Excerpt from by Zen teacher David Loy:
http://ccbs.ntu.edu.tw/FULLTEXT/JR-JOCP/jc26559.htm
Nietzsche relates
the denial of a thinker to a denial of the process of thinking.
Why; after all, do we believe that there is an act of thinking?
Because that act is what the thinker does: stringing thoughts
together by creating new thoughts on the basis of the old thoughts.
If there is no such thinker, then there need be no such act. That
leaves only thoughts, but one at a time, although the succession
may be rapid.
The significance of
Nietzsche's remarks for us is that we find the same claim in the
Asian nondual philosophies, particularly in Ch'an Buddhism. In The
Platform Sutra of the Sixth Patriarch, Hui Neng explains what
prajña is:
To know our mind is to obtain liberation. To attain liberation is
to experience the Samadhi of Prajna, which is ''thoughtlessness".
What is "thoughtlessness"? Thoughtlessness is to see and know all
Dharmas (things) with a mind free from attachment. When in use it
pervades everywhere, and yet it sticks nowhere....When our mind
works freely without any hindrance and is at liberty to "come" or
to "go", we attain Samadhi of Prajna, or liberation. Such a state
is called the function of "thoughtlessness". But to refrain from
thinking of anything, so that all thoughts are suppressed, is to be
Dharma-ridden, and this is an erroneous view. [20]
The term
"thoughtlessness" would seem to recommend a mind free from any
thoughts, but Hui Neng denies this: rather, "thoughtlessness" is
the function of a mind free from any attachment. The implication is
that for someone who is liberated thoughts still arise, but there
is no clinging to them when they do. Why the term "thoughtlessness"
can be used to characterize such a state of mind will become clear
in a moment. But the question that arises first is in what way one
can ever be attached to thoughts if, as the Śiksāsamuccaya says, a
thought has no staying power, that like lightning it breaks up in a
moment and disappears. Hui Neng answers this later in the Platform
Sutra when he says more about "how to think":
In the exercise of
our thinking faculty, let the past be dead. If we allow our
thoughts, past, present and future, to link up in a series, we put
ourselves under restraint. On the other hand, if we never let our
mind attach to anything, we shall gain liberation.
(my emphasis [21])
One clings to a
thought by allowing the thoughts to link up in a series, which
means having one's next thought "caused", as it were, by the
previous thoughts, rather than letting each thought arise
spontaneously and nondually.
According to the autobiographical first part of the Platform Sutra,
Hui Neng became deeply enlightened and realized that all things in
the universe are his self-nature, upon hearing a line from the
Diamond Sutra: "Let your thought arise without fixing it anywhere".
[22] The passage just prior to this
one-which Hui Neng must also have heard-puts this in context.
Edward Conze translates it as follows:
Therefore then, Subhuti, the Bodhisattva should produce an
unsupported thought, a thought which is nowhere supported, which is
not supported (apratisthiti) by forms, sounds, smells, tastes,
touchables, or objects of mind. [23]
A thought is
"Unsupported" because it does not arise in dependence upon anything
else, not "caused" by another thought ("mind-objects") and of
course not "produced" by a thinker, which the Bodhisattva realizes
does, not exist. Such an "unsupported thought", then, is prajña,
arising by itself nondually.
The ego in its
purity is experienced in the interval between two states or between
two thoughts. The ego is like the worm which leaves one hold only
after it catches another. Its true nature is known when it is out
of contact with objects or thoughts. You should realize this
interval as the abiding, unchangeable Reality, your true Being...
[26]
The image of the
ego as a worm which leaves one hold only after catching another
might well have been used by Hui Neng and Ma-tsu to describe the
way in which thoughts are apparently linked up in a series. The
difference is that Mahayana Buddhism encourages the arising of "an
unsupported thought", whereas Ramana Maharshi understands
unchangeable Reality as that which is realized only when it is out
of contact with all objects and thoughts. This is consistent with
the general relation between Mahayana and Advaita: Nirguṇa Brahman
is so emptied of any attribute ("neti, neti,...") that it becomes
impossible to differentiate from Śūnyatā. "It is difficult indeed
to distinguish between pure being and pure non-being as a
category". (S. Dasgupta). [27] But there is still a difference in
emphasis.
Mahāyāna emphasizes
realizing the emptiness of all phenomena, whereas Advaita
distinguishes between empty Reality and phenomena, with the effect
of devaluing the latter into mere māyā.
The image of a worm hesitant to leave its hold was used in a
personal conversation I had in 1981 with a Theravada monk from
Thailand, a meditation master named Phra Khemananda. This was
before I discovered the passage from Ramana Maharshi; what
Khemananda said was not prompted by any remark of mine, but was
taught to him by his own teacher in Thailand. He began by drawing
the following diagram:
Each oval
represents a thought, he said; normally, we leave one thought only
when we have another one to go to (as the arrows indicate), but to
think in this way constitutes ignorance. Instead, we should realize
that thinking is actually like this:
Then we will
understand the true nature of thoughts: that thoughts do not arise
from each other but by themselves.
This understanding of thoughts-not-linking-up-in-a-series but
springing up nondually is consistent with D. T. Suzuki's conception
of prajña:
It is important to note here that prajna wants to see its diction
"quickly" apprehended, giving us no intervening moment for
reflection or analysis or interpretation. Prajna for this reason is
frequently likened to a flash of lightning or to a spark from
two
striking pieces of
flint. "Quickness" does not refer to progress of time; it means
immediacy, absence of deliberation, no allowance for an intervening
proposition, no passing from premises to conclusion. [28]
This gives insight
into the many Ch'an dialogues in which students are criticized for
their hesitation or praised for their apparently nonsensical but
immediate replies. That the reply is immediate is not itself
sufficient; what is important is that each response be experienced
as a nondual "presentation of the whole". Hesitation reveals lack
of prajña because it indicates either some logical train of thought
or the self-conscious paralysis of all thought. That many approved
replies are non-sequitur reveals one aspect of the enlightened
mind, that its thoughts are free from reasoning and any
methodology.
Even more important, this also explains how meditation functions,
since the "letting-go" of thoughts breaks up the otherwise habitual
linking together in a series. Huang Po: "... Why do they [Ch'an
students] not copy me by letting each thought go as though it were
nothing, or as though it were a piece of rotten wood, a stone, or
the cold ashes of a dead fire"? [29]