Hi everyone.  Just a note,  I seem to have plenty of readers of this blog but nobody is leaving any comments.  Please feel free to leave a comment.

          I have been thinking lately about the words Mahayana and Hinayana.  I was doing some research for one of my blogs when I read that many people object to the term Hinayana and don't feel it is appropriate to apply it to the Theravada school.  They think it is a demeaning term and not just a historical demarcation between schools, a very understandable point of view.
          As a historical demarcation we only have the Theravada school existing today as an example of a Hinayana school though I understand that until the fall of Buddhism in India there were many different Hinayana schools.  There are significant differences between Theravada Buddhism and the Mahayana schools of Buddhism but there are also significant differences between the many schools of the Mahayana.  Theravada Buddhism is undeniably closer to the Buddhism that the historic Buddha, Shakyamuni, taught then any of the Mahayana schools.  Their primary literature is the Palli Cannon written in the language that the Buddha spoke and probably very close to the very words the he spoke.  This purity is undeniably one of the attractions of the Theravada school and the Western derivative,  the Vipassina school.  I know, many Western Vipassina practitioners would call themselves Theravada Buddhists but there are enough differences, mostly cultural, between the way it  is practiced in the Asia and the way it is practiced in the West that they really are different schools.  One example is the large number of lay practitioners in the West, many who are woman including many woman teachers.  And then much of the religious formality has been stripped out of the Western Vipassina practice.  The same could be said about Western Zen.  
          One of the most interesting aspects of the American Vipassina School is that many of the teachers are also psychologists and there is now a movement in psychology based around Mindfulness Meditation.  I also know of many psychologists practicing Zen and it is probably also true of the other schools of Buddhism in the West.  It is only natural seeing that Buddha emphasized happiness and pointed a way towards happiness and therapeutic psychology is also about making people happy.  The early teachings of the Buddha, the Four Fold Truths and the Eight Fold Path emphasize the personal search for happiness and individual salvation.  This is why it is called the small or individual vehicle, Hinayana.  One may think that the term Hinayana is disparaging but it is an accurate  descriptor.  This emphasis on the individual runs throughout the so called Hinayana schools.  The great thinkers of these schools focused on individual psychology and the psychology of meditation and produced a great body of literature called the Abhidhamma, which is worth some study.   Even the large number of vows that a Theravada  monk takes points to this individual emphasis.  To disparage this approach would be to disparage the teachings of Shakyamuni.  The so called Hinayana approach is an important leg upon which the Dharma stands.
          At some point some people thought that this individual emphasis had some problems, that this individual  approach was not enough.  They viewed Buddhism from a more philosophic (maybe ontological is a better word) and a more cosmic perspective.  From their concerns grew a whole new body of Buddhist literature  the Mahayana Sutras.  Though it is most likely that Shakyamuni Buddha did not speak the Mahayana Sutras we can see the roots of the Mahayana in his original teachings.  These are: One, the Non-Atman doctrine  that we humans  have no soul which transmigrates from body to body, or gives us special status as a special creation.  Two, that all things, including humans, result from causes and conditions ( an early idea of causation).  Three, that everything is in a process of constant change.   One can see the whole Mahayana as an elaboration of these three original teachings.  And because these are part of the original teachings they also are part of Theravada Buddhism, just not emphasized like in the Mahayana,  And  of course the Mahayana does not ignore the original teachings of the Four Fold Truths and the Eight Fold Path so really the Mahayana and Hinayana result from differing emphasis but contain each other. 
           In my reading I came upon a teaching from a Tibetan teacher that we should not classify different schools of Buddhism as necessarily Hinayana or Mahayana but should understand that it is the individual's approach to Buddhist  practice that is either Hinayana or Mahayana.  Within a Mahayana school one can practice with a Hinayana attitude and within Theravada Buddhism one can also practice with a Mahayana attitude.  Now I am getting close to the point I want to make but first let me tell one of the classic Zen stories. 
          The 5th Patriarch of the Zen school in China wanted to appoint a successor.  He asked his students to submit poems showing their understanding so that he could choose one of his students.  Shen Xui  the head monk submitted this:
      
The body is the Bodhi Tree
The mind a mirror bright 
Diligently polish the mirror
Don't let the dust alight

Hiu Neng the future sixth patriarch submitted this:

There is no Bodhi Tree
Nor is their a  mirror bright
Not a thing exists
Where can dust alight?

