Articles by Ama Samy

I have just read Richard Gombrich’s book What the Buddha Thought. Gombrich places the Buddha in his historical times and culture and shows him as a revolutionary religious genius. There was no script and writing during the Buddha’s time; all his teachings were orally transmitted for hundreds of years. It can be easily understood that many of his sayings were not understood by later generations and the commentators often misinterpreted him. Gombrich bases his study on the Pali canon of Theravada Buddhism and shows how the Buddha must have both drawn from existent teachings and also transformed them. Let me pick out a few points.

The central teaching of the Buddha was Karma. The Jains taught the theory of karma solely in terms of deeds and their material effect on the soul. It was sort of materialism. The Vedic brahmins taught karma in terms of religious rituals and sacrifice, and it was mechanical and not much to do with intention and ethics. The Buddha ethicized karma; it means karma is essentially one’s intention and ethical responsibility. If one does an action with a good will and good intention, it is good karma and will lead to good results; and if with bad will and evil intention, it will lead to negative consequences. Thus karma gives freedom to the individual and makes one responsible to one’s own destiny. If the effects of the karma are not seen in the present life, they will come to fruition in the next life and the next. Thus, the theory of karma and rebirth go together. Gombrich remarks, “The Buddha’s version of the law of karma was entirely his own; but to accept it was the leap of faith he demanded of every follower” (p.28).

The Buddhist teaching of no-soul, anatta, is often interpreted as meaning no self in reality. Gombrich points out that what it means is that there is “no unchanging self” or “no unchanging essence”. The self and all things are ever-changing but there is also continuity. “…the idea that Buddhism denies personal continuity could not be further from the truth. In fact, Buddhism probably has the strongest idea of personal continuity found anywhere”. The Christian idea of personal continuity, he points out, is more problematic. “Buddhism, by contrast, believes in personal continuity over an infinite series of lives” (p.11).

He interprets anicca, impermanence, as pointing to the fact that all things are in process and not static. What we can experience is only process, and this may be the  Buddha’s most important philosophical idea (p. 125). It also means that all things exhibit non-random change (p. 10). Non-random change means effects follow causes. He quotes Damien Keown: “Sow an act, reap a habit; sow a habit, reap a character; sow a character, reap a destiny”(13). However, the Buddhist cosmology cannot be attributed to the Buddha, it is a later convoluted philosophy. The Buddha was concerned with personal experience and individual responsibility and not with cosmology.

Gombrich’s revolutionary idea is about enlightenment. “…the Buddha saw love and compassion as means to salvation—in his terms, to the attainment of nirvana. This is no minor claim” (p.76). “The Buddha has described the attainment of total love, compassion, empathetic joy or equanimity as ‘liberation of the mind’… the Buddhist monk is pervading the universe with his consciousness, but it is an ethicized consciousness” (p.83). “To claim that love or compassion can be salvific does go against the Theravadin tradition…” (p.86). Even the Dhammapada proclaims, “The monk who dwells in kindness, with faith in the Buddha’s teaching, may attain the peaceful state, the bliss cessation of conditioning” (No. 368). “Thus the author of the Dhammapada verse apparently interprets the Metta Sutta to mean that it is kindness which will get one to nirvana. Tradition holds, of course, that the author of both poems is the Buddha himself” (p. 87).

Let me end with few other remarks of his among many. Gombrich blames Nagarjuna for causing much confusion! (p.159). As regards meditation, he quotes approvingly Walpola Rahula: meditation (bhavana) ‘includes all our studies, reading, discussions, conversation and deliberations on ethical, spiritual and intellectual subjects’ (p.223). Gombrich points out that the Buddha did not discriminate against women, there were in his time Buddhist nuns who were awakened and they formed the nuns’ sangha.

Gombrich remarks that the Buddha would entirely approve of what Paul Williams has written: Whenever you come across something new, or perhaps even strange, in the study of Buddhism, ask yourself…’How might a Buddhist holding or practising that consider that doing so leads to the diminution or eradication of negative mental states, and the increasing or fulfilment of positive mental states?’ (p. 162).

