Dear Swami,
My name is Ed Shozen Haber and I am a teacher of Buddhism in the Zen tradition. I have been enjoying your videos on Youtube. I enjoy the perspective of many Hindu teachers. When I watched your video comparing Vedanta and Buddhism my mind was inspired to think how I might compare the differences and thought I might send you these thoughts.
To begin I think that the differences are to a large extent ones of perspective and language but not of essence because both schools emerge from the same experience, that of the pure clear consciousness without verbal or imaginative thought, which we both call Samadhi, or Enlightenment. My own teacher called this the “clear bright mind” and when he tells the story of the Buddha always says that when the Buddha experienced Enlightenment his first words were, “How wonderful, how wonderful all beings have this same clear bright mind that I have just been wakened to.” My own training contained almost no doctrine but rather a facility in experiencing Samadhi. At the end he asked a simple question. “How big is your mind?” intended to probe my identification with the Universal and non-dual perspective.
Though my training as a Zen student contained almost no doctrine as a practicing Buddhist for 50+ years I am deeply emersed in Buddhist thought (though not of all the schools) and I believe I also have a good understanding of the Hindu tradition. The primary difference between the two traditions seems to lie in the differences in the atman or non-atman doctrine.
When the Buddha lived some 2500 years ago in many ways India was probably similar to today in its deeply religious culture but we must also understand that it was also very different in specific aspects of that culture. It was obviously a period of religious exploration and fermentation. Hinduism was leaving the Vedic stage, and the early Upanishads were being written. Though Buddhism developed into an independent religion it evolved in the background of an early form of Hinduism which is different than the Hinduism of today, most specifically in the conception of the Atman. When reading the Pali Suttas there is no indication that the Buddha, who was emersed in the Hinduism of the time, understood the meaning of Atman to be the same as you mean by Atman as the pure clear mind of Samadhi. I think that in the Buddha’s time Atman had a meaning much closer to the Christian conception of soul, as that spark of divinity that resides in each person that gives him or her agency. This view which rises out of early Animistic religion divides existence into two realms, the physical and the spiritual. In this view the spiritual realm in the form of the gods has agency over the physical. And we humans because we have a connection to the spiritual world which manifests as our internal spirit which we experience as thoughts, desires, dreams, etc., also have agency in the physical world. In other words I believe that in the Buddha’s time the idea of an atman was not separated from our desires, thoughts, personality, etc. which forms our personal identity.
It was precisely through his deep experience of the clear consciousness of samadhi that he rejected the idea of an atman as he understood the meaning of the word. And it was also because of his deep experience of samadhi that he rejected the dualistic idea of a spiritual realm having agency over the physical. Deep in meditation there is no internal spiritual realm to be found, only the clear consciousness which makes no distinctions.
After having listened to you and others and read much from many Hindu sages I know that you and they are talking about the same experience of enlightenment, though with different language and maybe some differences in interpretations then the Buddhists. The defining characteristic of enlightened understanding is non-duality. But because language arises out of dualistic thought language can never precisely explain non-dual understanding but rather I would say that non-dual understanding can be couched in various language systems.
The Buddha chose a secular language to couch his understanding. He rejected the idea of an individual self with the anatman doctrine and talked about the ever changing nature of the world and rejected the idea of spiritual agency and replaced it with and early idea of cause and effect which might seem dualistic but then added the idea of interdependent origination which adds a non-dual Universal dimension to every cause and effect. This sort of secular language developed in Indian Buddhism as it evolved into a highly philosophic system, but it always remained rooted in meditation and the experience of enlightenment.
On the other hand Hinduism developed differently though deeply influenced by Buddhism. This is how I see it. As you know around 200BC King Ashoka conquered most of India and adopted Buddhism as the national religion. For about 1000 years Buddhism was the predominant religion in India. Great Buddhist Universities were built, and Buddhism spread throughout Asia, but the Buddhism of India was not for everybody. There are no gods, and it does not have the type of devotional practice that fills the religious needs of many people. While Buddhism developed into a heady intellectual religion (in India but not necessarily in the rest of Asia), Hinduism was developing an earthier deeply devotional religion but still deeply influenced by the experience of enlightenment. The gods would not be abandoned and also the idea of the individual self the atman would not be abandoned. The idea of atman is key in so much of Hindu thought, especially the idea of reincarnation. And of course, most of us are deeply attached to the idea of an individual self. Instead of giving up the idea of the atman it had to be redefined. As you expressed, the Atman or the True Self becomes the pure clear consciousness of samadhi.
