A Place for Doubt

Guest article

By Robert Buswell  
Distinguish Professor of Buddhist Studies, UCLA

The 9/11 terrorist attacks were fostered in no small measure by the certitude of a handful of religious zealots that their religious beliefs alone were right and all others wrong.  In early Buddhist texts like the Atthakavagga (The Octets), the Buddha bemoaned the pernicious hold that extremist views, and especially religious blind faith, have on people.  By presuming that only my beliefs, practices, and perceptions are correct and unassailable implies that all others ipso facto are incorrect and controvertible.  

As the tenth anniversary of this heinous act of religious terror approaches, it is perhaps refreshing that an eminent figure in a tradition that places doubt at the very core of religious teaching and practice will be visiting New York City.  He is Ven. Jinje Seonsa, the leading Korean Zen (Seon) master of his generation.  

In Buddhism, by abandoning the personal point of view that is the self (atman), the Buddhist experiences a state that transcends dichotomies such as enemy and friend, orthodox and heretical, and thus clings to nothing from this conditioned world.  Even attachment to "Buddhism" itself, the Buddha says, must ultimately be abandoned to truly understand Buddhism.  Attachment to views is considered to be the root source of the disputes that separate one group from another and lead to conflict, a position certainly taken to the extreme by the 9/11 attackers.  

But it doesn't take a terrorist to operate from viewpoints of prejudice, hate, or misunderstanding.  We are all impeded by thoughts and emotions that affect our understanding and actions.  But if we are willing to cut through those value judgments by deploying the tool of doubt, we can experience that fundamental nature that transcends all dichotomies and inequalities.  

The Korean Seon tradition places pride of place in doubt rather than faith and the teachings of Seon Master Jinje epitomize the sense of questioning that, he insists, is at the core of authentic religious practice.  

Remember those colorful if not blasphemous sayings of the Zen masters?  

"'What is the Buddha?' 'A dried sh** stick.'" (Yunmen) 
"If you meet the Buddha, kill him!" (Linji). 

"'Why did Bodhidharma, the founder of Zen, come from the West?' 'A cypress tree is in the courtyard.'"  (Zhaozhou)  

These kinds of enigmatic statements of the masters of old are specifically intended to help overcome the attachment to views, even the view of what constitutes "Buddhism" or the "Buddha" himself.  The Korean Seon tradition uses these kinds of statements as "topics of inquiry" (hwadu) in order to raise that sense of questioning, which the Koreans call technically "the sensation of doubt" (uijeong).  

This Korean technique is akin to the Japanese Rinzai Zen training in koans (Zen "cases"), which is better known in the West, but Korean Ganhwa Seon developed prior to, and completely independently from, the Japanese Zen traditions.  In Seon Master Jinje's presentation of Ganhwa Seon, this questioning component is paramount and is what distinguishes this Korean style of meditation from other forms of Buddhist meditation such as vipassana (insight meditation).  

Such hwadu challenge one's most deeply held beliefs, including those about religion, by engendering questioning.  This sensation of doubt eventually becomes so intense that the mind becomes utterly absorbed in the topic of inquiry.  The meditator becomes oblivious to everything in one's life except this questioning, which becomes so second-nature that it flows effortlessly and continuously in one's mind, like water running downstream.  

Seon Master Jinje commonly teaches neophytes to Ganhwa Seon practice to contemplate the hwadu "What is your original face before your parents gave birth to you?"  By asking this fundamental existential question about what "we" were before we were even conceived, this question opens up a whole series of further questions about what constitutes ourselves if "we" are not our physical bodies, thoughts, emotions, and experiences.  The intensity of this questioning eventually creates such pressure in the mind that the doubt shatters, removing the limiting point of view that is the self and leaving the mind receptive to the influence of the unconditioned and open to the boundless perspective that is enlightenment.  

On the heels of the tenth anniversary of 9/11, I think it is fitting that we all open our minds to the value of doubt.  By challenging our own fundamental beliefs, challenging our own understanding of self and other, right and wrong, orthodoxy and heterodoxy, and enemy and friend, Korean questioning meditation thus opens the possibility of a entirely new way of perceiving the things of this world, a new way of thinking in which clinging to our own views alone does not hold sway.  