–Ama Samy in Zen – Soundless Sound of One Hand

I

Let me say a few words on Awakening or enlightenment in zen. In the traditional way, the student has to struggle day and night to achieve awakening, as shown in the commentary of Mumon in the Gateless Gate of the first koan. This is an illusory way. This illusory way is one of achievement by oneself (the self-made masters are fake masters) and further it is a sensory experience (no visions or extraordinary experiences one has will be awakening). Self-achievement and sensory experiences are both illusions. Awakening is grace and gift. It is transcendent and not an object in this world nor in the other world. Awakening is realised through the testimony of the master in terms of the scriptural revelation; that is, the awakening of the disciple is realized by the word of the master… The master is only the channel of the grace of awakening… Secondly awakening is not an experience; experiences in zen are makyos or illusions. Awakening to the mystery of Emptiness cannot be a sensory experience nor an achievement. Sensory experiences can be manufactured, imagined, borrowed, or drug-induced… Authentic awakening transforms the self and offers one a new vision of world and reality. A new world and new heaven have come to birth and the old has passed away.

Further, awakening takes place interpersonally between the master and the disciple; it is further confirmed in the sangha and in life experience. Zen is interpersonal and communal. Awakening flows into gratitude to the master and fidelity to the tradition and the master.

II – Chinese koan history

The Tang dynasty. (618–907) is considered a golden age in Chinese history and in zen. The Chinese great masters lived in this period. The dialogues and exchanges between masters and disciples and certain Chinese daily life activities were collected and codified in different collections. These incidents were used as koans. In the Chinese zen, koan answers were not systematized or standardized. The answers were spontaneous and according to circumstances and personalities. Koans do not open the disciple to awakening. After awakening, the koans help to clarify, articulate and deepen one’s realization. In the Rinzai and Sanbokyodan tradition, the koan Mu (or the Sound of one hand in some Rinzai schools) is the first major koan. Further, however you huff and puff with Mu, it will not lead you to awakening. Neither will any experience with Mu do.

In Chinese zen history, the students stayed with the masters for many years. For example, Joshu stayed with his master for forty years. After the death of his master he wandered through China sharpening and deepening his zen realization. A Rinzai master told me that Sanbokyodan had no sangha of disciples living together and with the master, and that passing koans alone was not zen. The fault of Sanbokyodan is that once you complete the koan curriculum, you are authorized as zen teacher or master. I followed the Sanbokyodan example. It was my mistake. I was not mature enough to see the fault. It has taken me many years to come to deeper realization and awakening.

III – Japanese koan history and meaning

The present Rinzai koan system falls into two schools—they are not much different from each other—the Takuju school and Inzan school. Takuju Kosen (1760-1833) and Inzan Ien (1751-1814), were disciples of Torei Enji (1721-1792), who was the immediate disciple and collaborator of Hakuin. There are said to be 1700 koans. Actu­ally, there are any number, and anything and every­thing can be turned into a koan. Takuju and Inzan sat together, took the Chinese koan collections, went through them one by one and composed answers to each koan. These answers have become the secret code of the zen schools. (A rogue zen monk published all the koan answers; the Rinzai faction panicked. But the answers composed by Takuju and Inzan for Mu and its subsidiary koans and the sound of one hand and its subsidiary koans and the 200 miscellaneous koans could not be altered. However, they could somehow alter the koan answers for the major collections. To what extent they succeeded is a mute question.) Sanbokyodan goes through the answers serially one after another. Some Rinzai schools choose only some koans and go through them with the students. But remember, these koan answers are only dead bones. They have to be fleshed out and brought to life with meaning, value, relevance for daily life and the overall world views they embody. I criticised the koan system in my earlier book:

“The systematisation of koan training revitalized Rinzai Zen but it also destroyed originality and cre­ativity. Now Rinzai monks go through hundreds and hundreds of set koans with fixed and set answers. It is a training in studied spontaneity, ritual routine and a learning of a particular language and behaviour. It has become mostly a learned acting-out and imitativeness without realization. “Right” koan answers have become the dogma of Rinzai.