         The understanding reflected in these two poems is vastly different.  Shen Shui's poem is  about the individual practice of meditation and mindfulness.  As the fifth Patriarch noted, if you successfully practice this way you will ward off suffering.  But Shen Sui did not become the sixth Patriarch because he had not gone beyond a Hinayana point of view.  He still only saw things from his own individual perspective.  Hui Neng did receive the robe and bowl as the Sixth Patriarch because he had a deeper understanding which transcended the individual perspective.  In his poem he expresses a perspective in which not a thing exists.  In the Mahayana we say this is the perspective of emptiness which is nothing other then the perspective expressed by the Buddha's three teachings of non-Atman, causation, and impermanence.  And with the last line of this poem "where can the dust alight? ",  he is saying that this perspective is where suffering ends, that in some sense it never existed, and if we understand this we can't be touched by suffering.  Hui Neng's perspective was from the other side of the river, enlightenment  This is the Mahayana perspective.
          Now it may seem that that I am touting the superiority of the Mahayana but what I am trying to say is that whether you practice in the Theravada tradition or one of the Mahayana traditions it is important that you don't get caught in an individual perspective, a Hinayana perspective, but rather see beyond our individual perspective with at least a little bit of a Mahayana perspective.  What I mean by a little bit of Mahayana perspective is to take seriously those three teachings of the Buddha, non-Atman, causation, impermanence, and try to understand their implications.  Ask the questions:  What do these three teachings mean for my understanding of my self?  What do these three teachings mean for my understanding of reincarnation? What do these three teachings mean for my understanding of  free-will?  What do these three teachings mean for my place as an individual in the greater Universe?  What do these three teachings mean for the Dharma's place in the Universe?  What perspective do these three teachings give us on the nature of the Universe?  How does this understanding effect practice?  With a careful examination of these questions maybe we can take ourselves a bit out of the individual Hinayana perspective and give ourselves  something of a cosmic perspective.
          The motivation for writing this blog is my experience that many people come to Buddhism with a personal obsession over their own suffering.  This is perfectly understandable for those who experience deep psychological suffering and many of us do.  They think practicing Buddhism will relieve their suffering and it does to some extent but then after years of practice most people discover that for them Buddhism is not a miracle cure  When I ask myself how they can be more successful in their practice I think they some how need to have more of a Mahayana perspective.  Somehow they need to step over the seemingly impenetrable barrier of self.
          Many people think that the Mahayana is all about the Bodhisattva Ideal of the individual who dedicates him/her self to helping others overcome suffering.  The Bodhisattva Ideal is important.  It helps us overcome the self through dedication to others but if one does not see beyond the individual perspective it can also create deep suffering as the suffering of others, through compassion and empathy becomes our own suffering.  We are still caught in an individual perspective.  More important then the individual version of the Bodhisattva Ideal is the cosmic perspective of the Mahayana.  This cosmic perspective can take many forms which depends on the insight and experience of the individual but has to begin with a certain faith.  What is this faith?  It is a faith in the teachings and more then a faith in the teachings it is a faith in the Universe.  It is a faith that the Universe is manifesting in a way it must with a certain perfection.  It is the faith that though we humans are just small ephemeral beings we are part of and take part in this great perfect Universe. 
          It is difficult for us humans to see this perfection of which I write. We see only a small slice of time and our concerns are based around human wants and desires.  We see lots of things that seem very bad.  This is how our small human perspective sees the world.  There is a larger perspective.  In the Pure Land sects of Buddhism there is a faith in the vow of the cosmic Bodhisattva Amitaba to save all sentient beings.  This is a personification of the the type of faith I am writing about.  Amitaba represents the Universe and a  recognizable compassion that exists within the Universe.  This compassion manifests through friend and family, strangers, the society,  and the events that teach us the lessons we need to learn.  It manifests through our own individual Bodhisattva practice.  It manifests through the very nature of life.  It manifests through the very nature of the Universe.  Like a growing child this perfection is an evolving ever changing perfection.  Now I am going to say something that is very out there.  Human suffering is part of this perfection.  We might say it is the price of our human consciousness, the price of our potential to manifest as Bodhisattvas and Buddhas.  
          In our secular society many of us have faith only in our selves in our own intelligence in our own desires.  Many of us come to Buddhist practice with only this faith because Buddhism seems like the one truly rational religion.  But we human beings are not perfect, not fully rational, certainly not smart enough to figure it all out   A long time ago it was recognized that faith in just ourselves was not enough and the various religious traditions filled this gap.  Religion gave us a sort of cosmic perspective which soothed our suffering and fears especially our fear of death,  But, in today's world with the explosion of science based knowledge it becomes more and more difficult to have faith in these old religious traditions and so Buddhism presents itself on a rational foundation, without a faith in any Gods, with the personal psychological discipline of meditation, and is very attractive.  Buddhism appears as a sort of secular religion but still it asks for faith because in the cosmic perspective of the Mahayana it is trans-rational, and trans-individual.  Initially only faith has the power to help us let go of our individual perspective, our individual worries and concerns and especially our fear of death.  Eventually this faith may become something more, through experience transformed into wisdom. 
          

Poetic Liberation II

This is a continuation of the previous blog on an idea I am calling Poetic Realization.  If you have not read the previous blog maybe you should begin there. 

          Having tea after the Sunday morning sit the question came up, what were the       Three Turnings of the Dharma and is their a forth?  This idea of turnings is something the Tibetan Buddhists talk about.  It is rarely talked about in other schools of Buddhism.  The story of the three turnings goes something like this.
          When the the Buddha began teaching he recognized that he needed to mold  his teachings for the existing mentality of the people he was teaching.  This first formulation of the teachings can be found in the Palli Cannon and is today practiced by the Theravada Buddhists.  It is known as the "small vehicle" because it's focus is on the individual and the individual's desire to relieve themselves from suffering.  
          Then as his students became more advanced in the path he changed his teachings and started talking about the Bodhisattva who practices so that all people can be liberated from suffering.  And there was a new philosophic focus with concepts like "emptiness." and the non-dual perspective.  This produced a whole new body of teachings found in the Mahayana Sutras.  It was called the "large vehicle" - Mahayana in Sanskrit-  because no longer was the emphasis on the individual's personal practice to relieve personal suffering, but rather the very need to drop the personal perspective and see the Dharma as transcending the individual.  This is the second turning of the Dharma.  The Mahayana has many schools  and is found throughout Northern Asia.  Zen is a Mahayana School. 
         Keeping to the theme of this story, the Buddha never completely shared his full understanding in public discourse but saved his deepest teachings for one on one teaching to his best students.  This body of teachings was for many many years  privately passed from teacher to student until it emerged in a body of literature called the Tantra's.  I have to say that I am no expert on the Tantra's but my understanding is that these esoteric teachings are about the use of certain "powers" in initiations and meditation.  These teachings have become very important in the Vajrayana Schools of Buddhism in Tibet and other parts of Asia.  These schools are also a subset of the larger Mahayana community. 
          I think there is another way to view the Three Turnings of the Dharma which is probably historically more accurate.  Each of the three turnings was a formulation and then reformulation of the teachings in response to a particular time and place, and also the growing experience of the many practitioners..  This ability and willingness to reformulate itself is one of Buddhism's great assets.   As Buddhism moves into the Western World there is an other reformulation of Buddhism that is happening.  Why am I writing about this?  True deep Buddhism never fix's the meaning of words and doctrines.  Words and doctrines are temporary skillful means  attempts to express the inexpressible.  Only deep experience can reveal a true understanding of Buddhism.  Words can direct us on a path towards that experience and maybe they can point out that experience and understanding that comes from that experience but not literally only metaphorically, only poetically.  This is what I call poetic liberation.  
          When Zen entered China  it was entering a land with a deep love of poetry.  In adapting Zen to China and later Japan a new formulation of Buddhism emerged using words poetically as metaphors for enlightened understanding and experience.  And a new powerful tool combining metaphor and meditation emerged called the Koan.  I think we can justifiably call this a fourth turning.  
          Now I have caught up to the previous blog.  Typically the first Koan given a student is Mu.  Mu is a word meaning no.  The story goes that a student asked the Zen master Joshu, "Does a dog have Buddha nature?"  The response was Mu.  Right away we understand that this Mu is not a littoral no because Buddhist doctrine tells us that all beings have Buddha Nature.  Of course Buddha Nature is another big question.  All of this swirls in our head as we try to understand Joshu's response.  Again and again we bring our teacher an intellectual answer and it is always rejected.  Maybe we have heard that if we give a good shout MU we will pass but again the answer is rejected.  We have to bring something else to the teacher.  Eventually if we drop any fixed dualistic meaning for MU, and our dualistic understanding, all of a sudden Mu will make perfect sense.
          This whole process of Koan Zen pushes the student, never letting him or her sit on their lorals, never settling on a comfortable understanding of Zen and meditation.  This process works on the student to break down their dualistic thinking, and pushes their meditation to go deeper and deeper eventually setting up the conditions which allow the student to see through their dualistic thinking to the non-dual.  What are these conditions?
One condition is a temporary suspension of dualistic thinking, verbal and emotional.  There must also be a deep detachment from dualistic thought based on the fixed meanings of words.  Lastly there is still the inner search for deeper meaning and a sort of directed energy that has built up in this search These last two conditions are where the koan is important  It is not quite enough to just temporarily stop verbal thought in meditation because without a deeper detachment from dualistic thinking, when the meditation is over the dualistic thinking will start up again.
          
