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Is
There a Problem?
by Ven. Jinmyo Renge osho
March 30, 1996, Zazen-ji
Is
there a problem?
We live suspended in thin air. All around us everything looms. Colours,
forms, sounds. People. Buildings. Trees. Cats. Everything is so full and
rich and bright. Standing in the midst of the radiance of our lives, we
squint. Squinting is a reaction to bright light. If we didnt squint,
if we kept our eyes open, they would adjust. And in fact, we need light
to see at all. All of the things that we see: colours, formsare
all light. To adjust to this brightness is really just allowing our lives
to be as they are. But we dont allow ourselves to do that. Squinting,
we view the world with narrowed vision, missing a lot of the details of
what we are actually experiencing. Our vision becomes thin and small and
uncertain and we know were not seeing clearly.
To feel a little certainty, we turn things around. We interpret what we
see with narrowed vision to be the reality of our world. The fullness
becomes thin and flat. To make this sustainable, we make the world a story,
a set of descriptions, thoughts and feelings.
Within the tradition of practice this is called dukkha. Dukkha could be
translated as unsatisfactoriness, pettiness, suffering, the experience
of the unmanageability of reality through approaching experiences as if
there could possibly be a self. The Venerable Anzan Hoshin sensei, our
teacher, has explained that the roots of the Sanskrit term dukkha are
jur which means bad and kha which
means space. So dukkha is bad space. The primary
metaphor is of a carriage that does not work because the axle cannot pass
through the wheel. So the Sensei tells us that the dukkha that arises
from grasping at entities and objects is an experience of obstructed
space.
In order to make our experiencing of reality manageable, we create a self.
The sense of a self is already a problem because, as the Sensei points
out again and again and as should be obvious to us all by now, whatever
presents itself as a self cannot be the self. It cannot be the knower
because it is just another thing that is known. So the sense of
self already creates a sense of problem. Naturally, like tends towards
like. The self tends towards problems because it reinforces its own function
of existing as that which cannot exist and so must exist in such a way
that it cannot come into question. It does this by distracting itself
from itself and focuses on experiences in such a way that they seem to
be dense. So, the more dense the sense of problem, the stronger the sense
of self.
A sense of problem begins with what seems to us to be very subtle movements
of attention. We may recognize that there is something very familiar,
very repetitive about our thoughts and feelings, but beyond reacting to
the content, we seldom question into what is actually going on.
Everything that we perceive is made up of a myriad of details, of colours
of forms, of causes and effects unfolding in a rich, chaotic, playful
display. Our perception of what appears does not come from or take place
in anything that is solid. Our ability to perceive is made up of a myriad
of processes. In Buddha Dharma, one way of detecting the details of these
processes is the five skandhas. The word skandha means heap
or accumulation. The Ven. Anzan Hoshin sensei explains that
the five skandhas are a way of describing how we experience what we are.
The activity of these processes creates the illusion of an accumulation
or localization of experiencing. and describe the basis of self-image,
the illusion that there is a self doing the experiencing, a single entity
in the midst of what is being experienced.
Why dont we see this process take place? Because we cant see
it if we squint. Our eyes must be open in order to see it, because this
activity takes place very, very quickly. In the space of a second there
is said to be 60 mind moments, 60 movements of mind. Thats the bad
news. Nonetheless, the experience of our Ancestors in this practice has
been that even these subtle structures of attention can be attended to
and so attention need not be bound by them. Thats the good news.
The five skandhas are: form, basic reactivity, symbolization, habitual
patterning and consciousness. In the Development of Buddhist Psychology
series of classes, specifically, in classes 15 through 18, the Venerable
Anzan Hoshin sensei gave a thorough presentation of these Teachings. I
would like to draw on these for the following explanation. However, what
I am going to say is by no means complete and I recommend that you study
the classes yourself.
The Sensei says that the first of these piles is form skanda, which means
THAT. It means that there is a perception of something,
that experience experiences itself as a particular experience but objectifies
this event. This is the development of the basic mechanism of self-image,
or of how we become confused about who we really are, so that our experience
occurs in terms of self and other, this and that. In order to have a subject
or self or this, obviously you must have a that.
The next skandha, basic reactivity, adds weight to the that
so that the this can be held in place by it. An attitude
about the object forms: liking, disliking, or ignoring.
The third skandha categorizes it through symbolization, trying
to figure out what it resembles, if something like it has been experienced
before.
With the fourth skandha of habitual patterning, we decide
what to do, how to act, based on what we did before with something that
was like what this thing is like.
Then the fifth skandha of consciousness comes into play. This is the area
of experience we are primarily aware of, our thoughts and feelings about
our experiences.
The five skandhas tell us something about how our experience arises as
a piling up of different mental events to create the illusion of certainty
and the sense, the image, that there is a self doing the experiencing.
So is there a problem, can there be a problem, when there is no such thing
as a single, solid entity who is experiencing the problem? Where could
a problem exist? Then what about all the problems we seem to have to make
decisions about? If we are not a something in which a problem can exist,
do they exist, perhaps separately from us? What are these things that
we call problems? What do we actually mean when we use that word? As is
the case with so many words we use, the word problem is used as a symbol
to represent many different things, most of which are not a problem.
There are circumstances and conditions about which we cant do anything
and that is just the way things are. That is not the same as a problem,
but that doesnt stop us from entertaining ourselves with the project
of self-image by making it look like one. By focussing on something we
can in reality do nothing about, which has nothing to do with us, we can
make it appear to have everything to do with us. By nature, self-image
is a problem because it does not exist, and so the sense of problem is
something which is free-floating and can attach itself to anything, anywhere.
