Ignorance: A Zen View

In this track Seiso Roshi describes the Buddhist notion of avidya, or ignorance from the Zen perspective with implications for
the Soto Zen practice of shikantaza, or "just sitting." The talk is not a guided meditation, but is intended to support practice.

Transcript

The Dalai Lama writes suffering has ignorance,

Obscuration as its root cause.

Ignorance or avidya in Sanskrit is central and fundamental to the Buddhist understanding of the causes of and freedom from suffering.

The centrality of ignorance finds expression visually at the hub of the bhava chakra,

The wheel of life and death.

Ignorance is represented by the image of a pig,

One of the three poisons or three poisonous minds.

Hate or fear represented by a bird and aggression depicted by the image of a snake,

Or in more general terms,

Attachment and aversion constitute the other two poisons.

If you look closely at the image of the bhava chakra,

You will notice that the snake and the bird emerge out from the mouth of the pig,

Since ignorance is the primary cause of suffering.

Ignorance is also depicted by the image of a blind grandmother at the outside rim of the wheel.

She serves as the first link of the twelve nidanas or links of dependent origination.

She is depicted as a grandmother because she is the source of all future conditions.

She is blind on the one hand because she does not know the cause of ignorance which is rooted in a fundamental anxiety that we do not exist inherently,

Permanently,

Separately or independent of causes and conditions.

On the other hand,

She is blind to the future results of the seeds of karma that she plants and what results our actions will have as they manifest in the future.

She has a walking stick to support her because she lives on the shaky ground of false assumptions created by ignorance and that in turn engenders suffering.

In short,

She does not see through the illusion of a separate and permanent self that exists independently of causes and conditions.

She does not understand or even see or know of the three marks of existence,

Emptiness,

No abiding or permanent self,

And the resulting suffering or dissatisfaction that this failure to realize causes.

Ignorance is what makes our lives of samsara or suffering.

Why?

Because the three poisons to repeat,

Ignorance and the resulting actions based on attachment and aversion are the cause of suffering.

The Zen practice of shikantaza or just sitting is freedom from ignorance and is itself the practice of nirvana or the cessation of suffering.

Following Zazen,

We are free from these forces.

They're still active,

It's part of life,

But we become aware of them and we maintain the determination to refrain from taking action and creating more karma and suffering.

We simply don't take action.

We just keep sitting.

We vow to raise bodhicitta,

The awake mind of true awareness.

That is,

We simply watch the rise,

The coming into form,

The dissolving and fading of all experiences of seeing,

Hearing,

Smelling,

Tasting,

Sensation,

And thinking without attachment,

Aversion,

Or judgment.

We simply watch attachment and aversion,

Often described as hatred and greed.

We witness their constant rise and fall.

We just let go and simply sit.

The Zen teacher Shōhaku Okumura Roshi notes that we must return to this basic stance,

This basic fact of sitting,

Billions of times.

This is what is meant by opening the hand of thought.

From the Buddhist perspective,

Ignorance refers to an act of not knowing of the truth of the three marks of existence to repeat emptiness,

Impermanence,

And dissatisfaction or suffering.

Ignorance functions as a driving force that results in suffering because the relative world of samsara remains in the forefront of consciousness and suffering ensues as we constantly struggle to avoid what we dislike and chase after and hold onto what we do like.

Even when we have what we like,

We still suffer over the fear of losing whatever that may be,

A possession,

A loved one,

A state of mind.

How does this happen?

Well,

Ignorance creates a perceptual split between subject and object,

Self and other that creates attachment to what we cherish and aversion to what we despise.

Internal psychic conflicts ensue because these split off aspects of ourselves as well because we struggle to deal with afflictive states of mind and to seek preferred psychological states.

The 13th century Japanese Zen monk and teacher,

Who was the founder of the Soto Zen tradition,

Eihei Dogen,

Describes this in concrete terms in the fourth line of his article Genjo Kōen,

Which loosely translated means reality,

Here and now.

After making three highly abstract and philosophical statements,

He writes,

Yet for all that,

Flowers fall amid our regret and yearning,

And hated weeds grow apace.

Attachment and aversion become expressed in hateful and aggressive actions in thought,

Word,

And deed.