        "The Master took the high seat in the Hall. He said: 'on your lump of red flesh 
is a true man without rank who is always going in and out of the face of every one of you. 
Those who have not yet proved him, look, look!"


          This is a statement taken from the teachings of Rinzi and often given as a Koan.  Rinzi, noted for his unusual teaching methods used language very freely and here seems to have presented us with a perplexing statement.  In doing a little research on the internet I read a few commentaries on this koan and none of them seemed to go to the full depth of this koan. In Zen we often talk about the "true self", understanding our true self, finding our true self etc.  This seems in contradiction to the Buddhist teaching of no self but we shouldn't be surprised with this seeming contradiction.  Some how this delema resolves with a whole new way of viewing the self which is what this koan is all about.
         One may start with the phrase true man of no rank and think: "We are always ranking ourselves, sometimes superior, sometimes inferior to those we interact with.  Sometimes this ranking is conscious, often it is subconscious, but either way it effects our emotions and responses. On the other hand the enlightened don't think this way and see others as well as themselves as equals without rank.  Instead the enlightened clearly see each situation and respond accordingly."  
          These thoughts may be a good beginning but they don't see the full depth of the Koan.  What about this True Man going in and out of the face?  Sensations and food come in through the face and what goes out through the face, words, spittle, disgorged food?  What is Rinzi talking about?  And also why is he bringing in the lump of red flesh?         
        We read "on your lump of red flesh is a true man" and we may immediately think that there is a separation between the lump of red flesh, our body, and the true man, our true selves.  Beware of falling into the trap of mind body dualism. Buddhism is not a dualistic philosophy. We are not our body but we are also not not our body.  This reminds me of many years ago when I was at a retreat with Baba Muctinanda the Hindu Guru.  In his talk he tells us that we are all just bags of piss and shit.  Many years later Harada Roshi in a talk tells us that we are bags of bile and puke.  Why would they speak this way?  Maybe they as well as Rinzi wanted to break down the idea that we are just this body.  Be careful,  if we alternatively think that we are just our minds then we are truly in trouble.  If we think, "I am what I think," then we become attached to our greed anger and confusion, and then what hope do we have. We are  also not not our mind.    
         Now we return to the "true man without rank who is always going in and out of the face of every one of you."  Who is this true man, is it us, is it separate from us?  Every which way we turn we fall into dualism.  Rinzi says look look prove it to yourself.  The inscrutable  nature of the koan, the process of confronting the teacher again and again keeps pushing us.  Boundaries have to be dropped.  Fixed ideas have to be dropped.  There we sit in meditation experiencing things like we always experience things but some how it is different because now we experience without boundaries.  From the sounds that go in our ears, the sights that go in our eyes, the smells that go in our noses, and the breath that goes in and out of our body, we cannot separate ourselves. 
          Truly deep meditation is often described as a state of equanimity where all sensations. all things, are seen as equal.  In this state of mind we simply observe without adding thoughts to our observation.  We may also say this is a state of mind where everything is without rank.  This state of mind which we call samadhi is not quite enough, somehow a profound change in understanding needs to take place and the koan points directly at this new understanding.  Here is where the unique and poetic use of language in Zen has it's power.  The phrase true man without rank references this completely different understanding but it all hinges on our understanding of the word man.  This dualistic word must somehow be understood with a non-dualistic understanding.
In samadhi all our conceptual boundaries which divide perception into this and that are down. This is a state of Zero not a thing exists, because we are without even a single thought.  But then if we look we can perceive everything is a single thing, One.  This One includes not only what we sense out there but also our selves, this body and mind.  We become everything but also everything becomes us.  We have entered the non-dual.  Rinzi's use of the word man is a personification of the non-dual  It represents the identification of our true selves with everything. with the One.  The One is our true self, it is the True Self, it is the true man without rank.  Look look don't you see him?  You just need to practice more. 
           If you truly see the man of no rank you shouldn't have a problem with this koan.  You have undergone poetic liberation and the obscure language of the Zen Masters should start to be clear.   I hope this essay has demonstrated reasonably well what I mean by poetic realization.  Good luck in your practice.

       
” Confused by thoughts,
we experience duality in life.
Unencumbered by ideas,
the enlightened see the one Reality.”

