Dharma Dictionary: Vipashyana

Defined by Reginald A. Ray

The Sanskrit Buddhist term vipashyana (Pali, vipassana; Tib, lhagthong; Jap, kan), is composed of two parts: pashyana indicates “seeing” while the prefix vi- adds the meaning of “extraordinary.” Vipashyana means “to see things in an extraordinary way”—not as we think they are or want them to be but “as they truly are in and of themselves.” Vipashyana is thus the liberative insight that marks awakening and the sine qua non of enlightenment. In this sense, it is equivalent to prajna, the penetrating and immaculate experience of seeing things as they truly are (yathabhutam).

As described in traditional texts, the experience of vipashyana contains several primary features. First, it arrives suddenly and unexpectedly, cutting through whatever discursive thinking, emotion or other relative state of mind we may be going through. It comes as a surprise or even a complete shock. Second, it is an experience of something, in this case of the geography of things as they are. So the experience contains nothing of ego or its perspective. It is reality seen not from ego’s standpoint, but from the standpoint of reality itself. In this sense, the experience of vipashyana is compared to a sudden bolt of lightening that lights up the entire landscape of reality beyond our conditioned reference point. Third, the experience of vipashyana abruptly drops one into a world in which the subject-object dualism of “seer” and “seen” does not apply. As the Japanese Yogacara scholar Yoshifumi Ueda evocatively puts it, what we run into here is “reality ‘seen’ by reality.”

Click to read more ...

Buddhahood in Three Dimensions

By Thich Nhat Hanh

Chapter 1 of the Lotus Sutra takes us to Vulture Peak, near the city of Rajagriha in the kingdom of Magadha (present-day northeast India), where the Buddha has gathered with a large assembly of disciples, including Kashyapa, Shariputra, Maudgalyayana and Ananda, as well thousands of bhikshus and bhikshunis, including the Buddha’s aunt, Mahaprajapati and his former wife, Yashodhara. In addition, there are tens of thousands of great bodhisattvas in attendance, among them Manjushri, Avalokiteshvara, Bhaisajyaraja (Medicine King) and Maitreya. Also present are many thousands of gods, including Indra and the kings of the nagas, kinnaras, ghandharvas, asuras and garudas. The ruler of Magadha, King Ajatashatru, and his royal family and retinue are also in attendance. This vast multitude of many different kinds of beings is present in the assembly when the Buddha is about to deliver the Lotus Sutra.

This not only sets the stage for the delivery of the sutra in the historical dimension, but also reveals the ultimate dimension. The vast numbers of shravakas and bodhisattvas, the presence of gods and mythical beings, give us our first taste of the ultimate dimension and show us that the opportunity to hear the Lotus Sutra delivered by the Buddha is something very special, a great occurrence not to be missed.

Click to read more ...

See the True Nature, then Let Go and Relax in That

An interview with Khenpo Tsultrim Gyamtso Rinpoche

Melvin McLeod: Rinpoche, you are one of the leading teachers of Mahamudra, the highest philosophy and practice of the Kagyü school of Tibetan Buddhism. Would you describe the Mahamudra view of the nature of mind?

Khenpo Tsultrim Gyamtso Rinpoche: In Mahamudra there are three traditions: sutra Mahamudra, mantra Mahamudra and essence Mahamudra.

The sutra tradition of Mahamudra encompasses both the second and third turnings of the wheel of dharma [the teachings on emptiness and buddhanature, respectively]. According to the second turning of the wheel, the true nature of mind is beyond conceptual fabrication. That means it cannot be described as being existent or nonexistent, as being something or nothing, or as being permanent or impermanent. Mind cannot be described or conceptualized in any of these ways: the nature of mind is beyond all conceptual fabrication. Then, according to the third turning of the wheel of dharma, which are the teachings on buddhanature such as the Uttaratantrashastra,[i] the true nature of mind is described as luminous clarity. This is the enlightened essence of the buddhanature, completely free from any stain, completely free from any imperfection or flaw. This luminosity is inseparable from emptiness. So the true nature of mind is described as the union of clarity and emptiness.

Click to read more ...

Buddha Is Right Here

By Shunryu Suzuki Roshi

Ignorance and Enlightenment

“There is no difference between buddhas and people, but buddhas understand their ignorance and we are ignorant of enlightenment.” A lecture on the “Genjo Koan,” given at Sokoji Temple, San Francisco, March, 1966.

In observing your practice, I notice it is just a small part of your life. You think it may be better to do something else instead of practicing zazen. But our practice is not like that. It is not one of twenty-four hours.

If I scold you, you may go. If I give you some candy, you will stay. I daresay you are impossible, like a child. You lack the confidence to study Buddhism as a whole life study. You think you can get away from Zen, from this zendo. Actually, once you enter, that’s it. Someday you’ll have to come back. I know that. I tried to get out of it many times, but I couldn’t.

Click to read more ...

A New Vision for Zen Center

By Julia Sommer

San Francisco Zen Center has been a mecca for serious Buddhist practitioners for more than thirty-five years. It operates three renowned practice centers in Northern California and offers community service and outreach programs for prisoners, the homeless and people in recovery. Teachers trained at Zen Center have founded some forty Zen centers and dharma groups around the country. Lectures by its legendary founder, Shunryu Suzuki Roshi, continue to be published.

