Author: Aldous Huxley
Category: Literature
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The workmen still in doubt what course to take,
Whether I’d best a saint or hog-trough make,
After debate resolved me for a saint;
And so famed Loyala I represent.
The all too Protestant satirist forgot that God is in the hog-trough no less than in the conventionally sacred image. ‘Lift the stone and you will find me,’ affirms the best known of the Oxyrhinchus Logia of Jesus, ‘cleave the wood, and I am there.’ Those who have personally and immediately realized the truth of this saying and, along with it, the truth of Brahmanism’s ‘That art thou’ are wholly delivered.
The Sravaka (literally ‘hearer,’ the name given by Mahayana Buddhists to contemplatives of the Hinayana school) fails to perceive that Mind, as it is in itself, has no stages, no causation. Disciplining himself in the cause, he has attained the result and abides in the samadhi (contemplation) of Emptiness for ever so many aeons. However enlightened in this way, the Sravaka is not at all on the right track. From the point of view of the Bodhisattva, this is like suffering the torture of hell. The Sravaka has buried himself in Emptiness and does not know how to get out of his quiet contemplation, for he has no insight into the Buddha-nature itself.
Mo Tsu
When Enlightenment is perfected, a Bodhisattva is free from the bondage of things, but does not seek to be delivered from things.
Samsara (the world of becoming) is not hated by him, nor is Nirvana loved. When perfect Enlightenment shines, it is neither bondage nor deliverance.
Prunabuddha-sutra
The touch of Earth is always reinvigorating to the son of Earth, even when he seeks a supraphysical Knowledge. It may even be said that the supraphysical can only be really mastered in its fullness - to its heights we can always reach - when we keep our feet firmly on the physical. ‘Earth is His footing,’ says the Upanishad, whenever it images the Self that manifests in the universe.
Sri Aurobindo
‘To heights we can always come.’ For those of us who are still splashing about in the lower ooze, the phrase has a rather ironical ring. Neverthless, in the light of even the most distant acquaintance with the heights and the fullness, it is possible to understand what its author means. To discover the Kingdom of God exclusively within oneself is easier than to discover it, not only there, but also in the outer world of minds and things and living creatures. It is easier because the heights within reveal themselves to those who are ready to exclude from their purview all that lies without. And though this exclusion may be a painful and mortificatory process, the fact remains that it is less arduous than the process of inclusion, by which we come to know the fullness as well as the heights of spiritual life. Where there is exclusive concentration on the heights within, temptations and distractions arc avoided and there is a general denial and suppression. But when the hope is to know God inclusively - to realize the divine Ground in the world as well as in the soul, temptations and distractions must not be avoided, but submitted to and used as opportunities for advance; there must be no suppression of outward-turning activities, but a transformation of them so that they become sacramental. Mortification becomes more searching and more subtle; there is need of unsleeping awareness and, on the levels of thought, feeling and conduct, the constant exercise of something like an artist’s tact and taste.
It is in the literature of Mahayana and especially of Zen Buddhism that we find the best account of the psychology of the man for whom samsara and nirvana, time and eternity, arc one and the same. More systematically perhaps than any other religion, the Buddhism of the Far East teaches the way to spiritual Knowledge in its fullness as well as in its heights, in and through the world as well as in and through the soul. In this context we may point to a highly significant fact, which is that the incomparable landscape painting of China and Japan was essentially a religious art, inspired by Taoism and Zen Buddhism; in Europe, on the contrary, landscape painting and the poetry of ‘nature worship’ were secular arts which arose when Christianity was in decline, and derived little or no inspiration from Christian ideals.
‘Blind, deaf, dumb!
Infinitely beyond the reach of imaginative contrivances!’
In these lines Seccho has swept everything away for you - what you see together with what you do not see, what you hear together with what you do not hear, and what you talk about together with what you cannot talk about. All these are completely brushed off, and you attain the life of the blind, deaf and dumb. Here all your imaginations, contrivances and calculations are once and for all put an end to; they are no more made use of. This is where lies the highest point of Zen, this is where we have true blindness, true deafness and true dumbness, each in its artless and effectless aspect.
‘Above the heavens and below the heavens!
How ludicrous, how disheartening!’
Here Seccho lifts up with one hand and with the other puts down. Tell me what he finds to be ludicrous, what he finds to be disheartening. It is ludicrous that this dumb person is not dumb after all, that this deaf person is not after all deaf; it is disheartening that the one who is not at all blind is blind for all that, and that the one who is not at all deaf is deaf for all that.
‘Li-lou does not know how to discriminate right colour.’