Soto Zen has become a Zen of “right” manners and rituals. One hears often of one attaining satori by breaking through the first koan. It is a eu­phemism. Rarely does any Rinzai monk come to a breakthrough enlightenment by “passing” the koans: of course, there can be exceptions, no doubt. One can run through all the hundreds of koans giving the ‘right’ answers without any experience of awak­ening. But, the koan training is not without value. It can be a training in acquiring Zen language and in learning to let oneself go in studied spontaneity and behaviour. And it can prepare one for an awakening: the post-awakening training in koan can be a deepening,”

IV – First naivete and second naivete

In Paul Ricoeur’s terminology, first Naivete is the literal understanding. The second naivete will be the deeper level, of understanding, meaning, relevance to life, dramatic, challenging and provoking further questions; it will be revelatory of the transcendent reality of life and world. The traditional zen schools, particularly Sanbokyodan, stop at the first level. It is tragic; the students will not go deeper into the marrow of the koans and will be satisfied with surface answers. Regarding the second naivete, see for example my comments on the subkoans of Mu in my book Do not seek him anywhere else. Let me quote John Dunne with regards to what the second naivete can imply:

“The sense of ‘I’, located in the moving center of life, is the place where the other world passes through this world, where the eternal enters time in us, where the human figure emerges and returns to its divine ground” (John Dunne, 1991). Another quote from Dunne:

“There is a giving up of self and will in giving up control over the things of life, in letting myself be led by God, by the illumining of my mind and the kindling of my heart. The sense of ‘I’ changes as I pass from will and control to letting be and openness to mystery, as I pass from will to willingness. My sense of ‘I’, once located in my will, comes to be located in the center of my being, ‘a center of stillness surrounded by silence’. Coming to my own center, I come in touch with other centers as well. It is as though we were living in the infinite sphere where the center is everywhere and the circumference is nowhere, the infinite sphere of God’s presence. My sense of ‘I’ becomes thus ‘a new road or a secret gate’ into the kingdom of God.”

V – There is a unique identification between the master and the disciple

Robert Scharlemann clarifies this: “How can the I as I “find” itself by losing itself through following a call and commission? It can do so insofar as, in addition to having actuality, possibility, and freedom, it shows itself as capable of being outside itself, that is, as capable of ecstacy, as the prodigal son can disown himself, by wandering until he comes to himself again. The ecstacy of the I is its being away from itself so that it must or can come back to itself in order to be whole. But this being whole is different from the Ganz sein können connected with the possibility of not being in the world (Heidegger’s Sein zum Tode). The call to follow is a call to become in fact what one already is. One person is capable of following another person and of becoming free in the process because the oneness of the “I” can be presented in the person of another. To the extent that the disciples of Jesus were “followers” of the “I am” of Jesus, the one they encountered in his person was not their “thou” but their “I,” and in losing themselves in him, they came to themselves on their own. In attaching themselves to him, they attached themselves to one whose death left them on their own. …[to]take note of this ecstatic feature of the self—the feature described when we say that the I can appear to itself outside itself so that it comes back to itself by following the one whose voice is that of ‘I am’.”

“We can, then, distinguish a call to follow from the call of conscience. Conscience calls us to answer for the “not” of being, and it attests the possibility of Sein zum Tode. The summons of “I am” is a different call; it is related to the possibility of being freely and wholly in the world and, that is to say, a way of being worldly other than through care… The difference between the freedom that comes to be through trusting and the freedom that comes to be through following is the difference between freely being with another and freely being whole. In trust we are with the other in freedom; through following we come to be whole on our own in the world. A community of trust is correspondingly different from a community of peace. The former is based on the freedom to be; the latter is based on the freedom to be finitely or to be in the world wholly” (Chapter 1, pp. 31-36, The Reason of Following).

[Ama Samy has given the Sanbokyodan koan answers to his own teachers and masters. They go around flaunting them and playing great masters. (The same applies also to Sanbokyodan masters). None of them is an awakened master. They are not awakened and do not understand the deeper meaning of the koans, the second naivete. Ama Samy has invited his teachers to come and train with him. Only Olaf comes regularly to train with him.]

–Ama Samy, October 2024