Squinting at a situation which we can do nothing about, we narrow the
view further and further. The circumstances and conditions, which are
themselves formed from the details of many truths, are reduced to a cartoon-like
representation. If we then respond to the situation from that understanding
of it, then that version of reality is what we contribute to the situation
as a whole. Our actions can literally serve to turn it into the very thing
we accuse it of being and think we are struggling to remedy.
A problem is a situation in which we actually need to do something
and can do something and we must respond appropriately. But what is this
thing that we have to respond to, what is it made of? Everything that
happens is part of many processes, becomes a part of many processes. It
is the result of a vast number of details of small truths, none of them
in themselves the truth. The most effective way to respond to a problem
is to respond clearly, directly and most importantly, honestly to what
is actually going on, to do what you can and do it as soon as possible.
Because a sense of problem is free-floating, it can attach itself to the
simplest of issues. What we will tend to do is think about the problem,
turn it over and over, focus and fixate on it.
Our attention becomes arranged in such a way that there is a perception
of things being unmanageable. We grasp at our sense of problem, at our
suffering and so we suffer. Then we have a new sense of problem because
we want to get rid of the suffering. But we cant just get rid of
it. If we try to eliminate it, we are just fragmenting our attention further
and we can make things very difficult for ourselves. Recognizing that
our judgment is impaired by the sense of problem, we may be tempted to
just try to cut through it, to act with ruthless determination, mistaking
this for mindfulness.
We may hang on to the sense of problem and choose to do nothing. Through
this, we can fold down into inertia and render ourselves unable to respond.
Our view becomes so narrowed and the sense of problem so broad that we
feel incapable of seeing anything clearly. We hesitate and become obsessed
with caution, mistaking this for mindfulness.
We may grasp at the sense of problem as being a threat to our life and
resolve to do great and heroic things, apply all of our energy to overcoming
it, mistaking this for mindfulness.
But this is not mindfulness. This is the activity of the three kleshas
of passion, aggression and stupidity, the properties that dull the mind
and are the basis for all unwholesome action. Countless options, solutions,
theories can arise and they can all seem valid to some extent, even though
they can often simultaneously be recognized to be completely insane. So
if delusion is so pervasive, how then can we really recognize what is
true, what is the most sane option?
Dogen zenjis Fukanzazengi, which is chanted every evening
during sesshin, says Understand that right here is the display of
Vast Reality and then dullness and mental wandering have no place to arise.
We must ground our experiencing in the display of reality right here.
If our perception of things does not include information about what is
taking place in this moment, we cannot respond accurately to what is actually
going on.
The more information there is about what is taking place in this moment,
the more accurate our assessment of ourselves, of our abilities, of our
relationship to anything that is perceived to be arising. If you think
about something, are you doing that in isolation, removed from the reality
of what is actually taking place right now?
This can be a very uncomfortable question, because when we focus, when
we concentrate on something, we want to be isolated so that we can enlarge
upon the sense of problem, blow it up so we can see all the minute details
of it, like pixels on a computer screen. We want to be left uninterrupted
because we usually approach a problem with a strategy and in order to
examine everything about it from that strategy, we cannot be interrupted.
The strategy only exists in our own imaginations and any interruption
would shatter its existence, our existence as that strategy.
A sense of problem is recognizable because it comes from an angle. It
has a central point, a self who is experiencing the dullness and mental
wandering.
Can we just do nothing with it? Can we just let it be as it actually is?
Can we stay with the sense of problem, the sense of discomfort, of uncertainty,
without turning away from it? Can we then open around it and see and hear
and feel the fact of the rest of our life, which is the rest of what is
available as this moment of experience?
Even if we understand all kinds of things, do we understand what anything
actually is?
Being willing to live with our misunderstandings and bringing them face
to face with our life as it actually is, beyond what we believe that we
understand is an amazing prospect. I think that this is some of what our
teacher, the Venerable Anzan Hoshin sensei, has described as shila paramita:
the discipline of living with not knowing.
We dont like that idea much. We want to be certain, we want to feel
that we know. So we interpret our experiencing as though we were a central
point in the midst of a kind of chaos. In the midst of all this chaos,
this not knowing, we would like to think that we know. So we think about
the chaos because in our thoughts, we can convince ourselves that we know
something.
The most sane and probably the only reasonable response to chaos would
be to simply be as tidy as possible in the midst of it. Shoelaces work
really well if we take the time to tie them properly. Everything works
quite well if we take the time to work with whats going on.
In Dogen zenjis Genjokoan: The Question of Our Lives it says:
No matter how far a fish swims, it doesnt come to the end
of the ocean. No matter how far a bird flies, it doesnt come to
the end of the sky. Since the beginning, fish and birds have always been
one with their elements. When there is a great need, a great use appears.
When there is a small need, a small use appears. Thus, the full use of
things is always as it is. Wherever something is, it covers its own ground.
If a bird cut itself off from the sky it would die. If a fish cut itself
off from water it would die. Also, the life of the sky is the bird itself,
the life of the water is the fish. The bird is life, the fish is life.
We can expand on these examples if wed like. Practice, enlightenment,
short and long life.
What we need to do can come from our experience of what is.
No problem.
Have a good morning.
 
© 1999-2000
White Wind Zen Community. All rights reserved.
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