As a conclusion to our discussion on the Buddhist understanding of cosmic reality, we explore why Buddhism exists. Why is it so important for Buddha to teach humanity to understand reality correctly? What can humanity benefit from a correct understanding of reality?
To understand that, we must start with the Buddha’s personal mission he set for himself before embarking on his journey to enlightenment.
Our historical Shakyamuni Buddha was born into an aristocratic family, with his father serving as the chieftain of the Shakya clan. Shortly after his birth, his father brought in a palace soothsayer, who told him that his son would grow up to be either a great political or religious leader. His father, keen to have his son follow in his footsteps as a political leader, decided to shield him from the harsh realities of the outside world and restricted his movements, keeping him from leaving the palace. In addition, he pampered his son with luxury and beautiful maidens who pleased him with their physical beauty, music, dancing, etc. Yet, these temptations did not move the young prince. Eventually, when he was twenty-nine, the young prince finally convinced his father to let him out of the palace. During the trips, he experienced what became known as the Four Sights, which profoundly changed his life. He encountered an aging old man, a sick person, and the corpse of a dead person. His charioteer, Channa, explained to him that aging, sickness, and death are part of everyone’s life. Finally, he saw a mendicant monk. Channa told him that this person had renounced worldly comforts, pleasures, and luxuries in exchange for a spiritual life, seeking answers to the existential suffering the prince had observed.
During the trip, the young prince also had a chance to meditate for the first time. According to the commentator of the video, “the story recalled that he watched the farmer plowing. He saw the toil and effort, the struggle and the repetitions of this back-breaking work, something he never seen in the palace. He managed to slip from the festivities and be alone. This first experience of real life had a profound effect on him. To everyone else, this was a celebration. But to Siddhartha, it symbolized something quite different. He felt his mind leading him to a meditative state. He watched the plow cut a path into the ground and noticed the bird eating a freshly unearthed worm. He asked himself, why living beings have to suffer in this way. If the farmer had not been plowing, the bird would not have eaten the worm. He realized that everything is connected, and all actions have consequences. This simple observation would become one of the cornerstones of his teachings, known as karma. As Siddhartha’s mind focused on these profound thoughts, he slipped into a trance or jhana, a mental state that would become a first step on his way to enlightenment.”
The young prince was so affected by the events of the day that he eventually eloped from the palace, abandoning his wealth and power. He cut off his hair, put on a robe, and started life anew as a wandering mendicant monk searching for answers to life’s misery and suffering.
First, he sought advice from two of the best gurus of his time, Alara Kalama and Udraka Ramaputra. While he learned from them and was able to abide by their teachings so quickly that both asked him to stay with their hermitage and teach with them, the young prince was not satisfied. According to author Pankaj Mishra of An End to Suffering, Buddha felt that the meditation these gurus taught, “no matter how deep,” was “temporary, comfortable abiding, in the here and now.” However, “one emerges from them, even after a long session, essentially unchanged.” These states were “without a corresponding moral and intellectual development, they by themselves did not end suffering.“
After leaving the gurus, the future Buddha traveled to modern-day Bodh Gayā and spent six years practicing Jainistic asceticism. Jainistic asceticism practices severe fasting and self-mutilation based on the belief that one liberates the soul by relinquishing attachment to the physical body. Buddha followed the course and fasted extensively for so long that he became highly emaciated. As author Pankaj Mishra wrote, Buddha told his disciple Sariputra, “Because I ate so little, my buttocks became like a camel’s hoof, my backbone protruded like a line of spindles, my ribs corroded and collapsed like the rafters of an old and rotten shed, the gleams of the pupils in my eye sockets appeared deeply sunken, my scalp became wrinkled and shrunken….”
After six torturous years, Buddha starts to doubt the path he is on. Later, in Madhyama Agama (Chinese: 中阿含經), or the Collection of Middle-length Discourses, Buddha says, “although I practiced severe asceticism, I cannot attain the unique and extraordinary insight beyond the affairs of human beings. Would it be possible that there is another way to enlightenment?”