Li-lou lived in the reign of the Emperor Huang. He is said to have been able to distinguish the point of a soft hair at a distance of one hundred paces. His eyesight was extraordinary. When the Emperor Huang took a pleasure cruise on the River Ch’in, he dropped his precious jewel in the water and made Li fetch it up. But he failed. The Emperor made Ch’ih-kou search for it; but he also failed to find it. Later Hsiang-wang was ordered to get it, and he got it. Hence, ‘When Hsiang-wang goes down, the precious gem shines most brilliantly; But where Li-lou walks about, the waves rise even to the sky.’ When we come to these higher spheres, even the eyes of Li-lou are incapable of discriminating the right colour.
‘How can Shih-kuang recognize the mysterious tune?’ Shih-kuang was the son of Ching-kuang of Chin in the province of Chiang under the Chou dynasty. His other name was Tzu-yeh. He could thoroughly distinguish the five sounds and the six notes; he could even hear the ants fighting on the other side of a hill. When Chin and Ch’u were at war, Shih-kuang could tell, just by softly fingering the strings of his lute, that the engagement would surely be unfavourable for Ch’u. In spite of his extraordinary sensitiveness Seccho declares that he is unable to recognize the mysterious tune. After all, one who is not at all deaf is really deaf. The most exquisite note in the higher spheres is beyond the hearing of Shih-kuang. Says Seccho, I am not going to be a Lilou, nor a Shih-kuang; for ‘What life can compare with this? Sitting quietly by the window, I watch the leaves fall and the flowers bloom, as the seasons come and go.’
When one reaches this stage of realization, seeing is no-seeing, hearing is no-hearing, preaching is no-preaching. When hungry one eats, when tired one sleeps. Let the leaves fall, let the flowers bloom as they like. When the leaves fall, I know it is the autumn; when the flowers bloom, I know it is the spring.
Having swept everything clean before you, Seccho now opens a passage-way, saying:
‘Do you understand, or not?
An iron bar without a hole!’
He has done all he could for you; he is exhausted - only able to turn round and present you with this iron bar without a hole. It is a most significant expression. Look and see with your own eyes! If you hesitate, you miss the mark for ever.
Yengo (the author of this commentary) now raised his staff and said, ‘Do you see?’ He then struck his chair and said, ‘Do you hear?’ Coming down from the chair, he said, ‘Was anything talked about?’
What precisely is the significance of that iron bar without a hole? I do not pretend to know. Zen has always specialized in nonsense as a means of stimulating the mind to go forward to that which is beyond sense; so perhaps the point of the bar resides precisely in its pointlessness and in our disturbed, bewildered reaction to that
pointlessness.
In the root divine Wisdom is all-Brahman; in the stem she is all-illusion; in the flower she is all-World; and in the fruit, all-Liberation.
Tantra Tattva
The Sravakas and the Pratyekabuddhas, when they reach the eighth stage of the Bodhisattva’s discipline, become so intoxicated with the bliss of mental tranquillity that they fail to realize that the visible world is nothing but the Mind. They are still in the realm of individuation; their insight is not yet pure. The Bodhisattvas, on the other hand, are alive to their original vows, flowing out of the all-embracing love that is in their hearts. They do not enter into Nirvana (as a state separate from the world of becoming); they know that the visible world is nothing but a manifestation of Mind itself.
Condensed from the Lankavatara Sutra
A conscious being alone understands what is meant by moving; To those not endowed with consciousness the moving is unintelligible.
If you exercise yourself in the practice of keeping your mind unmoved, The immovable you gain is that of one who has no consciousness.
If you are desirous for the truly immovable, The immovable is in the moving itself, And this immovable is the truly immovable one.
There is no seed of Buddhahood where there is no consciousness.
Mark well how varied are the aspects of the immovable one, And know that the first reality is immovable.
Only when this reality is attained Is the true working of Suchness understood.
Hui Neng
These phrases about the unmoving first mover remind one of Aristotle. But between Aristotle and the exponents of the Perennial Philosophy within the great religious traditions there is this vast difference: Aristotle is primarily concerned with cosmology, the Perennial Philosophers arc primarily concerned with liberation and enlightenment: Aristotle is content to know about the unmoving mover, from the outside and theoretically; the aim of the Perennial Philosophers is to become directly aware of it, to know it unitively, so that they and others may actually become the unmoving One. This unitive knowledge can be knowledge in the heights, or knowledge in the fullness, or knowledge simultaneously in the heights and the fullness. Spiritual knowledge exclusively in the heights of the soul was rejected by Mahayana Buddhism as inadequate. The similar rejection of quietism within the Christian tradition will be touched upon in the section, ‘Contemplation and Action.’ Meanwhile it is interesting to find that the problem which aroused such acrimonious debate throughout seventeenth-century Europe had arisen for the Buddhists at a considerably earlier epoch. But whereas in Catholic Europe the outcome of the battle over Molinos, Mme Guyon and Fenelon was to all intents and purposes the extinction of mysticism for the best part of two centuries, in Asia the two parties were tolerant enough to agree to differ. Hinayana spirituality continued to explore the heights within, while the Mahayanist masters held up the ideal not of the Arhat, but of the Bodhisattva, and pointed the way to spiritual knowledge in its fullness as well as in its heights. What follows is a poetical account, by a Zen saint of the eighteenth century, of the state of those who have realized the Zen ideal.