I understand that there are many schools of Hinduism and consequently many views of the Atman. In the traditional system of Hindu thought as I understand it, the impure atman reincarnates through almost endless cycles before it becomes purified and then merges with the universal spirit Brahman after which there is no reincarnation. This view, which is essentially dualistic, contains the idea that in some way the atman is essentially separated from Brahman until it’s eventual purification. The Atman contains, until it is purified, the internal characteristics (karma) of thought, emotion, delusion, etc... This traditional view of the Atman-Brahma duality is most likely what the Buddha rebelled against.
From within the non-dual perspective of Samadhi there is no separation and in the language of Buddhism no “thing” exists as essential in itself. Rather all things are “empty” being impermanent and interdependent. In the language of Hinduism this parade of impermanence may be seen as the dance of Shiva.
From within the non-dual perspective of Samadhi there is no separation between observer and observed. In this no separation the observer becomes the observed and thus becomes, but in fact already is, the whole undivided Universe. In Zen in particular we ask students to become one with their object of meditation or just note that a breakthrough in meditation is often the result of becoming “one” with a sense object during meditation (in my case the caw of a crow). In Hinduism this experience, as stated by the sage Sri Nisargadatta, is simply , “I am that”. And in Buddhism the whole undivided Universe is called the Dharmakaya, the absolute body of the Buddha. In Hinduism this absolute body the one undivided Universe is called Brahman. In Hinduism, Brahman might be thought of as the Universal God, and in Buddhism the Dharmakaya is not thought of as God but from the perspective of Samadhi neither is true and all words are mistaken.
In one of your videos you state that the clear pure consciousness is in fact our true Self the Atman. This is a statement that I have some trouble with. The Buddha classified consciousness as one of the five skandhas and thereby temporary and not something that we can pin an idea of self to. The reflective function of the clear mind that resides with an individual certainly dies when the body dies. And from the non-dual perspective inside Samadhi there is no separation between consciousness and the sensations reflected upon it. In deep Samadhi there is no self awareness of being in samadhi. The Clear Consciousness is not reflective of itself there is no self there. But then with Awakening a new Self awakens but this Self is not the individual self that identifies with a body, thoughts and emotions. This new Self sees from and identifies with the non-dual Universal perspective. From the Hindu perspective this is the merging of Atman and Brahman and all becomes Brahman. In Buddhist language this Awakening is becoming Buddha but then the whole undivided Universe becomes Buddha. From inside this perspective there is no individual who awakens, it is the Whole Universe, Brahman or Buddha that awakens to itself. In Zen we call this Self the Large Self or maybe the True Self, or even the Original Self. This awakening which happens within fully conscious samadhi is a sort of knowing without verbal thought, or maybe just a hint of verbal thought. As soon as we try to verbalize this understanding we are in the weeds and it becomes just an idea.
I see the two religions in their deepest understanding as complimentary, different mostly in cultural context. The cultural context can be vastly different as the Chinese and Indian culture are, and the more preliminary teachings can seem vastly different. And as we see Buddhism spread through the various cultures of Asia it has taken on many forms barely recognizable as the same religion yet converge in their deepest understanding. They converge in that singular experience, Awakening.
As I noted before the one thing that I hear from several Hindu teachers that I don’t agree with and that doesn’t fit in with the Mahajana teaching of Emptiness is the identification of the clear consciousness experienced in meditation, which in fact exists under the clouds of thought, as the true Self. As one teacher said duality collapses into the One which is pure consciousness. As other teachers point out in this state of pure consciousness there is still a knowing, a subtle knower, which recognizes the experience of Oneness and essential ego lessness. We might ask the question who experiences ego-lessness? Is this the true Self?
