Awaken and Act: Four Meditations
We have the inevitable and common individual sufferings of sickness, aging, death, etc., social sufferings such as discrimination, destruction, etc., and global problems like global warming, mass extinction, war, and nukes, which may grow into a global extinction. Most people are too occupied or oppressed by individual sufferings to be able to see how social and global ones threaten our future.
All sufferings and problems come from our karmic triple poisons of desire, divisiveness, and the delusion of self, set in self-survival strife. Karma (action, habit, heredity), created by physical, verbal, and mental actions, grows and create individual, social, and global forms as a network of crystal balls on its knots of the Indra-net, reflecting each other in space and time.
The solution to suffering lies in stilling karma in still sitting, settling in nirvana, and seeing the Dharma (Norm/Law) of all dharmas (forms/phenomena), i.e., Dependent Co-origination, sharing awakening and action related to it, serving and saving all. Nirvana means no-wind (of karma) attained in the Four Zen (meditation) stages, thus the stilling of physical, verbal, and mental karma.
The witness of nirvana reveals the state of no karma – no action or appropriation, no becoming separated, sick, suffering, sovereign, self, Self, soul, etc. Our constantly becoming hungry, angry, attached, divisive, deluded, dissatisfied, devilish, etc., is due to dependent co-origination of our body, mouth, mind, and the world. The long night of nescience is awakened by nirvana.
September 15, 2023 C.E.
Notes:
- We have the four inevitable sufferings of birth, aging, sickness, and death, and also eight, adding to these the four common ones of parting with the beloved, meeting with the hated, not attaining the desired, and, in short, the sufferings that arise from the five aggregates of form, feeling, idea, formation, and consciousness. Now we are endangered by nuclear holocaust and demise of the global life system, even by a single man-made decision.
- The Indra-net, whose crystal balls on its knots reflect each other mutually and limitlessly in space and time, illustrates the Dharma of Dependent Co-origination well, showing that all phenomena are interdependently co-originated and co-originating among themselves.
- “The Dharma (Norm/Law/Truth/Ethic) of all dharmas (forms/phenomena/ truths/ethics)” is Dependent Co-origination, i.e., all phenomena are interdependently co-originated on limitless causes and conditions. This means that we are interrelated with other beings (other species, elements, stars, etc.), and relatives to each other, and that we must therefore live together harmoniously and strive to make a wholly wholesome world to become harmonious, health, and happy.
- The twelve-limbed Dependent Co-origination (bhava-cakka/bhava-cakra, becoming wheel) is the most well-known representative application of the Dharma of Dependent Co-origination, though it is misinterpreted due to its linear presentation by oral tradition and the Hindu idea of transmigration (an embryogenetical interpretation called two causalities in three generations). Actually, it is a compound formed from the Dependent Co-origination of consciousness on sense organs and objects, of suffering on craving, and of samsara (total flow: moment-to-moment change, not like transmigration in Hinduism) on appropriation. It illustrates how our life goes with the five aggregates (originally identifying and analyzing so-called “self,” later “world”), resulting in suffering due to the triple poisons.
Please refer to part 3 of “Why Buddhism Now?” for a detailed explanation with the structural system of the “Becoming Wheel” (bhava cakka/cakra):
- The life system is in a limitlessly interdependent and interrelated system throughout limitless space and time. If we can acknowledge and activate it, we can function as limitless life, light, liberation, and love, like the crystal balls of the Indra-net, making it holy (wholly wholesome), harmonious, healthy, and happy, calm and clear, collectively and continuously.
- Sitting still makes one calm and clear, as a bowl settling down makes the water inside of it become calm and clear, reflecting the world. Constant cultivation of still sitting leads to calming (samatha/śamatha) and observation (vipassanā/vipaśyanā), nirvana and awakening (bodhi), witnessing the of truth world (Dhamma/Dharma-dhātu), and becoming the truth body (Dhamma/Dharma-kāya).
