In the Electronic Dharma Hall, A Discourse:

I asked Munen Josh Bartok if I could share these excerpts from our email correspondence. Josh is an editor at Wisdom Publications, a great thinker and speaker, and more importantly, a great friend.

Munen is responding to an email message that became a blog post back in February.

Munen:
First of all, when you say "mind creates the world" I wonder if you are looking at the Byram translation of the Dhammapada, published by Shambhala (because that's how he translates it). I think it's a really really unfortunate translation, to the point of being not what the Buddha taught (and I never let any of my authors cite it). But it's catchy, and it's from Shambhala, so these memes propagate.

Here's Byrom:

We are what we think.
All that we are arises with our thoughts.
With our thoughts we make the world.
Speak or act with an impure mind
And trouble will follow you
As the wheel follows the ox that draws the cart.

We are what we think.
All that we are arises with our thoughts.
With our thoughts we make the world.
Speak or act with a pure mind
And happiness will follow you
As your shadow, unshakable.

We are, of course, NOT what we think. This is the fundamental error that is the root of ignorance. We are not our thoughts, we are not our emotions, our ideas, our understandings, our perceptions, our personality, or our body. (These are the five skandhas/aggrates, with "formations" broken into several).

Consider this translation of the same material from Thanissaro Bhikkhu:

Phenomena are preceded by the heart,
ruled by the heart,
made of the heart.
If you speak or act
with a corrupted heart,
then suffering follows you —
as the wheel of the cart,
the track of the ox
that pulls it.

Phenomena are preceded by the heart,
ruled by the heart,
made of the heart.
If you speak or act
with a calm, bright heart,
then happiness follows you,
like a shadow
that never leaves.

Or, consider this one,from Acharya Buddharakkhita:

Mind precedes all mental states. Mind is their chief; they are all mind-wrought.
If with an impure mind a person speaks or acts suffering follows him like the wheel that follows the foot of the ox.

Mind precedes all mental states. Mind is their chief; they are all mind-wrought.
If with a pure mind a person speaks or acts happiness follows him like his never-departing shadow.

And then there is this koan:

Fayan decided to leave Dizang, the old teacher walked him out to the front gate and said, "You always say that the three worlds are only mind and that the myriad things are only consciousness. Is that true?" Fayan said, "Yes." Dizang pointed to a rock in the garden and said, "Tell me, is this rock inside your mind or outside your mind?" Fayan said, "It is inside my mind." Dizang said, "Why do you carry a rock around in your head?" Fayan could not answer so he put down his bundle, went back inside the temple to study further with Dizang.

To say that "three worlds are nothing but mind" is one thing, but to say that "mind creates the world" is another. What creates mind? What is the world? What is "creates"?

And we can bring home to our experience in zazen:

When sitting in zazen, there aren't two kind of mental states. There are the kind we let go of and "the good kind". We let go everything that arises---we even let go of "letting go" itself. (And we let go of the one who lets go). And then there is only this.

And so, consciousness not only doesn't dwell "within this body" it also doesn't dwell "in" anything else, or anything at all. Perhaps objects, bodies, and we ourselves "dwell" in consciousness. But it's not "our" consciousness by any stretch of the imagination. It's the universe's consciousness. it's the universe itself. For me, this is the only conception of God that makes sense.

One modern writer, when asked if she believed in God, responded with, "Do you believe in trees?"

This is God of Meister Eckhart, the god who looks at us with the same eyes with which we look back. In Pure Land Buddhism, this is Amida Buddha, the universe/dharmakaya-as-compassion (and because this compassion is the universe itself, is every phenomenon, every dharma, every asising, it "pervades" everywhere). This is also not different from Maha Vairochana Buddha, the universe/dharmakaya as enlightenment (and because this enlightenment is the universe itself, is every phenomenon, every dharma, every asising, it "pervades" everywhere).



Shugetsu:

I do appreciate your point that anything I can express is a mental
formation. Trying to describe experience seems like a dangerous
undertaking. Until recently I had some notion that it was possible to
correctly "feel" the world, and it was only the verbalization of it
that was confounded by concepts. Lately I am finding glimmers of doubt
around the edges of that belief. Life still looks like life, but this
world is actually NOT as I believe it to be.

I've come to trust my "sense" of things, for example if someone is
relating to me with lack or respect, or with lust, or whatever. It's
just a natural emotional intelligence. But I'm realizing that if I'm
not clear, I can't trust those energetic impressions. And I don' t
know when I'm clear. If I get a huge hit of nasty-lust vibe off
someone..it could be them..it could be me..it could be anything,
traipsing through the local mind-territory.

Mark Unno (bless him) told me that practice has to be 51% of our
lives, the container that holds and gives perspective to everything
else. Integral to that orientation is the intuition that we are only
aware of a very small part of the mystery. I'm realizing that the
things I thought I had pinned down aren't known either!