- Hui  Neng 6th Zen patriarch



          Hi folks.  I have been playing with a thought I call Poetic Liberation.  Let me explain. The enlightenment experience has a deeply poetic quality in several ways.  The intensity, joy and beauty of the experience cannot be captured by intellectual dissertation.  Only poetry can somewhat successfully express this type of experience.  We can see the huge volume of poetry that has come from many of the great mystics in all the great mystic traditions.  I only need point to Rumi in the Sufi tradition,  Milarepa in the Tibetan  tradition,  Tagore in the Hindu tradition and St Francis in the Christian tradition.  There are whole web sites devoted to mystic poets if you want to read some of this wonderful poetry.  Poetry has this wonderful quality of being able to evoke the deep feelings and understanding of the mystic experience.  
          The relationship between poetry and the enlightenment experience is even deeper then the ability of poetry to express  feelings and thoughts.  The enlightenment experience causes this amazing transformation in the way the individual thinks about things.  This transformation is deeply poetic because it creates a deeply metaphorical way of thinking.  With the experience of the non-dual we all of a sudden realize that the essential duality of language is a problem.  We divide up our perception of the world with words.  As long as we hold to the fixed meaning of words not only can we not express non-duality but our attachment to fixed meanings prevents our experience of the non-dual.  Enlightenment liberates us from the fixed meanings of words. but in some way though, we must first liberate ourselves from the fixed meanings of words before we open ourselves to the enlightenment experience.  How do we do this?  Well just sitting for many many hours is a good way.  We sit until in some sense we forget the meaning of words but actually we sit until our mind becomes quiet and we just stop using words.  There is also another way which is used in Zen.  It is called Koan practice.  This is to confront the student with an enigmatic question which will only cause endless frustration if he sticks to the fixed meaning of words.  Combine this with meditation and now we have a powerful tool which can cut through the impediment of fixed meanings and liberate our use of language. With this liberation words can now express the metaphoric quality of enlightened understanding.
          What is the metaphoric quality of the enlightenment experience?  It is to see unity when most people see just duality.  It is to understand non-duality in the world of duality.  In this understanding each individual thing is just a temporary manifestation of the non-dual and thereby becomes a metaphor for the non-dual.  In this understanding as each individual thing becomes a metaphor for the non-dual it also becomes a metaphor for every other individual thing.  Now seeing everything as a metaphor for everything just about makes verbal thought impossible.  How can we verbally teach the non-dual Dharma?  Now comes the innovation in teaching method that has made Zen Buddhism unique, the enigmatic use of language,  the selective use of seemingly absurd metaphors.
          The Zen master says, "Become one with the sound of the wind."  How can I become one with the sound of the wind when we are two?  The wind is one thing and I am something else.  Some where there is an experience where the I and the wind become one.  The experience is in front of us all the time but as long as we hold to a fixed meaning for "I" and "wind" never the two shall meet.
          This web sight is named from a poetic couplet:

          Sitting in the Moonwater Dojo
          Tracing flowers in the sky

The Moon reflecting on still water is a common Zen metaphor.  Still water represents a clear mind without the commotion of many thoughts like a polished mirror reflecting the reality around us.  The Moon represents that reality around us but not as we normally see it with our active mind, but as a single whole the, undifferentiated oneness, the Absolute, Buddha.  The Moomwater Dojo is a place of practice where we can sit and clearly experience the Oneness of reality.  This  might be thought of as a physical place but it also is a mental place that is free of any specific physical place.  The Moonwater Dojo is our clear mind.  The Moonwater Dojo is also the Absolute perspective where everything is Empty Then taking this metaphor even further the Moonwater Dojo is also the absolute, non-dual, Oneness  The Moonwater Dojo is all of this and nothing, just a word, just a sound.
          "Tracing flowers in the sky" another poetic image which has multiple metaphoric meanings.  Flowers are sort of amazing.  They are absolutely beautiful and very temporary.  They open up, attract insects with their colors, and then in a day or a week or maybe a bit longer they  wither and are gone.  This is like our lives   This is like the lives of all living things.  And if we expand our time scale, all things are just temporary manifestations, mountains, rivers, civilizations.  Everything is both a beneficiary and victim to the constant change we call reality.  Everything is ephemeral.  Everything is a flower in the Sky.
          Sitting in the Moonwater Dojo, sitting with a clear mind, not attaching any  dualistic thinking to any sensation, sensations reflect upon the clear consciousness like passing flowers. And a deeper understanding is present,, that of the non-dual and the flowers  which cannot be separated from the non-dual.  Sitting in the Moonwater Dojo, tracing flowers in the sky is the Absolute sitting in its own presence
          The non-dual Absolute which contains everything, encompasses everything, is everything, including time and space, this Universe and all Universes, transcends everything, is beyond fixed definition, is beyond grasping, and yet, it's presence can be grasped with every flower in the sky.
 
          This is enough for one blog so you will just have to wait as I continue this theme  and write about the enigmatic and poetic use of language in Koans in the next blog

          This short essay called The Embrace was given as a talk at one of our Zen retreats here in Port Townsend a few years ago.  People liked it but it also created some controversy which made for a lively discussion.  I have thought of Zen practice as a type of embrace since passing a Koan with Sasaki Roshi many years ago.  You can read about this in my essay A Life of Practice found on this site.  Enjoy.


                       The Embrace


          The Heart of Buddhism is the embrace. At its Heart is the embrace, for in the embrace the individual disappears, merges with the embraced and the Heart is felt.   In the embrace we become one with everything from the smallest creatures to the whole Universe. In the embrace we become time and space, past and future, truth and illusion. Yet the embrace is truth not illusion. In the embrace everything is clear.   In the embrace we discover our true nature.

          The embrace is all inclusive, nothing is rejected.   In the embrace we become one with both the loved and the despised, the pure and the impure, and recognize ourselves as both the loved and the despised, the pure and the impure.

          The embrace is active not passive yet includes both activity and passivity. The embrace is the Buddha way but includes all forms of Religion. The embrace is joy but also include suffering. It is Nirvana but also includes Samsara. The embrace is life but also includes death.

          In the embrace we discover that the other is in embrace with us and that there never was a two only a one, and this one includes the whole Universe.

          In the embrace of one thing, the self is forgotten and we become all things.

          From where does the embrace arise?   The embrace is not an embrace of the intellect nor is it an embrace of the emotions and yet it does not necessarily exclude intellect and emotions.  It comes before intellect and emotions and yet it frees intellect and emotions from the bondage of a small self view.  The embrace is the primal embrace. It is the embrace of the eyes for what is to be seen, the ears for what is to be heard, the nose for what is to be smelled, the tongue for what is to be tasted, body for what is to be felt, and the mind for what is to be understood. The embrace naturally arises when head and heart join with clarity.

          The fullness of the embrace precludes all thoughts of the individual self.   The fullness of the embrace is the embrace of the universal self for the universal self. It is an expression of the Universe's self love.

