Essays in Zen Buddhism : $b First seriesSuzuki, Daisetz Teitaro
Religion
Essays in Zen Buddhism : $b First series
Suzuki, Daisetz Teitaro
Zen Buddhism
Here we notice the distinction between an intellectual and a spiritual
understanding which is Enlightenment. When Śāriputra referred to the
cause of his being so serene, pure and radiant, he did not explain
it logically but just stated the fact as he subjectively interpreted
it himself. Whether this interpretation of his own was correct or
not takes the psychologist to decide. What I wish to see here is
that Śāriputra’s understanding of the doctrine of “origination and
cessation” was not the outcome of his intellectual analysis but an
intuitive comprehension of his own inner life-process. Between the
Buddha’s Enlightenment which is sung in the Hymn of Victory and
Śāriputra’s insight into the Dharma as the doctrine of causation,
there is a close connection in the way their minds worked. In the
one Enlightenment came first and then its expression; in the other
a definite statement was addressed first and then came an insight;
the process is reversed here. But the inadequacy of relation
between antecedent and consequence remains the same. The one does not
sufficiently explain the other, when the logical and intellectual
understanding alone is taken into consideration. The explanation must
be sought not in the objective truth contained in the doctrine of
causation, but in the state of consciousness itself of the enlightened
subject. Otherwise, how do we account for the establishment of
such a firm faith in self-realisation or self-deliverance as this?
“He has destroyed all evil passions (_āsava_); he has attained to
heart-emancipation (_ceto-vimutti_) and intellect-emancipation
(_pannā-vimutti_), here in this visible world he has by himself
understood, realised, and mastered the Dharma, he has dived deep into
it, has passed beyond doubt, has put away perplexity, has gained full
confidence, he has lived the life, has done what was to be done, has
destroyed the fetter of rebirth, he has comprehended the Dharma as it
is truly in itself.”[f34]
This is why the _Laṅkāvatāra-Sūtra_ tries so hard to tell us that
language is altogether inadequate as the means of expressing and
communicating the inner state of Enlightenment. While without language
we may fare worse at least in our practical life, we must guard
ourselves most deliberately against our trusting it too much beyond its
legitimate office. The Sutra gives the main reason for this, which is
that language is the product of causal dependence, subject to change,
unsteady, mutually conditioned, and based on false judgment as to the
true nature of consciousness. For this reason language cannot reveal
to us the ultimate signification of things (_paramārtha_). The noted
analogy of finger and moon is most appropriate to illustrate the
relation between language and sense, symbol and reality.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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