- The key practice of sitting still is to still karma, settle in nirvana (nir-vāṇa = ni-vāta: no-wind, of karma), and see the Dharma, serving and saving all. The Four Limitlessnesses (Brahma-abodes) are friendship, compassion, joy, and equanimity (upekkhā/upekṣā, lit. throwing away, the triple poisons).
- The practice of zen (jhāna/dhyāna: meditation), the key and core practice of za-zen, sitting meditation, is to still karma, settle in nirvana, see the Dharma, and serve and save all. This process is categorized in the Four Zen Stages and the Eight Concentration (samādhi) Stages (actually Four Zen Stages plus Four Concentration Stages combined, going together).
- Za-zen (sitting meditation) orders and stills body, breath, and brain (bodily, verbal, and mental) karmas. The Four Zen Stages illustrate the stilling process of mental (intellectual, emotional, and volitional) karmas, stilling contemplation/investigation, joy, and comfort, resulting in the reaching of equanimity (upekhā/upekṣā, lit. discarding), nirvana.
Please refer to parts 4 (nirvana) and 5 (zen) of “Why Buddhism Now”:
- Samādhi is essential to go beyond karma (especially its Triple Poisons of desire, divisiveness, and delusion) and settle in nirvana (by sitting still, stilling karma, settling in nirvana, seeing the Dharma/dharmas/Dharma world, and serving and saving all), in which true meditation and its prognosis (paññā/prajñā) can function.
- The solution of the global problematique, interrelated global problems, requires the global ethic (issued by the Parliament of the World’s Religions in Chicago in 1993 with more than seven thousand people from all religions and from all over the world attending), which is based on the Five Precepts (and the fundamental common elements in the Ten Precepts, the Ten Commandments, etc.).
- Ernst Cassirer defined humans as homo symbolicum in his Philosophy of Symbolism, its summary An Essay on Man, where humans are described as skillful in handling the symbolisms of language, myth, religion, art, science, history, etc. The Myth of the State is an important work that to shows how states operate and how people are misled to wars and even nuclear demise.
覚醒し活動せよ：四禅
私達は病老死等の必然的あるいは普通の個人的苦、差別や破壊等の社会的苦、地球的破滅に至るかも知れない地球暖化、大量絶滅、戦争、核などの地球的問題を持っています。ほとんどの人々は個人的苦に余りにも掛かり切っているか襲われているので社会的、地球的苦が私達の未来をどれ程脅威にさらしているかを見ることが出来ません。
