahood, not “oneness”.

In the suttas Nibbana is described as the cessation of the taints. Note that the conditioned and unconditioned are distinct, with the unconditioned being the “escape” from the conditioned. There is no “oneness”.

In the Heart Sutra Nirvana is described as the realisation of sunyata, the emptiness of the five aggregates. Again there is no “oneness”, or Advaita-style union, or whatever.

You seem to be presenting a rather muddled and idiosyncratic interpretation of some Buddhist concepts in order to draw false equivalences with Taoism. I don’t understand why.

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No, you really haven’t. There are just a lot of unsupported claims and false equivalences.

130

It’s all one, man. :stuck_out_tongue:

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131

Another issue is what this oneness is.

For instance, the Heart Sutra, rather than presenting a binary, presents a kind of oneness, in the sense of “sameness” in the least, it presents the standard Madhyamaka view with regards to “all dharmas” (this has implications for nirvana):

Listen Sariputra,
all phenomena bear the mark of Emptiness;
their true nature is the nature of
no Birth no Death,
no Being no Non-being,
no Defilement no Purity,
no Increasing no Decreasing.

Hence Ven Nagarjuna’s argumentation:

25:19-20
न संसारस्य निर्वाणात् किं चिद् अस्ति विशेषणं
na saṁsārasya nirvāṇāt kiṁ cid asti viśeṣaṇaṁ
There is nothing whatsoever of samsara distinguishing (it) from nirvana.
न निर्वाणस्य संसारात् किं चिद् अस्ति विशेषणं। १९
na nirvāṇasya saṁsārāt kiṁ cid asti viśeṣaṇaṁ| 19
There is nothing whatsoever of nirvana distinguishing it from samsara.
निर्वाणस्य च या कोटिः।कोटिः। संसरणस्य च
nirvāṇasya ca yā koṭiḥ koṭiḥ
(That?) is the limit which is the limit of nirvana and the limit of samsara;
न तयोर् अन्तरं किंचित् सुसूक्ष्मम् अपि विद्यते। २०
na tayor antaraṁ kiñcit susūkśmam api vidyate| 20
Even a very subtle interval is not found of (between) them.

This thinking also leads to statements like: oṃ śūnyatā jñāna vajra svabhāvātmako 'haṃ

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And one must remember this verse is about the ultimate level not the conventional. So one can say Nirvana and samsara are different conventionally, in fact one must in order to have proper motivation.

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133

Please keep in mind that the reason why I first brought up Taoism is because, for the last 2,000 years, Taoist terms have been used to explain Mahayana Buddhist concepts like the Dharmakaya and Buddha-nature.

It’s from before Mahayana Buddhism came to China, however, that Nirvana was described as becoming one with the Dharmakaya, and that the Buddha-nature or Dharmakaya was described as being within all things.

It just so happens that the coincidental similarity in concepts between Taoism and Buddhism was remarkably conducive to the subsequent dissemination of Buddhism in China and the rest of East Asia.

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That’s the interesting thing. Sometimes, in some Mahayanas, the perfectly reasonable thing you said gets called “wrong view” or “the separate teaching”. I know because I myself have asked the same question quite a few times only to get shouted down with “wrong view! wrong view!”

How one is supposed to honestly say: oṃ svabhāva śuddhāḥ sarvadharmāḥ svabhāva śuddho ‘haṃ (Aoum. All dharmāḥ in their fundamental characteristics are pure, I in my fundamental characteristics am pure.) if one is not ‘supposed’ to believe in svabhāvatā? Mahāyāna dhātuvāda-śūnyavāda presents a conundrum IMO. One that early Buddhist texts seem to sidestep more successfully, I will admit. Or is the exact same tetralemma conundrum concerning the persistence of the Tathāgata after death and ‘what is reborn’ from earlier teachings, just repackaged? The “to-be-set-aside” so to say. What is reasonable to set aside and what is not, I suppose, is where perspectives will differ.

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135

I had a vivid dream that I visited a beautiful Buddhist temple. The people were waiting in line to receive the abbot’s blessing. When I got to the front of the line, it was a famous Buddhist teacher. I sat down to receive his blessing, and he was very rude to me. I left disappointed.

This reminds me of a saying attributed to Zen Master Linji, who founded the Rinzai sect of Zen Buddhism. The saying goes, “If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him.” Like any Zen koan, this is not meant to be taken literally. The road symbolizes our path to enlightenment.

The Buddha on the road could be the historical founder of Buddhism, a celestial Buddha or Bodhisattva, or even your own teacher. The point is to find the Buddha within oneself, rather than clinging to an outside being and getting no closer to enlightenment. This is not about literal killing:

Linji also once said, “‘Buddha’ means pureness of the mind whose radiance pervades the entire dharma realm.” If you are familiar with Mahayana Buddhism, you will recognize that Linji is talking about Buddha Nature, which is the fundamental nature of all beings. In Zen, it’s generally understood that “When you meet the Buddha, kill him” refers to “killing” a Buddha you perceive as separate from yourself, because such a Buddha is an illusion.
Kill the Buddha? What Does That Mean?

If Buddha-nature is within all things and beings, then doctrines and teachers are aids to awakening the Buddha-nature within, rather than objects of worship to be fetishized. The Buddha’s last words were to be a lamp unto oneself, seeking no external refuge.

If there is no self, as the Buddha taught, then we shouldn’t be attached to external beings such as our teacher or even the Buddha himself, since they ultimately have no inherent existence. If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him, because the Buddha has no self in the first place.

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The above wording is very oblique about what it is trying to say, IMO, possibly relating to the translation or the way the Japanese is phrased. I asked around a few other forums, and what is being said here is that all mental objects are part of the mind that is synonymous with being a sentient being, which, in turn, is synonymous with having Buddha-nature. That being said, it really looks like it is arguing that mental objects (tree, grass, rock) have mindstreams and/or aggregates & sense-consciousnesses and (and corresponding Buddha-natures?) of their own.

This sentence here

and because they are synonymous with Mind, they are sentient beings

should be read as

and because they are synonymous with Mind, they are (synonymous with the) sentient being

Note the absence of the pluralization in the second example.

137

It all makes sense now! Lol

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