According to Korean Seon teachings, this is the ultimate paradox of religion: to truly have certitude one must first have doubt.  

This article originally appeared here


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Who Was Abraham?

Discovering the origins of Abraham and the religious precedent credited to him has been a keen affinity since childhood, his influence greatly affecting what we know of as the Western world today.  What surrounded him that contributed to the religious origins he's credited with today?  

Of all my discoveries on the Internet, Gene Matlock's essay remains in my top 10 best finds of all time, contributing to my life-long journey to learn of Abraham's origins.  In the essay below, Gene explores evidence and implications from various sources pointing at South Asian origins of Abraham and his cult.  His premise includes the presumption that Rama was an actual historical figure, whereas Rama and the Ramayana were stories, katha, to convey lessons, and in this case, stories created by Aryans, originating from the Steppes, to induce inferiority complex among Dravidians and others while conveying them as subhumans, as monkeys, as sham, despite Dravidians and Austrics having a far more evolved society than the Aryans.  

That Abraham and Judaism originated from larger Indian influences has been rather common knowledge in the region for millennia while it has been so long since his presence on Earth so much of what occurred then has been obscured with time.  

To the contributions from this essay I can add a few bits of information from my guru.  Judaism originated in a small village in southern area of what is known as Afghanistan today.  While Matlock refers to extensive flooding, perhaps a continuous monsoon, contributive to Judaism's journey westward, the westward migration also had to do with people of that village converting to Shaevite Tantra.  Others in the surrounding area retaliated toward them, initiating the first of a string in the story line of Judaism about "persecution".  I anticipate that the village was surrounded by Zorastrians, one of the oldest religions in the world, extant today, and among the earliest to postulate or assert monotheism, as does Tantra.  


The hexagram, commonly known as Mogen David in Judaism, had long been an important device in Shaevite Tantric practice for thousands of years before Abraham, and was quite common in Egypt and areas north of Egypt before the arrival of Judaism to the area.  Shaevite Tantra is Tantra further systemized by SadaShiva nearly 7,000 years ago, Tantra evolving thousands of years before that, originating from Dravidian, Mongolian, and Austric cultures, applying scientific methods to every realm of life, not just inanimate physics as is often the conceit of modern times.   

It has been said that Abraham could directly communicate with God.  Dhyana is how he did so, part of core of yogic practice, of Ashtaunga yoga, the Eightfold Path, a birthright to practice for all humans.  Dhyana and dharana were taken to China by Bodhi Dharma, a key part of his introduction of Tantra and Buddhism to Taoist practitioners of the time, a meditation method which later became known as "Chan" in China's monosyllabic language, and later known as Zazen in Korea, and as Zen in Japan.  


Before its desctruction, the temple in Israel of which the "Wailing Wall" remains had a chamber for initiates within which descriptors of the Universe were engraved, including the acoustic root of the Universe, the phoneme "aum", "om", "omn", "the word", om'kara in Sam'skrit. Reciting the sound, in prescribed manner, greatly facilitates psycho-spiritual development, intuitional gestalts.  
  

Guest article

Who Was ABRAHAM?
A paper by Gene D. Matlock, B.A., M.A.  


Gene D. Matlock, B.A, M.A.  

In his History of the Jews, the Jewish scholar and theologian Flavius Josephus (37 - 100 A.D.), wrote that the Greek philosopher Aristotle had said: "...These Jews are derived from the Indian philosophers; they are named by the Indians Calani."  (Book I:22.)  

Clearchus of Soli wrote, "The Jews descend from the philosophers of India.  The philosophers are called in India Calanians and in Syria Jews.  The name of their capital is very difficult to pronounce.  It is called 'Jerusalem.'"  

"Megasthenes, who was sent to India by Seleucus Nicator, about three hundred years before Christ, and whose accounts from new inquiries are every day acquiring additional credit, says that the Jews 'were an Indian tribe or sect called Kalani...'" (Anacalypsis, by Godfrey Higgins, Vol. I; p. 400.)  

Martin Haug, Ph.D., wrote in The Sacred Language, Writings, and Religions of the Parsis, "The Magi are said to have called their religion Kesh-î-Ibrahim.  They traced their religious books to Abraham, who was believed to have brought them from heaven."  (p. 16.)