一切の苦や問題は自己の生残り闘争に組み込まれた自己の貪瞋痴の業の三毒に由来します。身口意により創られた業（行為、習慣、遺伝）は帝釈網の結び目にある水晶の珠が網細工でお互いに反映するように時空に成長し個人的、社会的、地球的な形態を創造します。
苦の解決は静坐での業の静止、涅槃への安住、諸法の法、即ち縁起、の静観、それに関する覚醒と活動を共有し、一切に奉仕し救済することにあります。涅槃とは四禅階梯により得られる身口意の静止により得られる（業の）無風を意味します。
涅槃の直証は無業の状態‐無作為・無所有、分離、病患、苦悩、主宰、自我、「自己」、霊魂に成らないこと等を啓示します。私達が常時空腹、憤怒、執着、分別、迷妄、不満、魔性等に成ることは私達の身口意と世界の因縁生起に依るのです。無明長夜は涅槃により目覚めるのです。
2023共通年9月15日
註：
1．私達は不可避の生老病死の四苦、これに加えて普通の求不得苦、愛別離苦、怨憎会苦、要するに、形態・感受・観念・形成・意識の五蘊盛苦の八苦を持っています。今や、一人の人間の決定によってさえ起きうる地球生命系への核の冬や破滅の危機に曝されています。。
2. 帝釈網は、その結び目にある水晶の珠が時空中に相互に無限に反映し合うが、一切現象が共に生起し生起させる縁起の法を例示しています。
3. 「諸法（dharma: form/phenomena/truth/ethic）の法（Dharma: Norm/Law/Truth/Ethic）」は縁起、即ち、一切現象は無量の原因と条件により因縁生起するということです。これは、私達、人間、は他の存在（他種、元素、星など）と相関し互いに相対であり、だから、共に調和して生き、調和的、健康、幸福になる為に全体健全な世界を作らなければならないということを意味します。
4. 十二支縁起（bhava-cakka/bhava-cakra、生成輪、輪廻輪）は縁起の法の適用例の最もよく知られた代表ですが、口碑による線形の表出（三世両重の因果と呼ばれる胎生学的解釈）の為とヒンズー教の輪廻説により誤解されています。実際には感覚器官と感覚対象にって共縁起する意識、割愛による苦、専有（同定：執着）によるサンサーラ（全流：全体刻々変化の意で、ヒンズー教の輪廻ではない）の複合形です。（元来は所謂「自己」後に世界を同定し分析する為の）五蘊と共に、三毒の故に苦に成る私達の生がどのように展開するかを例示したものです。
生成輪 (bhava cakka/cakra)の構造的形態の詳細説明については「何故今仏教か？」の３を参照ください：
5. 私達の生命組織は無限の時空を通じて縁起と関連の組織です。もし私達がそれを認知し実行するなら、私達は、帝釈網の水晶の珠のように、それを集団的に継続的に、聖（全体健全）なる調和、健康、幸福で、静かに明らかに、無限の生命、光明、自由、愛情として機能出来ます。
6. 静坐は、椀が安住するとその中の水が静謐に透明になり世界を映すように、人を静謐に明澄にします。静坐の常時の修行は止（止静）(samatha/śamatha) と観（観法） (vipassanā/vipaśyanā), 涅槃と覚醒 (bodhi), に導き法界 (Dhamma/Dharma-dhātu：真理世界)を直証し,法身 (Dhamma/Dharma-kāya：真実身)になります。
7. 鍵となる静坐の実践は業を静め、涅槃（nir-vāṇa = ni-vāta: no-wind, 無風、業風の）に安住し、法を見、一切に奉仕し救済するのです。四無量（四梵住）は慈（愛：友情：与楽）、悲（泯：抜苦）、喜(悦)、捨（離：upekkhā/upekṣā）です。
8. 禅（jhāna/dhyāna: 瞑想)、鍵となり核となる坐禅の実践、は業を静め、涅槃に安住し、法を見、一切に奉仕し救済します。この過程は四禅と八定（samādhi）です（実際には四禅と四定は一緒で結合しています）。
9. 坐禅（静坐瞑想）は身体・呼吸・頭脳（身口意）業を整え静止します。四禅は、尋求、伺候、喜悦、安楽を静め平静 (upekhā/upekṣā, 字義は捨離)・涅槃に到達する結果の心的（知性・感情・意欲）業を静止する過程を表示しています。
「今何故仏教か？」の４（涅槃）と５（禅）を参照ください：
10. 定（Samādhi）は業（特にその貪瞋痴の三毒）を超え、（静坐、止業、住涅槃、観法/諸法/法界、一切奉仕・救済し）涅槃に安住するのに必須であり、この中で本当の瞑想とその般若の智慧（paññā/prajñā）が働くことが出来ます。
11. 地球問題群は（1993年シカゴで世界中から諸宗教の七千人を超える人々が集まった世界宗教会議により発出された）地球倫理を必要としますが、これは五戒（と仏教他の十戒の基本的共通要素）に基づいたものです。
12. エルンスト・カッシラーは人間を言語、神話、宗教、芸術、科学、歴史などの象徴を巧く操るものであるとする「象徴の哲学」やその要約である「人間」等で「象徴人間」と定義しました。「国家の神話」は諸国家がどのように機能するかそしてどのように人々が戦争やさらには核の破滅に誤り導かれるかを知るのに重要です。
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