This is what my experience teaches me. In the deepest meditation there is no subtle knower. We can call it black because inward awareness is gone and the moment will not be lit by memory. For example if we follow the breath in meditation and continually cut off thinking eventually there will be a period where not even a hint of thought will invade consciousness and consciousness becomes a polished mirror without a hint of self awareness. When this happens everything goes dark. One moment you are aware of your focus in meditation, the next moment the bell rings and the meditation period is over. This experience demonstrates that consciousness awareness is not permanent but can be turned off through the process of meditation and is therefore also a process and Empty, in the Buddhist sense. Dogen the Japanese Buddhist philosopher noted, “When fully engaging body and mind one side is bright ( the reflective quality of pure consciousness) while the other side is dark ( conscious awareness).”
This event of the complete turning off of all thought including even the most subtle conscious awareness while the reflective function of the mind is still functioning, can be thought of as a type of death (death of the self, death of the ego, etc.) In Zen we call this the Great Death if after an ego death event the practitioner returns to conscious awareness but still in a state without any thought, without discriminating dividing of sensation into this and that, the conscious awareness experiences a knowing, a perception of selflessness of the apparent individual, and the non-dual nature of what is. What emerges from this experience is a new understanding of the Self as the Universal and what might be called Universal Consciousness. When the individual self dies then the Universal Self is born. And this Universal Consciousness is reinforced, reinformed and deepened by the continuing practice of Samadhi.
Though this Universal Consciousness sees itself as simply an aspect of the non- dual Absolute it is also empty, impermanent, and associated with an empty impermanent body, nothing but the fleeting thoughts of the Absolute. With this perspective the Non-Dual Absolute does not collapse into consciousness but quite the opposite. The individual, consciousness included, disappears into the Non-Dual Universe. Experientially though they disappear into each other.
Experience even deep meditative experience is not a perfect guide and may be misleading. In samadhi when the discriminating function is turned off but conscious awareness is still present, everything experienced becomes one thing. The appearance of difference doesn’t matter. It is just mere appearance and all becomes Buddha or Brahman or as we say in Zen “one suchness.” This experience is the foundation of non-dual understanding but for many people this experience has led to a type of philosophic idealism in which the consciousness on which all this appearance appears is the only thing real. This is true in some schools of Buddhism as well as some schools of Hinduism. But maybe because I have a training in science, or I practice in a less philosophic and more practical tradition of Chinese and Japanese Buddhism I reject this philosophic Idealism though I do not reject non-duality. In other words, in my understanding this mere appearance in pure consciousness is a reflection of a reality which is “out there.” This reflection is partial and, in many ways, a flawed reflection of an infinitely complex reality. One thing that is learned from meditation is, much of what is experienced, attachments, emotions, etc. are added to the clear reflection of consciousness by the processes of thought. Even such abstract notions as space, and time are added by a type of subliminal thought. Most importantly the concept of an individual self and the dualistic conception of reality are creations of thought. All these added layers of thought might be functionally useful, but they are also delusional and create a lot of suffering. All of this delusion rests on a conception of an individual self. When the idea of an individual self is seen through then dualism is seen through. We might call this Non-Dual Naturalism. It does not reject the natural world as mere appearance but sees the Universe in its totality with all that exists within as a single deeply interconnected thing, a life, the Absolute. And all that exists as temporary appearance within the Absolute is a manifestation within the Absolute is not separate from the Absolute and that the whole Absolute is contained in even the most fleeting appearance. Not a single thing exists as it does if not for the whole Universe existing as it does.
Sometimes an analogy is used in which all phenomena exist like waves on the ocean of the Absolute. I like this analogy because of the image of fluidity which seems to characterize all phenomena in its temporality. And of course, the hugeness of the ocean represents the Absolute in its all-inclusiveness and inherently unknowable in its complexity. If we think of a human as a wave on the ocean of Being then we must understand that the wave has multiple layers of waves residing upon it. One of these waves is consciousness, other waves are the energic phenomena that dances across consciousness. Waves on waves on waves on waves etc... All of this is not separate from the absolute and dependent on the Absolute in its absolute complexity. Thus, I reject the philosophic Idealism that many Hindu Teachers seem to advocate.
Thank you for reading this and may this continue in conversation.