          The other day at the the weekly meditation we read a short essay by Harada Roshi on Rinzai's teaching of the Host and Guest.  Both Harada and I teach within the Rinzai lineage.  Rinzai lived in  9th century China.  His name in Chinese is Linji.  There is no "L" sound in the Japanese language, and language changes a lot in 1000 years, so some how the names Linji and Rinzai represent the same person.
          Rinzai was noted for his many unusual teachings.  He would hit and shout at his students in an effort to break their conceptual thinking.  Amazingly it worked.  Sometimes I hear Harada use a shout while he is giving private interviews.  He doesn't shout anything at them, he just lets go with a bellow.  It just might be enough to shake the student from their last bit of thinking and thereby enter deep samadhi.  The same is true of being hit.  In a Zen meditation hall there is often a person walking the isles of meditators carrying a stick.  Most people think this stick is just to help them stay awake during the long hours of meditation but every once in a while I will ask to be hit ( You get hit on the shoulder muscles and it is more of a shock then painful.) when I want that last bit of thinking knocked out of my head.  Sometimes it works and some times it doesn't work.
          One of the more unusual teachings Rinzai came up with was that of the Guest and Host.  I had thought that this was an esoteric teaching about the relationship between the Absolute and the Individual, the Absolute being the Host and the Individual being the Guest, or maybe the other way around depending on the situation.  Take tennis for example,  when I gather all my concentration and then let go with a serve and rush the net for the next shot, all my years of practice take over and that internal I has no power over the unfolding event. In some sense we might say the Universe, the Absolute, is in charge and the "I" is along for the ride and is the Guest in this situation, and the Absolute is the Host.  On the other hand when "I" make decisions at work about how things may be done then we might say that "I" am the host and yet I understand that the Absolute is always present functioning through everything, it takes the role of guest in my inner world.  And yet, (there is always that yet because whenever we enter the realm of duality and language there is always another side to look at) the Absolute is always in charge, the individual is an illusion. Thus the Absolute is always the Host.  From the perspective of individual psychology in this practice, as realization deepens more and more the "I" becomes identified with the Absolute.  Even individual choice becomes the Absolute's choice.
          Harada's essay had a completely different interpretation in which the teaching of Guest and Host is about social interaction.  Rinzai in his teaching of Guest and Host asks us to recognize when we are the Host and when we are the Guest and to understand that this is constantly changing according to the situation.
          Here in the USA we want to see ourselves as equals in our social interactions, but in the class structured society of ancient China and Japan there was this understanding that none of us are quite equals in our social interactions.  In most interactions there is someone in charge and who we might call the Host and the other or others who are following who we might call the Guest or Guests.  Or if someone enters our house we are the Host and if we enter someone else's house we are the Guest.  Using the words Host and Guest tells us that these two roles are not about who is more important.  They are both are of equal importance but that the roles have behavioral expectations.  In Zen terms this is about acting appropriately.
          For most of us we are usually acting according to our concept of self identity our ego.  Some people are always trying to take power in all situations, others cede power because it makes them feel secure.  And then we have all sorts of ideas about how things are suppose to be.  I was at sesshin and we were all sitting waiting for the Harada Roshi to come and give a teshio (formal talk).  We sit in these nice neat rows and I was sitting next to an ordained nun.  It was a hot day and I chose to not ware my robes because they are hot being made from wool, instead I was neatly dressed in a black shirt and pants which I thought was appropriate,.  The nun did not think it was appropriate.  She told me I should put on my robes.  When I told her my robes were wool and that I would  be very hot and uncomfortable warring them  she told me "that is just the point" as though the practice of Zen was about learning to put up with being uncomfortable.  I didn't want to argue so I got up ran back to where my robes were hanging, put them on and ran back to my seat,  just before Harada arrived. I was dripping sweat by the time I arrived back in the zendo.
          I tell this story not only because I think the nun acted from an idea she had of what was appropriate and the idea that she understood Zen better then this layman who was sitting next to her, but also because I didn't know how to respond and sat for a while debating with myself over what should I do. I think both of us were caught by our egos in this exchange.   
          The teaching of Guest and Host is about how you act without ego no matter whether the situation seems to give you power or not give you power.  As a Host you should honor and respect your guests and the Guest should honor and respect the host.  These are different roles created by the situation. Society may place one above the other, knowledge, our jobs, personal power, may place one above the other but in essence we are all equal.  It is exactly this recognition which we Zen Buddhists like to believe Shakyamuni announced upon his enlightenment, "All Beings have this same wisdom which I have just been awakened to."  
          There is this image that is often used in Zen training.  As we proceed
 in life most of us humans have lots of sharp points which stick out, get caught on things, and painfully slash and poke others.  These sharp points are all those ideas we have of desires and attachments, anger and confusion.  Zen practice slowly grinds away at all these sharp points until we become like a smooth round ball which roles through life not getting caught or painfully impaling anyone.
           The ideal Zen practitioner proceeds through life without all those thoughts of desires, attachments, anger, and confusion.  Not that the ideal Zen practitioner is completely without thought but that he/she lives in the present and acts without the intermediary of a whole lot of thought.  This does not mean that he/she acts stupidly but rather lets their deeper intelligence and compassion, which we all have, react to the situation.  I go back to the tennis analogy.  You just can't hit a tennis ball very well if you are constantly thinking about how and where to hit the ball.  You play much better if you trust your skills honed through time and practice and drop all the extra thought and just concentrate on being completely present as you move and hit the ball.  Some people say that Zen practice hones our intuition and allows us to act spontaneously but I think it is better described as allowing us to see clearly and act through that clarity.

          We are finally up to the fourth Bodhisattva vow:


The Buddha’s way is unsurpassable 
 I vow to become it. 