So why did this venerable institution decide that it needed a new vision and strategic plan?

“The main fact about Zen Center is its size and age,” says Norman Fischer, SFZC co-abbot from 1995 to 2000. “A lot of people have been doing Zen there for a long time. It’s the flagship Buddhist institution in the West. Because of this, it’s had to deal with organizational issues that younger, smaller sanghas haven’t, and it’s had a chance to make more mistakes. I wonder what will happen to some of the other Buddhist sanghas in the West when their charismatic founding leaders die.”

Click to read more ...

Forum: Formless Meditation

A panel discussion with Ajahn Sumedho, Reverend Patricia Dai-en Bennage, Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche and Gaylon Ferguson.

BUDDHADHARMA: I’d begin by asking each of you to speak about your understanding of formless meditation from the point of view of your tradition. In Zen, for example, formless meditation often goes by the name of shikantaza, or “just sitting.” Reverend Bennage, could you say more about that?

DAI-EN BENNAGE: Yes, we say “just sitting,” but the “just” in “just sitting” doesn’t mean “just” in the usual way. It means thoroughgoing, total sitting. It’s like the feeling you would have if you were riding a horse at an incredible speed and you fell out of the saddle and found yourself between the saddle and the ground. What kind of state of mind would you have there?

Click to read more ...

This Is the Origin, This Is the Cessation

Teachings on the Four Noble Truths from Handful of Leaves, Thanissaro Bhikkhu’s new translations of selected suttas from the Pali Canon.

Although most of the Pali Canon has been translated into English, and many of the translations are quite good, there has long been a need for translations available free of charge. After all, the Buddha never charged for his teachings. He taught freely, both as an expression of his own generosity and as a sign of his respect for the priceless value of the dhamma.

In early 1996, John Bullitt asked me to provide a few translations from the canon for his fledgling website, Access to Insight (www.accesstoinsight.org). What began as a casual project quickly grew to a major production as the positive response to the initial translations showed a widespread interest in the Pali discourses. In 2001, the Sati Center for Buddhist Studies offered to print these discourses for free distribution, and so the four-volume set, Handful of Leaves, was born.

I learned my philosophy of translation from my first teacher, Ajaan Fuang Jotiko, who had me translate into English the writings of his teacher, Ajaan Lee Dhammadharo, as a way of supplementing my meditation practice. When I asked him whether the translations should aim at literal accuracy or essential meaning, he replied, “Both.” And in the process of trying to meet both aims, my understanding of the dhamma was forced to stretch and grow.

Click to read more ...

The Art of Being Present

By Meredith Monk

I’ve always thought that making art is like jumping from the edge of a cliff. At the beginning of every new work—and every day of work—is the unknown. Being an artist is being unsure, asking questions, stumbling around with only an inkling of what will manifest and tolerating the fear of hanging out in the unknown. When curiosity and interest become more present than discomfort, the mystery becomes enjoyable and its exploration vivid and vibrant.

Just as in meditation practice, the artist aspires to start fresh, free from past solutions, glories and failures. One begins with emptiness, without a conceptual framework that filters natural impulses, without striving to make a recognizable “product,” simply engaging in a process and getting out of the way of the work.

Each piece presents its own world. Part of making a piece is exploring its principles, listening to what it wants. The sense is that the piece already exists—it’s just a matter of uncovering it.

Click to read more ...

Readers’ Essays

Even though creativity has been a part of my life since my childhood, I was unprepared for the parallel I discovered when I began studying Buddhism. As I became familiar with the practice and methods of developing mindfulness, I found myself recognizing an old friend: drawing.

Like a clear bell tolling a resounding verity, I discovered that the quality of presence I regularly experience in my studio when I am in the process of putting pigment to paper and paint to surface is mindfulness. The true attention that creativity requires—the presence that is pure and undistracted—is the same true attention that the cushion requires. Until I began studying Buddhism, I had never encountered another instance of this beyond the studio. The revelation deepened not only my practice, but also my creativity.

Now I use what naturally comes to me in the studio on the cushion, and extend it (when I’m skillful) into my days and nights. I realize that what is compelling in my work is the same thing that is compelling in my practice; they are one and the same.

Click to read more ...

Dharma Dictionary: Kaji

Defined by Rev. Eijun Eidson

In the practice of Shingon Buddhism, developed by its Japanese founder Kukai (Kobo Daishi) in the early ninth century, one slowly awakens to the realization that one is not separate from anything in either the phenomenal or non-phenomenal universes. The means of achieving this realization are available to the practitioner, who is generally referred to as a priest, in the form of several thousand highly structured individual practices. Shingon, which means “true word” or “mantra,” uses practices involving hundreds of mantras, mudras and visualizations at deepening levels that are revealed as one’s practice matures. At the heart of all of these is the notion of Honzon Kaji, becoming one with the main deity.

Honzon simply refers to the main deity in any given ritual. Kaji refers to the enhancement of a sentient being’s power through the Buddha’s power (Nyorai-kaji-riki), and it translates the Sanskrit word adhisthana. Sanskrit terms like this came to Japan inscribed in the Siddham, or Brahmini, script, the form of written Sanskrit that was used by priests in India in the fourth to eighth centuries and then later in China and Japan. Understanding the meaning of Siddham syllables was one of the beginning steps taken by Kukai to understand the esoteric teachings in China.

Click to read more ...