There are certain striking similarities between the Hindu god Brahma and his consort Saraisvati, and the Jewish Abraham and Sarai, that are more than mere coincidences.  Although in all of India there is only one temple dedicated to Brahma, this cult is the third largest Hindu sect.  

In his book Moisés y los Extraterrestres, Mexican author Tomás Doreste states,
Voltaire was of the opinion that Abraham descended from some of the numerous Brahman priests who left India to spread their teachings throughout the world; and in support of his thesis he presented the following elements: the similarity of names and the fact that the city of Ur, land of the patriarchs, was near the border of Persia, the road to India, where that Brahman had been born.  

10 Effective Ways to Optimize More Conscious Awareness

Guest article

by Steve Pavlina
stevepavlina

What does it mean to become more conscious?  It is the progressive realization of conscious mastery over your mind.  

The challenge is that it takes consciousness to grow consciousness.  But you needn’t worry about this because you already have the seed.  Think of it like fire.  You have a flame, and you want to turn that flame into a huge blaze.  How do you do it?  You add fuel.  The following list includes examples of how you can add fuel to your flame of consciousness to become a raging inferno of consciousness.  Well, OK, the analogy sort of falls apart there, but you get the idea. 

So here are 10 ways to raise your consciousness: 

1. Truth 

Truth raises your consciousness.  Falsehood lowers it.  

First, accept the truth.  Whatever you’re afraid to know lowers your consciousness.  Step on the scale to see how much you weigh.  Have a long talk with your spouse about the status of your relationship.  Take a deep look at your career.  In every case accept the outcome.  Don’t just acknowledge the current status and dismiss it.  Really accept it as the truth.  Think about what it means for this to be true.  Also accept your feelings about the truth, whether you like them or not.  

Secondly, speak the truth.  If honesty is a challenge for you, it’s because you aren’t being honest enough with yourself.  Lies you tell others are shadowed by lies you tell yourself.  Take note of those areas where you feel incapable of genuine honesty, and dig deep enough to find out why. You’ll find that you uncover a part of yourself you’ve been unwilling to accept. You don’t lie about the parts of yourself that you accept 100%.  

The more you’re able to accept and speak the truth, the more conscious you become.  Raise your consciousness by uncovering and dumping all traces of falsehood from your life.  Allow this to be a gradual process.  As your consciousness increases, genuine honesty will come more easily to you.  

Yes, there may be consequences when you switch from lies and half-truths to the full truth, but highly conscious people know that crossing that bridge is well worth the effect.  A short-term adjustment is nothing compared to the joys of living honestly and openly.  It’s so much easier and less stressful to be yourself and allow others to do the same.  Not everyone will appreciate the real you, especially if they’ve grown accustomed to a false version, but that won’t matter once you accept and appreciate yourself.  

2. Courage 

Courage raises your consciousness.  Cowardice lowers it.  

Courage is the gatekeeper between unconscious growth and conscious growth.  As long as you remain on the unconscious side, life will keep throwing problems at you until you step up and take charge.  When you face your fear, the fear vanishes, and problems transform into opportunities.  But when you run from your problems, your fear only grows.  

A powerful guiding principle to adopt is, “Whatever I fear, I must face.” The more fears you face down, the more conscious you become.  As you master this lesson, eventually courage becomes less necessary.  Once you develop the courage to face any fear life throws at you, you stop attracting so many fear-based experiences into your life.  This is why courage is the dividing line between unconscious growth and conscious growth.  The mastery of courage gives you the power to decide how you’ll grow instead of being a victim of the whims of fate.  

3. Compassion 

Compassion raises your consciousness.  Cruelty lowers it.  

A great way to become more conscious is to search for signs of unconscious cruelty and disconnection in your life.  This can be very difficult to do since it also requires courage.  We naturally resist facing our own cruelty, but it’s there just waiting to be uncovered.  

Compassion is the root of unconditional love, a feeling of connectedness with everything that exists.  Do you feel connected to yourself?  To others?  To animals?  To all living things?  To everything that exists?  The more you develop this connection, the more conscious and aware you become.  

4. Desire