          This seems clear, but  how can we become the Buddha way and not just follow the Buddha way.  The first three Bodhisattva vows are a shortened version of the Buddha way; help other beings, eliminate selfish desires and embrace each moment, but as long as we self-consciously follow this path we are not quite fulfilling the Buddha Way.  This last vow is to push us to the completion of this path we call Buddhism.  But then to believe that we can ever as individuals complete the path is a mistake.  This is a lifetime commitment.  
          I had just formally finished my training and been given the authority to teach Zen at the previous meditation retreat.  And though all these years of practice had changed me and given me a completely different view of the world and my self this did not mean that I was beyond selfishness or being upset at times.  After returning from the retreat, after the samadhi wore off I returned to a more normal state of mind, I found that I was not beyond an occasional fight with my wife and being upset by certain events, and I certainly was thinking a lot again.  I  did not feel that my need to practice had ended so I went to the next sesshin.  At sanzen during the next sesshin Harada maybe a little surprised I was there says to me, "A single lifetime is too short to completely polish the mind."  Even though I have had several dramatic Zen experiences while sitting and not sitting I still feel a need to practice an awful lot.  There is no conclusion to this practice.
          I have changed in some very important ways and this leads me to another interpretation of this vow.  If you read this blog and my essays you will notice some repeated themes.  I write a lot about experience in meditation,  I write a lot about dropping the concept of self.  And I also write a lot about what is sometimes called the True Self or the Large Self.  If in our practice we are successful in dropping our concept of self and our dualistic way of thinking then, a whole new non-dual way of seeing opens up.  We call this way of seeing the world,  the True Dharma Eye, the eye of non-duality.  With this eye we see the whole Universe as a single thing, a single being, a single life.  Zen and Buddhism is not about dropping our thoughts and dropping our concept of self and entering a sort of zombie existence of total absorption in some object of concentration.  Sometime we Buddhist teachers teach our students to do just that, enter total absorption, but that is just a means to an end, the end being the opening of the Eye of Non-Duality.  Once this eye is open,  instead of not thinking about our self at all a new understanding of the self opens.  We identify with the single life of the Non-Dual, the Whole Universe.  This also doesn't mean that we completely forget about ourselves as individuals.  Again, it just opens up a new understanding of ourselves as individuals. 
           Early Buddhist philosophers said there were three ways a Buddha thought of him/herself.  This was expressed in the idea of the Trikaya, the three bodies of the Buddha.  You can look it up but here is its essence.  The first is the Buddha as an individual person. This is the Sambhogakaya, which translates as "bliss body", which refers to the individual's happiness that results from enlightenment  Yes Buddhas are supposed to be happy this is the individual result of their realization.  I think it is important to remember that Buddhas are also people, with personality and individual quirks, and quite capable of making mistakes.   In some sense we are all Buddhas, just some of us are an experience and realization away from understanding this and actualizing as a Buddha. 
          The second way a Buddha thinks of him/herself is to identify him/herself with other beings.  This is the source of a Buddha's compassion, to not only think of himself as an individual being but to understand and experience the deep connection between all beings.  This is a deeply experienced understanding and I am using the word beings in the broadest sense.  In Zen we frequently say, become one with this or that.  Become one with the breath.  Become one with our pain.  Become one with the sound of the river. Become one with other people.  This experience allows us to become one with other beings as well as other things.  This goes back to the third vow of mastering all dharmas.  With this experience and the resulting understanding we now identify ourselves with all other beings whether saint or sinner.  All beings exist within my True Self.  Knowing this I can truthfully say that I manifest as all teachers of Buddhism as well  as all mass murders.  We all share the same body.  This is called the Nirmanakaya translated as the "transformation body". 
          In reading the Paranirvana Sutra, Shakyamuni tells his disciples not to grieve over his imminent death because he will still be with them through his teachings, thus we know he identified with his teachings.  This is also a way we can understand the Nirmanakaya 
          The third body of the Buddha is the Absolute Body the Dharmakaya  This is the Body which contains everything and is the True Self.  From this absolute perspective not an individual thing exists.  There is no division, no eyes, no ears, no nose, no sound, no smell, no body, no mind.  This is the experience and understanding presented in the Heart Sutra.  Yet we humans naturally divide the world into a multiplicity of things.  We may have an experience of the Absolute but this cannot be where we live our lives.  We can understand the Dharmakaya as the deeper truth and thereby it can form the background for our experience and understanding.  Thus we live in duality experienced through the the eye of non-duality. 
          This practice of ours is not just about ending any concept of our individual selves. Yes, we are asked to do this temporarily in meditation. Ultimately we transform our understanding of ourselves as individuals, so that we see ourselves through the eye of non-duality.  We may view this as fulfilling the fourth vow and become the Buddha Way.


Realizing the thought of no thought as thought, 
whether singing or dancing, we are the 
voice of the Dharma.*

* From Hakuin's Song of Zazen

 
 

          Hi out there in blog land.  I am not sure anyone is actually reading this blog but the stats on this site is that 20 or so people come to this site each day.  Maybe most of you are just surfers.  No one has added comments.  If you wish to comment on anything I have written feel free and maybe we can start a conversation.

The Dharmas are boundless 
 I vow to master them.

          This is the third Bodhisattva vow and it is confusing like the other two.  Most people in the West think that the word Dharma's in this vow means  Buddhist teachings and some translations of theses vows directly translate this vow this way.  But if you read up on ancient Buddhist philosophy the word dharma is used very differently. (Conze's Buddhist Thought in India is a good read on this subject)  Dharma can be translated as sense object or sense experience.  It can also be translated as a true constituents of reality.  Buddhism taught from the beginning that the way the world appears to us is a delusion.  It appears to us delusively because of our delusive way of thinking.  It was understood that through meditation we could experience the world without delusion..  Such words as dharma and suchness referred to an experience of the world untainted by delusive thought.  To experience the world without the taint of delusion was to realize the Dharma.  Now we can understand how the word Dharma transformed into meaning the teachings of Buddhism. The Dharma refered not so much to the core teachings of Buddhism but the core experience of Buddhism.  The true Dharma cannot be put into words but must be experienced.  
          There is an other translation of this vow which goes:

The Dharma Gates are boundless
I vow to master them.

 I like this translation because the wording Dharma Gates better conveys what I think is the meaning of this vow.  What is a Dharma Gate?  Well anything can be a Dharma Gate and that is just the point.  If we read many of the stories of enlightenment we realize that just about anything can precipitate an enlightenment experience,   There are stories of people being enlightened by punches, shouts, the sound of a pebble being kicked, the sound of snow falling, the following of the breath, chanting, and on and on the stories go.   Every experience every moment is a  Dharma Gate.  If we can for even a moment experience without delusion then we have mastered the Dharma Gate which is that moment.            There is a Zen story (koan) in which Zen master Zuigon every morning sits upon a rock and says to himself "Master, let me not be fooled today."  Such a strange story, but really it is just about a man who reminds himself not to be caught in delusive thinking.  And is this not the same as the vow to master all Dharmas?
          Again and again I come back to experience in my essays and these blogs, which is because Zen and Buddhism is really about experience, not a bunch of intellectual ideas.  All the verbal teachings are peripheral, just helping point one towards the central experience of Buddhism, enlightenment.  I know I know the first Noble Truth is "right understanding"  but that understanding must start with experience otherwise it is just a bunch of words running through our heads and that can be dangerous.
          I look around at the various schools of Buddhism and see that some of them have built large intellectual edifices,  the "path" is laid out in explicit detail.  Philosophic explanations of suffering, and delusion and the meaning of such words as "emptiness" are laid out in explicit detail.  And there are also explicit behavioral rules. and many articles of faith such as reincarnation.  For many, this is Buddhism and I guess this is what people want, this is how you build a religion.  But this reminds me of a couple of old sayings:
 "Organized religion is designed to prevent people from having a religious experience", and "the map is not the territory."
          The core of Buddhism is that experience that Shakyamuni had 2500 years ago sitting in meditation under the Bodhi Tree.  And he made it eminently clear that this is an experience that all people can have and that he was teaching people how to have this experience.
              And then many people think that all a person needs to do is have an enlightenment experience and they are enlightened but that is also too much of a simplification.  As the Sixth Patriarch of Zen put it,  A person is enlightened when they have an enlightened thought and deluded when they have a deluded thought.  All delusional thinking is not ended with one experience.  The real trick is to learn to come back again and again to this clear un-deluded place of enlightenment.  Remember, Shakyamuni practiced meditation throughout  his whole life, returning again and again to that same clear state of mind of enlightenment.
          Master a dharma, master a moment, how do you do that?  Well, in meditation we sit until we clear our minds of all delusions which means pretty much empty our minds of all thoughts.  But sitting on the meditation cushion is only a small portion of our lives.  How do we master dharmas in our every day lives?  The answer is simple but just as difficult as emptying our minds during meditation.  Embrace each moment  Simply do what you are doing without self consciousness, without extra thoughts.  This is the practice, but sometimes it is a lot more then just the practice.  The other morning I took a walk on a slightly foggy day and I was overcome by beauty and filled with joy.  Is this not mastering a dharma.  This is not practice.  Thinking "practice" is to be self conscious.  The true practice is to drop all thought of practice and to be absorbed in the moment.  But it was also something more then just being absorbed in the moment because in that moment I knew that I was looking at myself, that the trees and plants, flowers, houses, Puget Sound seen through the mist, the mist itself and the people in the houses, the whole shabang was just Me.
          In the second vow to end all desires and the third vow to master all dharmas I see the positive and negative aspects to the same practice and that same state of mind in which the practice is realized.  The practice is simple to express, forget the self, drop all selfish desires, and embrace each moment, everything we do and feel and think.  The realization of the practice is that state of mind in which without effort selfish desires are forgotten and each moment is naturally embraced.