Ed Shozen Haber
Dear Swami,
My name is Ed Shozen Haber and I am a teacher of Buddhism in the Zen tradition. I have been enjoying your videos on Youtube. I enjoy the perspective of many Hindu teachers. When I watched your video comparing Vedanta and Buddhism my mind was inspired to think how I might compare the differences and thought I might send you these thoughts.
To begin I think that the differences are to a large extent ones of perspective and language but not of essence because both schools emerge from the same experience, that of the pure clear consciousness without verbal or imaginative thought, which we both call Samadhi, or Enlightenment. My own teacher called this the “clear bright mind” and when he tells the story of the Buddha always says that when the Buddha experienced Enlightenment his first words were, “How wonderful, how wonderful all beings have this same clear bright mind that I have just been wakened to.” My own training contained almost no doctrine but rather a facility in experiencing Samadhi. At the end he asked a simple question. “How big is your mind?” intended to probe my identification with the Universal and non-dual perspective.
Though my training as a Zen student contained almost no doctrine as a practicing Buddhist for 50+ years I am deeply emersed in Buddhist thought (though not of all the schools) and I believe I also have a good understanding of the Hindu tradition. The primary difference between the two traditions seems to lie in the differences in the atman or non-atman doctrine.
When the Buddha lived some 2500 years ago in many ways India was probably similar to today in its deeply religious culture but we must also understand that it was also very different in specific aspects of that culture. It was obviously a period of religious exploration and fermentation. Hinduism was leaving the Vedic stage, and the early Upanishads were being written. Though Buddhism developed into an independent religion it evolved in the background of an early form of Hinduism which is different than the Hinduism of today, most specifically in the conception of the Atman. When reading the Pali Suttas there is no indication that the Buddha, who was emersed in the Hinduism of the time, understood the meaning of Atman to be the same as you mean by Atman as the pure clear mind of Samadhi. I think that in the Buddha’s time Atman had a meaning much closer to the Christian conception of soul, as that spark of divinity that resides in each person that gives him or her agency. This view which rises out of early Animistic religion divides existence into two realms, the physical and the spiritual. In this view the spiritual realm in the form of the gods has agency over the physical. And we humans because we have a connection to the spiritual world which manifests as our internal spirit which we experience as thoughts, desires, dreams, etc., also have agency in the physical world. In other words I believe that in the Buddha’s time the idea of an atman was not separated from our desires, thoughts, personality, etc. which forms our personal identity.
It was precisely through his deep experience of the clear consciousness of samadhi that he rejected the idea of an atman as he understood the meaning of the word. And it was also because of his deep experience of samadhi that he rejected the dualistic idea of a spiritual realm having agency over the physical. Deep in meditation there is no internal spiritual realm to be found, only the clear consciousness which makes no distinctions.
After having listened to you and others and read much from many Hindu sages I know that you and they are talking about the same experience of enlightenment, though with different language and maybe some differences in interpretations then the Buddhists. The defining characteristic of enlightened understanding is non-duality. But because language arises out of dualistic thought language can never precisely explain non-dual understanding but rather I would say that non-dual understanding can be couched in various language systems.
The Buddha chose a secular language to couch his understanding. He rejected the idea of an individual self with the anatman doctrine and talked about the ever changing nature of the world and rejected the idea of spiritual agency and replaced it with and early idea of cause and effect which might seem dualistic but then added the idea of interdependent origination which adds a non-dual Universal dimension to every cause and effect. This sort of secular language developed in Indian Buddhism as it evolved into a highly philosophic system, but it always remained rooted in meditation and the experience of enlightenment.
On the other hand Hinduism developed differently though deeply influenced by Buddhism. This is how I see it. As you know around 200BC King Ashoka conquered most of India and adopted Buddhism as the national religion. For about 1000 years Buddhism was the predominant religion in India. Great Buddhist Universities were built, and Buddhism spread throughout Asia, but the Buddhism of India was not for everybody. There are no gods, and it does not have the type of devotional practice that fills the religious needs of many people. While Buddhism developed into a heady intellectual religion (in India but not necessarily in the rest of Asia), Hinduism was developing an earthier deeply devotional religion but still deeply influenced by the experience of enlightenment. The gods would not be abandoned and also the idea of the individual self the atman would not be abandoned. The idea of atman is key in so much of Hindu thought, especially the idea of reincarnation. And of course, most of us are deeply attached to the idea of an individual self. Instead of giving up the idea of the atman it had to be redefined. As you expressed, the Atman or the True Self becomes the pure clear consciousness of samadhi.