Now, he wondered if his great desire for enlightenment wasn’t the obstacle preventing him from going deeper naturally into a higher meditative state. He recalled his first meditation as a young prince, sitting by a tree; his mind drifted naturally into a calm, contemplative state. He felt serene as he gained insight into the causal interconnections among all beings while watching a farmer plow his field, digging up worms that would become food for the birds. This insight would enable him to perceive the fleeting nature of all existence. He realized that all existences are impermanent and causally related. Furthermore, fleeting existence is a source of suffering. He decided he must find a way to end the misery for all.
With the memory of his first meditation, the future Buddha discontinued starving, which stopped his pain and allowed him to regain his strength. Then, realizing that neither the extremes of comfort and luxury of a princely life nor the painful self-mutilation of Jain asceticism would lead him to his goal, he decided to try the meditation he had drifted into naturally as a youth. He found a fig tree, now known as the Bodhi Tree, and seated under it to meditate, vowing not to leave until enlightened.
History attests that he indeed became enlightened. Thereafter, he would be honored as a Buddha of our kalpa (Chinese: 劫). According to the Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism, “a kalpa in which a Buddha appears in the world is known as an ‘auspicious’ or ‘fortunate’ kalpa (Romanized Sanskrit: bhadrakalpa, Chinese: 賢劫).”
Kalpa (Chinese: 劫), according to The Princeton Dictionary of Dictionary, is “in Sanskrit, ‘con’ or ‘age,’ a unit of measurement for cosmological time.”
Upon awakening from his deep meditative state of enlightenment, Buddha said the following in Avatamsaka Sūtra before anything else, “Surprise! Surprise! All the living beings of this land, while possessing the wisdom of a Tathāgata, are foolish and confused and have neither knowledge nor insight. I must teach them the proper path, turn them permanently away from their delusions and attachments, so they realize from within the immense wisdom of a Tathāgata, without any difference from a Buddha (Chinese: 奇哉奇哉,此處眾生,雲何具有如來智慧,愚癡迷惑,不知不覺,我當教以聖道, 令其永離妄想執著,自於身中,得見如來廣大智慧,與佛無異.).
In this statement, Buddha made two critical points:
- Buddha’s soteriological goal is for all living beings to “realize from within the immense wisdom of a Tathāgata.”
- To become a Tathāgata, a living being needs to turn “permanently” away from attachment and delusion.
After his enlightenment, Buddha began teaching. After teaching for around forty-five years, Buddha was satisfied that he had taught everything he needed for all beings to become a Tathāgata, as said in the Lotus Sūtra, “one of the most influential and venerated Buddhist Mahāyāna sūtras,” and “contains the final teaching of Shakyamuni Buddha.”
“I vowed from the beginning. (Chinese: 我本立誓愿）
To make all living beings (Romanized Sanskrit: sattva; Chinese: 有情/眾生) my equal without a difference. （欲令一切眾, 如我等無異)
What I have vowed in the past, I have now fulfilled.” (如我昔所愿，今者已滿足)
Transformed them so they all enter the path of Buddhahood.” (化一切眾生，皆令入佛道).”
Given that Shakyamuni Buddha is a Tathāgata, to become like him “without difference” means one must become a Tathāgata to fulfill the Buddha’s soteriological goal.
Tathāgata (Chinese: 如來), according to The Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism, is “in Sanskrit and Pali, lit., one who has thus come/gone.” “A secondary denotation of the term is to understand ‘things as they are.'”
In other words, Buddha’s soteriological goal is for all humans to understand “things as they are.” Buddha also made clear that understanding “things as they are” is a two-step process: turning permanently from attachment and delusion.
In his doctrine of Two Obstructions, Buddha teaches that to permanently turn away from attachment and delusion, one must overcome two obstructions: afflictive and cognitive.
- Afflictive Obstructions (Romanized Sanskrit=klesavarana; Chinese: 煩惱障), according to The Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism, are “in Sanskrit, obstructions that are the afflictions, and first of the two obstructions that the Mahāyāna holds must be overcome in order to complete the Bodhisattva path and achieve Buddhahood.” Furthermore, “overcoming these types of obstructions will lead to freedom from further rebirth (and specifically the Paricchedajaramarana, or “determinative birth-and-rebirth (Chinese: 分段生死).”