Desires are inexhaustible 
 I vow to put an end to them

          There is a person who comes to sit at the Moonwater Dojo most weeks who has a very difficult time with this vow.  She doesn't buy this vow, why would a person want to desire nothing?  We must desire food and water or we die.  We need to desire sex or the species dies.  And then doesn't passion give life meaning?  Today in our society it is often felt that we need to live our passions to be happy.  This vow seems to go against the most obvious truths recognized by our society.
          In the Theravada tradition the Buddhist path is often called "the path of perfection" and enlightenment is often thought to be the complete elimination of desire.  This vow seems to put Zen in the "path of perfection" camp.  Yes, I think this is correct in a certain way.  Maybe the emphasis is a bit different then in Theravada which in SE Asia is primarily a monastic tradition though in the West Theravada has been transformed into a lay practice.  In a monastic setting one can make a whole sale assault on desire.  The Mahayana tradition has always been more open to lay practice.  In some Mahayana Sutras the Bodhisattvas like Manjusri were lay followers of the Buddha. The monks were called Bhiksu or Bhikkhu.  Some people think that the Bodhisattva path was originally a layman's path.  Today in Japan Zen is mostly a monks path though there is nothing stopping the layman from being a serious practitioner and the Pure Land sects which are Mahayana have mostly lay practitioners.  Thus there is a difference when a follower of the Bodhisattva path tries to end desire and when a Theravada monk tries to end desire.  The Bodhisattva path starts with the desire to help others and lay people need a certain amount of desire to help direct their lives.  Without any desire a person becomes non- functional and might as well be a monk.  And yet in a certain way the Buddhist paths cannot be accomplished without ending desire at least temporarily.
          This reminds me of a story.  Many years ago I was hanging out with my buddy Neils talking about Buddhism and he says to me that it is impossible to be completely with out attachment.  There will always remain the attachment to being unattached.  I tell him that this is not true.  Yes you cannot end attachment with being attached to being non-attached but that there is simply a state of mind that is without attachment.  The same can be said of desire.  There is a state of mind without desire and it is the same state of mind that is without attachment and this state of mind is significantly different from our normal state of mind filled with attachments and desires This state of mind cannot be gotten to by simply practicing non-attachment and eliminating desires and yet the practices of non-attachment and eliminating desires is very helpful in eventually experiencing this state of mind which we all know has many names,  samadhi, kensho, satori, nirvana, enlightenment.
           I have heard that the Tibetan Vajrayana path of Buddhism (Vajrayana Buddhism is within the Mahayana.) is able to embrace desire and attachments and utilize them in the Buddhist path.  One thing is that desire and attachment can have the effect of concentrating the mind.  Certainly the passion, energy and practice a great artist or athlete puts into their craft often propels them into a type of samadhi.  My own experience is that during the period when I first experienced a deep Zen samadhi I was also becoming passionately involved with my future wife. yet when I went to sesshin (zen retreat) I was able to leave everything behind.  
          The conclusion is that I told this person I sit with that it is important to drop all desires in the practice of Zazen.  In the rest of life it is ok to have some desires.  Certainly the desire for enlightenment propels our practice.  But if one is somehow to experience enlightenment he/she must completely drop desire as they must also drop all attachments, and all thoughts for a period of time.  And if one can go as far as to experience this state of mind, when it is over they will find their whole way of thinking and motivations realigned. The Bodhisattva path becomes more then something we intend to practice but rather the natural direction of our thoughts and motivation.
          

The Bodhisattva Vows 

Sentient beings are numberless 
 I vow to liberate them. 
Desires are inexhaustible 
 I vow to put an end to them. 
The Dharmas are boundless 
 I vow to master them. 
The Buddha’s way is unsurpassable 
 I vow to become it. 

           These are the four Bodhisattva vows used in Zen  I don't know where they came from though they are probably of ancient origin.  There are many versiions of these vows. Each of the large sangas seems to put their own twist on these vows.  This is the translation that the One Drop Sanga uses.  There are also other completely different  Bodhisattva vows used in other Buddhist traditions.