I understand that there are many schools of Hinduism and consequently many views of the Atman. In the traditional system of Hindu thought as I understand it, the impure atman reincarnates through almost endless cycles before it becomes purified and then merges with the universal spirit Brahman after which there is no reincarnation. This view, which is essentially dualistic, contains the idea that in some way the atman is essentially separated from Brahman until it’s eventual purification. The Atman contains, until it is purified, the internal characteristics (karma) of thought, emotion, delusion, etc... This traditional view of the Atman-Brahma duality is most likely what the Buddha rebelled against.
From within the non-dual perspective of Samadhi there is no separation and in the language of Buddhism no “thing” exists as essential in itself. Rather all things are “empty” being impermanent and interdependent. In the language of Hinduism this parade of impermanence may be seen as the dance of Shiva.
From within the non-dual perspective of Samadhi there is no separation between observer and observed. In this no separation the observer becomes the observed and thus becomes, but in fact already is, the whole undivided Universe. In Zen in particular we ask students to become one with their object of meditation or just note that a breakthrough in meditation is often the result of becoming “one” with a sense object during meditation (in my case the caw of a crow). In Hinduism this experience, as stated by the sage Sri Nisargadatta, is simply , “I am that”. And in Buddhism the whole undivided Universe is called the Dharmakaya, the absolute body of the Buddha. In Hinduism this absolute body the one undivided Universe is called Brahman. In Hinduism, Brahman might be thought of as the Universal God, and in Buddhism the Dharmakaya is not thought of as God but from the perspective of Samadhi neither is true and all words are mistaken.
In one of your videos you state that the clear pure consciousness is in fact our true Self the Atman. This is a statement that I have some trouble with. The Buddha classified consciousness as one of the five skandhas and thereby temporary and not something that we can pin an idea of self to. The reflective function of the clear mind that resides with an individual certainly dies when the body dies. And from the non-dual perspective inside Samadhi there is no separation between consciousness and the sensations reflected upon it. In deep Samadhi there is no self awareness of being in samadhi. The Clear Consciousness is not reflective of itself there is no self there. But then with Awakening a new Self awakens but this Self is not the individual self that identifies with a body, thoughts and emotions. This new Self sees from and identifies with the non-dual Universal perspective. From the Hindu perspective this is the merging of Atman and Brahman and all becomes Brahman. In Buddhist language this Awakening is becoming Buddha but then the whole undivided Universe becomes Buddha. From inside this perspective there is no individual who awakens, it is the Whole Universe, Brahman or Buddha that awakens to itself. In Zen we call this Self the Large Self or maybe the True Self, or even the Original Self. This awakening which happens within fully conscious samadhi is a sort of knowing without verbal thought, or maybe just a hint of verbal thought. As soon as we try to verbalize this understanding we are in the weeds and it becomes just an idea.
I see the two religions in their deepest understanding as complimentary, different mostly in cultural context. The cultural context can be vastly different as the Chinese and Indian culture are, and the more preliminary teachings can seem vastly different. And as we see Buddhism spread through the various cultures of Asia it has taken on many forms barely recognizable as the same religion yet converge in their deepest understanding. They converge in that singular experience, Awakening.
As I noted before the one thing that I hear from several Hindu teachers that I don’t agree with and that doesn’t fit in with the Mahajana teaching of Emptiness is the identification of the clear consciousness experienced in meditation, which in fact exists under the clouds of thought, as the true Self. As one teacher said duality collapses into the One which is pure consciousness. As other teachers point out in this state of pure consciousness there is still a knowing, a subtle knower, which recognizes the experience of Oneness and essential ego lessness. We might ask the question who experiences ego-lessness? Is this the true Self?