- Cognitive or Noetic Obstructions (to Omniscience) (Romanized Sanskrit: jneyavarana; Chinese: 所知障), according to The Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism, “The second of the two categories of obstructions, together with the afflictive obstructions, that must be overcome in order to perfect the Bodhisattva path and achieve Buddhahood. In the Yogacara and Madhyamaka systems, cognitive obstructions are treated as subtle hindrances that serve as the origin of the afflictive obstructions and result from fundamental misapprehensions about the nature of reality. According to Yogacara, because of the attachment deriving ultimately from the reification of what are actually imaginary external phenomena, conceptualization and discrimination arise in the mind, which lead in turn to pride, ignorance, and wrong views. Based on these mistakes in cognition, the individual engages in defiled actions, such as anger, envy, etc., which constitute the afflictive obstructions. The afflictive obstructions may be removed by followers of Sravaka (Chinese: 聲聞), Pratyekabuddha (Chinese: 緣覺/獨覺), and beginning Bodhisattva paths by applying various antidotes or counteragents (Pratipajksa) to the afflictions (Klesa); overcoming these types of obstructions will lead to freedom from further rebirth. The cognitive obstructions, however, are more deeply ingrained and can only be overcome by advanced bodhisattvas who seek instead to achieve Buddhahood by perfecting their understanding of emptiness. Buddhas, therefore, are the only class of beings who have overcome both types of obstructions and thus are able simultaneously to cognize all objects of knowledge in the universe; this is one of the sources of their unparalleled skills as teachers of sentient beings. The jneyavarana are therefore sometimes translated as “obstructions to omniscience.”
1) Attachment: The Cause of Affliction
According to Buddha, attachment is “derived ultimately from the reification of what are actually imaginary external phenomena.” Furthermore, because of attachments, “conceptualization and discrimination arise in the mind, which lead in turn to pride, ignorance, and wrong views. Based on these mistakes in cognition, the individual engages in defiled actions, such as anger, envy, etc., which constitute the afflictive obstructions.”
In other words, affliction is caused by attachment, which, in turn, is caused by “the reification of what are actually imaginary external phenomena.” Consequently, to permanently turn away from attachment, understanding that the external phenomena are imaginary is the ultimate cure. However, understanding that “external phenomena are imaginary” is not something inferentially-connected word-based knowledge can achieve; it requires enlightenment.
In the Verification Category, three examples of enlightenment are discussed.
In Post 10, the enlightened experience of contemporary American Adyashanti is discussed. Upon his enlightenment, Adyashanti witnessed the vanishing of the universe and his own body. This led him to understand that awareness is the nature of his existence and that of the universe, as he acknowledged, “you and your awareness are not two different things,” “resting in awareness is not a state of doing,” “it is a state of being.” These statements indicate that, upon his enlightenment, he not only understands that “physical” reality is an illusion, but also that he was one with Citta, the enlightened and luminous awareness of the Ultimate Reality of the cosmos. Having understood that the nature of his existence and that of the universe is mental, Adyashanti had rid himself of his previous tendency to “reify what are actually imaginary external phenomena,” thereby overcoming his afflictive obstructions by turning permanently away from attachments.
In Post 11, the enlightened experiences of two prominent monks from the Tang Dynasty China (A.D. 618-907), Dharma Master Hui-Neng (Chinese: 大鑒惠能), also known as the Sixth Patriarch of Chan Buddhism, and YongJia Xuanjue (Chinese: 永嘉玄覺). While they did not use the contemporary word awareness in the descriptions of their enlightenment, both witnessed the vanishing of the “largest possible universe Trichilicosm (Chinese: 三千大千世界).” However, witnessing the vanishing of the universe is enough to rid them of their tendency to “reify what are actually imaginary external phenomena,” thereby permanently turning away from attachments and overcoming their afflictive obstructions.
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- As Buddha teaches, by permanently turning away from their attachment, the enlightened gain “freedom from further rebirth (and specifically the Paricchedajaramarana, or “determinative birth-and-rebirth (Chinese: 分段生死).”
