True Self. . .

3. True-self

Basic problems return to the self. It is the key to penetrating the nature of truth. The Indian Upanishads, which established the philosophy of Atman, said: All cosmos is this Atman. In Western philosophy, too, the nature of the self has fascinated thinkers.Man is the weakest reed in nature, said Pascal, but he is a thinking reed.

Rikushozan, who taught the philosophy of One Mind, said: The cosmos is my mind. My mind is the cosmos. In the depth of minds we recognize the cosmic spirit that breaks out of narrow consciousness and works naturally. We cannot doubt that the self is a thinking reed.

The self, as we ordinarily know it, is where time and space cross. In the West the conditioned self is usually accepted as it appears from the standpoint of Being. The conditioned and instinctive come with it. In the East, with its emphasis on non-Being, the conditioned self tends to be downgraded. The East would awaken to the natural and purify the instinctive.

The conditioned self includes many discrepancies and impurities. This is the self that Buddhism found unacceptable, noting thatall things have no selfhood. It means that there is no fixed substance anywhere and no reason to cling to it. To postulate such a substance is the ordinary view.

The unifying element in this stream of consciousness is provisionally called the self. There is no soul without this body. Truth emerges when we can empty ourselves while observing things. To observe without dogmatic bias lies at the base of the scientific spirit. Science can flourish only so far as it stays clear of narrow dogmas, and strive for systems free from contradictions.

The idea that all things have no selfhood was supported by the Buddhist teachings of mutual dependence and impermanence. It ripened into the ideas of Buddhahood in the Mahanirvana Sutra and of the Tathagata-garba in the Srimala Sutra.

In Hinayana Buddhism, Sarvastivadin considered the mind as stained from the standpoint of realism, while Mahasanghika considered it pure from the standpoint of idealism. Mahasanghika returned to Mahayana Buddhism.

Mahayana Buddhism is a progressive movement that tries to return to the basic spirit of the Buddha in accord with the age. Mahayana scriptures see the mind of man as essentially pure. This is especially true in the Mahanirvana Sutra, which teaches that all beings have Buddha-nature and points to the inherent Buddha mind in everyone.

Buddha-nature is the ground for becoming the Buddha: it is the Religiositat of humanity and the true humanity. Faith in Buddha- nature provides the basis for enlightenment and the ultimate ground of human dignity.

In the Srimala Sutra the term used is the Tathagata-garba. It means the womb enclosing the Tathagata. All beings are said to be wrapped in the deep mind-wisdom of the Tathagata. This is called shosozo (enveloping storehouse). The mind-wisdom of the Tathagata is covered by the delusions and desires of all being. This is called ompuzo (hidden storehouse). Many Buddhists generally consider the latter as Buddha-nature. Actually the former seems closer to the truth.

Buddha-nature is the true self that manifests itself when we lose ordinary selfhood. It is the inherent self (Eigenes Selbst) of existential philosophy. To penetrate to the true self is to gain enlightenment (Satori).

In Zen some schools emphasize Satori, and others give it less weight. The Rinzai School is an example of the former; the Soto School, an example of the latter. Rinzai Zen courts Satori by reflecting on the Koan during zazen. Soto Zen does not set Satori and practice apart; it considers them self-identical. The former is convenient for the beginner, but one misstep can turn it into a gradualist sort of Zen. Soto Zen is suited for more experienced Zen trainees. But here again, a misstep can lead easily to a form of naturalism.

Dogen, who transmitted Soto-Zen to Japan, deepened the Buddha- nature concept in his essay on the subject. He did not accept the usual interpretation of the passage in the Mahanirvana sutra: All beings inherently have Buddha-nature. He read it: All beings are Buddha- nature. Dogen thus made Buddha-nature the ground of all existences and the origin of all values. All existences, he said, are the self-expression of Buddha-nature.

From this basic standpoint, Dogen extensively discussed the ideas of u-bussho (Buddha-nature as Being), mu-bussho (Buddha-nature as non- Being), ku-bussho (Buddha-nature as emptiness), setsu-bussho (Buddha-nature as expression), mujo-bussho (Buddha-nature as impermanence), and gyo-bussho (Buddha-nature as practice).

U-bussho considers all existences as Buddha-nature. Mu-bussho is the ground of form. Ku-bussho is the Buddha-nature transcending both Being and non-Being. Setsu-bussho takes all things in themselves as self-expressions of Buddha-nature. Mujo-bussho is the ever-flowing development of Buddha-nature itself. Gyo-bussho is the bodily practice of Buddha-nature.