Practice engenders a realizational perceptual shift that cuts through the transparency of both the solidification of the false image of a separate self and the self-other splits and brings the fluidity and boundlessness of unitive experiencing into the foreground of our awareness.

In this regard,

Practice itself is nirvana,

Or as Dogen describes,

The experience of zazen in his article Fukanza Zenji,

Not as meditation,

Rather simply as the dharmagate of ease and joy.

From Dogen's radical non-dualistic and non-substantive perspective,

Which emphasizes relationships and activities over states of mind,

The realizational awareness of the relationship between nirvana,

The absolute,

And unity,

And samsara,

The relative and duality,

Depend on perceptual shifts.

That is,

Both are present,

Intertwined,

But distinct and mutually interacting.

One or the other occupies the perceptual foreground while the other remains in the background and therefore operates out of awareness.

In Shikantaza practice,

The three poisons are still working,

But with the intention to main bodhicitta and to practice with no gaining mind or no goal,

We determine not to take any action.

That is,

Our relationship to the three poisons becomes altered.

We could say that we actively do not take action.

The zazen expression,

When one side is illuminated,

The other side is darkened,

Might serve as an expression of these ongoing perceptual shifts.

Dogen's Chinese teacher,

Nyojo Tendo,

Describes the significance of ignorance in terms of what he refers to as the five coverings.

The five coverings include hate,

Aggression,

Distraction,

Laziness,

And doubt.

Note that the first two coverings,

Hate and aggression,

Or in generic form,

Attachment and aversion,

Are the same as the two poisons that emerge from the pig's mouth depicted at the hub of the wheel of life and death.

Nyojo goes on to describe ignorance as the sixth covering.

He teaches that Shikantaza practice removes the five coverings plus ignorance.

He teaches that if ignorance is removed,

The five coverings will also be eliminated.

The significance and profound influence of ignorance is clear for the practitioner in Nyojo's teachings.

He writes,

Even if a practitioner only eliminates the covering of ignorance,

That practitioner will be freed of the other five coverings.

Even if a practitioner eliminates the five coverings,

If ignorance is not removed,

The practitioner has not yet reached the practice of the Buddhas and ancestors.

It's important to keep in mind that from Dogen's non-substantive and non-dualistic position,

Nothing is really eliminated or removed and nothing is added on.

There is simply nothing solid to be removed or added.

The solidity that we attribute to experience,

As I described before,

Is the result of ignorance.

We solidify and separate what is actually fluid and connected.

What changes is our relationship to our experience.

We become actively non-reactive,

Always returning to the basic fact of just sitting with no gaining mind,

No goal.

Thus,

In Shikantaza,

The seeds of newcomer are not blindly sown.

In conclusion,

I'm reminded of the conversation between Bodhidharma,

The first ancestor of Zen in China,

And Eka,

His successor who became the second ancestor of Zen in China,

As recorded in Case 41 of the Mumonkan or the Gateless Gate Collection of Koan stories titled Bodhidharma Puts the Mind at Rest.

Bodhidharma sat facing the wall.

The second patriarch,

Standing in the snow,

Cut off his arm to show his sincerity and said,

Your disciple's mind is not yet at peace.

I beg you,

Master,

Please give it rest.

Bodhidharma said,

Bring your mind to me and I will put it to rest.

Eka said,

I have searched and searched for the mind but have never been able to find it.

Bodhidharma said,

I have finished putting it to rest for you.

So please stop looking for what you think is not there and realize what is right now in front of you.

And just keep practicing,

No matter what.

Thank you.

Reviews

Thank you Sensei, I returned to this talk for more understanding of what is happening in this world. Realising I am not immune to any of this within myself, still sitting 🙏🏻

To listen to several times.
So much to learn.
Thank you

Very good talk - another one that will be revisited multiple times 😊Thank you, Seiso 🙏

Very down-to-earth and informative. Thank you for everything. 🙏☺️

Such a good teaching. I will repeat for clarity. 🙏

Thank you so much for your helpful words. I will listen again and again.

Clarity arises, ignorance recedes whenever we just sit, with no gaining mind. Thank you Sensei Seiso for further clarity in this consistent reminder.