- It is critical because “freedom from further rebirth” means one liberates oneself from one’s existential suffering.
- Existential suffering refers to the suffering that all unenlightened living beings are subject to because their lifespan is impermanent. Suffering is existential because aging, sickness, and the eventual demise inevitably follow birth. Because their lifespans are impermanent, all living beings suffer from the endless cycles of karma that bind them to birth and rebirth.
- As Buddha teaches, by permanently turning away from their attachment, the enlightened gain “freedom from further rebirth (and specifically the Paricchedajaramarana, or “determinative birth-and-rebirth (Chinese: 分段生死).”
Having been liberated from endless cycles of birth and rebirth, the enlightened enter parinamikajaramarana (Chinese: 變易生死), which, according to The Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism, is “in Sanskrit, transfigurational birth-and-death: “while these beings have already achieved some measure of enlightenment, when they undergo rebirth and death, these occur as a ‘transfigurational birth-and-death’ of the mind made body, not a ‘determinative birth-and-death.’ Although these beings have overcome afflictive obstructions that tie one to the cycles of samasara (and specifically to paricchedajaramarana), they may still be subject to cognitive obstructions that block full understanding (Romanized Sanskrit: jnana; Chinese: 智); thus, while they may engage in actions, these are not karma-producing actions (viz., ‘uncontaminated actions (Romanized Sanskrit: anasravakaraman; Chinese: 無漏業) that do not lead to a determinative rebirth. While such beings may then appear to be reborn, these rebirths are actually transfigurations of their mind-made bodies (Romanized Sanskrit: manomayakaya; Chinese: 意生身), which may be manipulated at will to change their appearances or to extend their life spans indefinitely”.
2) Delusion: The Cause of the Obstructions to Omniscience.
While enlightenment, liberation from karmically caused suffering, and the ability to change appearances or extend life indefinitely are immense achievements, for those who wish to continue the journey in Buddhism and enter Buddhahood, they must further overcome the second of the two Obstructions, the Cognitive Obstruction, which Buddha defines as “obstructions to omniscience.”
According to Buddha, obstructions to omniscience are the “subtle hindrances that serve as the origin of the afflictive obstructions.” Furthermore, they are to be “overcome by advanced bodhisattvas who seek instead to achieve Buddhahood by perfecting their understanding of emptiness and cognizing all objects of knowledge.”
The story of how Bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara, a ten-level advanced Bodhisattva, achieved this goal, as recorded in the Heart Sūtra, is discussed in Post 28. We will not discuss the details of how the Bodhisattva achieved this goal here again. If you are interested, please visit Post 28. In summary, Bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara perfected his understanding of emptiness by recognizing the equality of emptiness and the Five Aggregates. Furthermore, Bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara, by practicing the Perfection of Wisdom, gained the “ultimate wisdom that is free from the subject-object distinction (grahyagrahakavikalpa).”
Grahyagrahakavikalpa (Chinese: 所取能取分別), according to The Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism, is “in Sanskrit, “discrimination between the grasped and the grasper,” or “false conception of apprehended and the apprehender,” a special kind of discrimination (Vikalpa) used in the Yogacara school to refer to the misconception that there is an inherent bifurcation between a perceiving subject (grahaka) and its perceived object (grahya).”
While understanding the equality of emptiness and the Five Aggregates enabled the Bodhisattva to “perfect his understanding of emptiness,” gaining the ultimate wisdom to recognize that, in emptiness, there is no subject-object duality enabled the Bodhisattva to “cognize all objects of knowledge.” Understanding both enabled the Bodhisattva to overcome his “obstruction to omniscience” and his cognitive obstructions, enter the path of Buddhahood, and fulfill the Buddha’s soteriological goal.
So, what is the benefit of overcoming Cognitive Obstructions? Bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara provides the answer, as he stated that he realized that his life is “carefree without fear,” and “free from topsy-turvy reveries (Chinese: 心無罣礙, 無罣礙故, 無有恐怖, 遠離顛倒夢想).”