Abiding with the non-particular which is in particulars,
Going or returning, they remain for ever unmoved.
Taking hold of the not-thought which lies in thoughts,
In their every act they hear the voice of Truth.
How boundless the sky of contemplation!
How transparent the moonlight of the four-fold Wisdom!
As the Truth reveals itself in its eternal tranquillity,
This very earth is the Lotous-Land of Purity,
And this body is the body of the Buddha.
Hakuin
Nature’s intent is neither food, nor drink, nor clothing, nor comfort, nor anything else from which God is left out. Whether you like it or not, whether you know it or not, secretly Nature seeks and hunts and tries to ferret out the track in which God may be found.
Eckhart
Any ilea as it is in God is nobler than the highest of the angels in himself.
Eckhart
My inner man relishes things not as creatures but as the gift of God. But to my innermost man they savour not of God’s gift, but of ever and aye.
Eckhart
Pigs eat acorns, but neither consider the sun that gave them life nor the influence of the heavens by which they were nourished, nor the very root of the tree from whence they came.
Thomas Traherne
Your enjoyment of the world is never right till every morning you awake in Heaven; see yourself in your Father’s palace; and look upon the skies, the earth and the air as celestial joys; having such a reverend esteem of all, as if you were among the Angels. The bride of a monarch, in her husband’s chamber, hath no such causes of delight as you.
You never enjoy the world aright till the sea itself floweth in your veins, till you are clothed with the heavens and crowned with the stars; and perceive yourself to be the sole heir of the whole world, and more than so, because men are in it who are every one sole heirs as well as you. Till you can sing and rejoice and delight in God, as misers do in gold, and kings in sceptres, you can never enjoy the world.
Till your spirit filleth the whole world, and the stars are your jewels; till you are as familiar with the ways of God in all ages as with your walk and table; till you are intimately acquainted with that shady nothing out of which the world was made; till you love men so as to desire their happiness with a thirst equal to the zeal of your own; till you delight in God for being good to all; you never enjoy the world. Till you more feel it than your private estate, and are more present in the hemisphere, considering the glories and the beauties there, than in your own house; till you remember how lately you were made, and how wonderful it was when you came into it; and more rejoice in the palace of your glory than if it had been made today morning.
Yet further, you never enjoyed the world aright, till you so love the beauty of enjoying it, that you are covetous and earnest to persuade others to enjoy it. And so perfectly hate the abominable corruption of men in despising it that you had rather suffer the flames of hell than willingly be guilty of their error.
The world is a mirror of Infinite Beauty, yet no man sees it. It is a Temple of Majesty, yet no man regards it. It is a region of Light and Peace, did not men disquiet it. It is the Paradise of God. It is more to man since he is fallen, than it was before. It is the place of Angels and the Gate of Heaven. When Jacob waked out of his dream, he said, God is here, and I wish it not. How dreadful is this place! This is none other than the House of God and the Gate of Heaven.
Thomas Traherne
Before going on to discuss the means whereby it is possible to come to the fullness as well as the height of spiritual knowledge, let us briefly consider the experience of those who have been privileged to ‘behold the One in all things,’ but have made no efforts to perceive it within themselves. A great deal of interesting material on this subject may be found in Buck’s Cosmic Consciousness. All that need be said here is that such ‘cosmic consciousness’ may come unsought and is in the nature of what Catholic theologians call a ‘gratuitous grace.’ One may have a gratuitous grace (the power of healing, for example, or foreknowledge) while in a state of mortal sin, and the gift is neither necessary to, nor sufficient for, salvation. At the best such sudden accessions of ‘cosmic consciousness’ as are described by Buck are merely unusual invitations to further personal effort in the direction of the inner height as well as the external fullness of knowledge. In a great many cases the invitation is not accepted; the gift is prized for the ecstatic pleasure it brings; its coming is remembered nostalgically and, if the recipient happens to be a poet, written about with eloquence - as Byron, for example, wrote in a splendid passage of Childe Harold, as Wordsworth wrote in Tintern Abbey and The Prelude. In these matters no human being may presume to pass definitive judgment upon another human being; but it is at least permissible to say that, on the basis of the biographical evidence, ther
e is no reason to suppose that either Wordsworth or Byron ever seriously did anything about the theophanies they described; nor is there any evidence that these theophanies were of themselves sufficient to transform their characters.