This is what my experience teaches me. In the deepest meditation there is no subtle knower. We can call it black because inward awareness is gone and the moment will not be lit by memory. For example if we follow the breath in meditation and continually cut off thinking eventually there will be a period where not even a hint of thought will invade consciousness and consciousness becomes a polished mirror without a hint of self awareness. When this happens everything goes dark. One moment you are aware of your focus in meditation, the next moment the bell rings and the meditation period is over. This experience demonstrates that consciousness awareness is not permanent but can be turned off through the process of meditation and is therefore also a process and Empty, in the Buddhist sense. Dogen the Japanese Buddhist philosopher noted, “When fully engaging body and mind one side is bright ( the reflective quality of pure consciousness) while the other side is dark ( conscious awareness).”
This event of the complete turning off of all thought including even the most subtle conscious awareness while the reflective function of the mind is still functioning, can be thought of as a type of death (death of the self, death of the ego, etc.) In Zen we call this the Great Death if after an ego death event the practitioner returns to conscious awareness but still in a state without any thought, without discriminating dividing of sensation into this and that, the conscious awareness experiences a knowing, a perception of selflessness of the apparent individual, and the non-dual nature of what is. What emerges from this experience is a new understanding of the Self as the Universal and what might be called Universal Consciousness. When the individual self dies then the Universal Self is born. And this Universal Consciousness is reinforced, reinformed and deepened by the continuing practice of Samadhi.
Though this Universal Consciousness sees itself as simply an aspect of the non- dual Absolute it is also empty, impermanent, and associated with an empty impermanent body, nothing but the fleeting thoughts of the Absolute. With this perspective the Non-Dual Absolute does not collapse into consciousness but quite the opposite. The individual, consciousness included, disappears into the Non-Dual Universe. Experientially though they disappear into each other.
Experience even deep meditative experience is not a perfect guide and may be misleading. In samadhi when the discriminating function is turned off but conscious awareness is still present, everything experienced becomes one thing. The appearance of difference doesn’t matter. It is just mere appearance and all becomes Buddha or Brahman or as we say in Zen “one suchness.” This experience is the foundation of non-dual understanding but for many people this experience has led to a type of philosophic idealism in which the consciousness on which all this appearance appears is the only thing real. This is true in some schools of Buddhism as well as some schools of Hinduism. But maybe because I have a training in science, or I practice in a less philosophic and more practical tradition of Chinese and Japanese Buddhism I reject this philosophic Idealism though I do not reject non-duality. In other words, in my understanding this mere appearance in pure consciousness is a reflection of a reality which is “out there.” This reflection is partial and, in many ways, a flawed reflection of an infinitely complex reality. One thing that is learned from meditation is, much of what is experienced, attachments, emotions, etc. are added to the clear reflection of consciousness by the processes of thought. Even such abstract notions as space, and time are added by a type of subliminal thought. Most importantly the concept of an individual self and the dualistic conception of reality are creations of thought. All these added layers of thought might be functionally useful, but they are also delusional and create a lot of suffering. All of this delusion rests on a conception of an individual self. When the idea of an individual self is seen through then dualism is seen through. We might call this Non-Dual Naturalism. It does not reject the natural world as mere appearance but sees the Universe in its totality with all that exists within as a single deeply interconnected thing, a life, the Absolute. And all that exists as temporary appearance within the Absolute is a manifestation within the Absolute is not separate from the Absolute and that the whole Absolute is contained in even the most fleeting appearance. Not a single thing exists as it does if not for the whole Universe existing as it does.
Sometimes an analogy is used in which all phenomena exist like waves on the ocean of the Absolute. I like this analogy because of the image of fluidity which seems to characterize all phenomena in its temporality. And of course, the hugeness of the ocean represents the Absolute in its all-inclusiveness and inherently unknowable in its complexity. If we think of a human as a wave on the ocean of Being then we must understand that the wave has multiple layers of waves residing upon it. One of these waves is consciousness, other waves are the energic phenomena that dances across consciousness. Waves on waves on waves on waves etc... All of this is not separate from the absolute and dependent on the Absolute in its absolute complexity. Thus, I reject the philosophic Idealism that many Hindu Teachers seem to advocate.
Thank you for reading this and may this continue in conversation.
Ed Shozen Haber
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