In the Lotus Sūtra, the Buddha hinted at how long one can enjoy that lifestyle, saying, “Listen carefully to the Tathāgata’s secret and transcendent powers.” The devas, humans, and asuras in all the worlds all think that the present Buddha, Śākyamuni, left the palace of the Śākyas, sat on the terrace of enlightenment not far from the city of Gayā, and attained anuttara-samyaksambodhi. However, O sons of a virtuous family, immeasurable, limitless, hundreds of thousands of myriads of koṭis of nayutas of kalpas have passed since I actually attained Buddhahood. (Chinese: 汝等諦聽, 如來秘密神通之力. 一切世間天, 人, 及阿修羅, 皆謂, 今釋迦牟尼佛, 出釋氏宮, 去伽耶城不遠, 坐於道場, 得阿耨多羅三藐三菩提. 然善男子, 我實成佛已來, 無量無邊, 百千萬億那由他劫.”
Rather than discussing the whole message, we focus on the meaning of “myriads of koṭis of nayutas of kalpas have passed since I actually attained Buddhahood.”
Koti (Chinese: 俱胝), according to The Princeton Dictionary of Dictionary, is “in Sanskrit and Pali, lit. the ‘end’ of a scale and thus effectively referring to any large number, often translated by the Indian numerical term ‘crore,’ and variously numbering as one hundred thousand, ten million, one hundred million million, or an infinity.”
To further simplify Buddha’s statement, we can conclude by restating that “While everyone thinks that I, as Shakyamuni Buddha, was enlightened in this lifespan, the fact is that I have been a Buddha for eons upon eons.”
In Buddhist sūtras, the Buddha teaches that there are countless Buddhas across infinite worlds and across infinite time. Indeed, our historical Shakyamuni Buddha was not the first to visit our cosmos, nor will he be the last. According to the Bhadrakalpika Sūtra (Chinese: 賢劫經), there will be 1,004 Samyaksambuddhas (fully enlightened Buddhas) in the current fortunate aeon, with Gautama Buddha being the 4th. The next Buddha will be Maitreya (Chinese: 彌勒).
So, Buddhism exists because Buddha wants all living beings to know that, by turning away permanently from affliction and cognitive obstructions, they can enjoy a lifestyle that is “carefree without fear” and “free from topsy-turvy reveries” for a very, very long time, maybe forever.
However, this may not be a message that humanity finds easy to accept. Born with consciousness, all humans are born unenlightened, and “reification of what are actually imaginary external phenomena” is pervasive. Humanity’s lack of understanding of “What exists?” even after thousands of years of struggle to understand it is confirmation of this. Without understanding “What exists?”, humanity has no idea what reality is and cannot understand that the whole environment it faces is illusory, because it is observation-dependent and manifested from a “mere projection of consciousness.”
As discussed in Post 1, even when some of the smartest people, such as Einstein and Musk, doubt the reality of the universe, they cannot verify those doubts because the inferentially connected, word-based knowledge they use to understand the universe does not allow them to do so. As Buddha teaches, the solution to turning away permanently from afflictions and delusions is to be enlightened. Without enlightenment, even if you try to turn away from afflictions and delusions in this life, you may not remember them in the next life, and your cycles of birth and rebirth continue.
Enlightenment is not easy, and becoming a Tathāgata is even more challenging, but the potential to achieve Buddhahood lies within all living beings.
The potential for all living beings to achieve Buddhahood is known as Buddhadhatu.
Buddhadhatu, according to The Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism, is “in Sanskrit, ‘buddha-element,’ or ‘buddha-nature;’ the inherent potential of all sentient beings to achieve Buddhahood.“
So, what is the inherent nature to enter Buddhahood? It is one’s consciousness. By calming down consciousness to a state of quiescence, one can be enlightened.
I want to finish this post by recalling the fact that, in the Diamond Sūtra, Buddha promised that he would, like all the Tathagatas before him, be “a speaker of the truth, a speaker of veracity, a speaker of thusness, a non-deceptive speaker, and an un-contradictory speaker (Chinese: 如來是真語者，實語者，如語者, 不誑語者, 不異語者”).
It is essential to understand that, in a cosmos where there is Nothing but Mentality, the bodies humans possess are illusory. The mind is the important one because it is perduring and lives on “for eons upon eons.”
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