          The first vow is to liberate all sentient beings.  The early translations of these vows uses the word "save" instead of liberate.  This give the vows a Christian feeling and is rarely used now to avoid this confusion.  To be "saved"  means something very different for most Christians then "liberate" means for most Buddhists.  We Buddhists have our own vocabulary for the fulfillment of Buddhist Practice; liberation, enlightenment, nirvana, etc..  And then a Buddhist can never be sure of what these terms mean unless he/she has fulfilled the Buddhist path and actually experienced what these terms refer to.  Christians usually have a much clearer idea of what being saved is.
           From the first vow we are thrown into confusion.  The task is impossible.  There are essentially an infinite number of sentient beings to liberate.  And how do we liberate even a single sentient being when we ourselves are not liberated?  And by the way what is a sentient being?  Obviously we humans are sentient beings but do you have to be as intelligent and feeling and capable of liberation as a human to be a sentient being?  Are dogs sentient beings, can  they be liberated or are they already liberated?
          Even without a thorough understanding of this  first vow we can understand that it asks us to do the simple things to save other beings.  To be kind and work towards relieving others suffering even knowing that anything we do as an individual will not be permanent. Yet every action we take has effects that go far beyond the immediate result of the action.  In some sense we are building a kinder happier world one kind act at a time.  We all have a tendency to think "me first, me first" but the Bodhisattva path is to say, "You first."
          Sometimes a Zen student is given the Koan  "How do you save all sentient beings?" Like all koans we initially want to think about the question but no that wont work.  Zen is all about meditation so eventually we forget about trying to come up with some smart intellectual answer and just continue sitting and then if the sitting goes deep enough we have an experience that answers the question.  The answer does not come out of our normal dualistic perspective but only a non-dual perspective in which an independent being does not exist.  This reminds me of the last section of Dogen Zenji's Genjo Koan


          Zen master Baoche of Mount Mayu was fanning himself. A monk approached 
and said, "Master, the nature of wind is permanent and there is no place it does not 
reach. Why, then do you fan yourself?" "Although you understand that the nature of 
wind is permanent;" Baoche replied, "you do not understand the meaning of its 
reaching everywhere." "What is the meaning of its reaching everywhere?" asked the 
monk again. The master just kept fanning himself. The monk bowed deeply. The 
actualization of the buddha-dharma, the vital path of its correct transmission, is like 
this. If you say that you do not need to fan yourself because the nature of wind is 
permanent and you can have wind without fanning, you will understand neither 
permanence nor the nature of wind. The nature of wind is permanent; because of that, 
the wind of the Buddha's house brings forth the gold of the earth and makes fragrant 
the cream of the long river. (This translation is from the San Francisco Zen Center web site http://www.sfzc.org/sp_download/liturgy/24_genjo_koan.pdf  )

           Just as the wind is permanent but is not felt without a fan so the great perfection which is the Universe is not experienced without practice.  In this great perfection all beings are enlightened and yet most suffer in the ignorance of their true nature which as Hakuin Zenji said is "no nature."

Bodhisattva 1

          Hi Everyone, onward ho,  I am enjoying writing these blogs.  This next set of Blogs will be on the Bodhisattva ideal and the Bodhisattva vows. Lets begin.
          If you are reading this you probably know Buddhism is divided into two primary schools.  Hinayana and Mahayana.  Hinayana means "small raft"  and Mahayana means "large raft."  Within these primary divisions there are and were many many subdivisions.  Today there is one surviving school of the Hinayana  called Theravada Buddhism, and many surviving schools from, Tibetan Buddhism to Zen, of the Mahayana.  The primary difference between Mahayana and the Hinayana is that the Mahayana schools teach the Bodhisattva ideal and the Hinayana does not.
          The most difficult barrier on the Buddhist path is the conception of a small self the "I". No- self is a fundamental teaching of Buddhism but how do we transcend the self when the self is so deeply ingrained in our thinking and seems to be the motivator even for our practice of Buddhism?  The Buddha said to use fire to put out fire, fire being the the concept of self,  The Buddha gave many a talk in which he equated the concept of self  with a fire which is burning us causing immeasurable suffering.  Usually the concept of self is translated as "ego" and this has lead to a misunderstanding by many Buddhist practitioners in the West because we do not think of ego as so much the concept of self but rather as thoughts of exaggerated self importance and specialness.  These people do not  want to give up a concept of self, just  their egotism.   This is a wrong reading of Buddhism because the non-atman doctrine tells us that the self does not exist.  But it does not exist in the way that all things don't exist.   Things  don't exist because they are impermanent, ever changing.  Even a rock is not the same rock moment to moment.  Forces are changing it and wareing it away.  Wind and rain carry off atoms, The sun and rain transform atoms and there are internal atomic and subatomic processes that are also constantly changing the rock.  Humans are impermanent ever changing, constantly replacing atoms, aging, healing and breaking down .  Our minds and our bodies are in constant motion.  If a rock is ever changing we are certainly ever changing.  In some ways we are more like a river then a rock.  Can we say we are the same person moment to moment?  There is a second way in which all individual things don't exist.  Individual things don't exist as truly separable from the single whole that is the Universe.  We might say that all things are part and product of an almost infinitely complex web of causation which stretches from one end of the Universe to the other.  Which is why all things are impermanent and ever changing.  This is an intellectual and mechanistic reason but our non-separableness can also be experienced and without this experience our understanding of Buddhist Teachings will never be complete. And it is this experience which is so difficult to manifest
          We humans carry around a deep sense of our individuality our separateness, our specialness.  We obsess over it and we intellectually justify it.  Many of us believe we each have something inside us which we call the soul which is permanent and does not die, which confers upon each of us individual specialness.  The Buddha categorically denied this.  He understood our sense of self to be  nothing more then a way of thinking, an internal response to external stimuli. 
          The Twelve Fold Chain of Interdependent Origination, one of the more obscure of the Buddha's teachings was his attempt to show that through our ignorance a whole chain of thought in response to stimuli is constantly reinforcing an ignorant idea of the self.  The Twelve Fold Chain deserves it's own blog but not now.
             Though I have to say that a complete denial of things and ourselves is not quite correct because there is a certain  recognizable continuity in time and space to ourselves and other things.  And it may even be natural for us humans to divide the world up into individual things and individual beings but in Buddhism we believe that this tendency to divide reality up has created a deeply flawed way of thinking and understanding of ourselves in relation to that reality.  And in Buddhism we don't want to destroy any idea of self but rather experience and understand its illusory nature because the individual self is a useful distinction, just not fully accurate
          In the Hinayana schools the emphasis has always been on individual effort in the search for individual liberation.  This was emphasized by the Buddha in several Sutras.  Shortly before his death in the Paranirvana Sutra he says that each individual must be a "light unto your self", individuals attain liberation through their own discipline and effort.  The Buddha believed in the self as a useful fiction in our motivation to practice.  But this is a double edge sword. We come back to the original problem.  If Buddhist liberation is to experience selflessness how can we do that with such a strong emphasis in practice on our own individual selves?  Already in this country we have many people who have been practicing meditation for many many years and many of these people have never had a deep  experience of selflessness, why?  Maybe most of these people practice with a selfish attitude.  They want to attain something.  "I want to be happy." "I want to discipline my mind so I may be better at work."  "I want to attain enlightenment."  How can you let go of the "I" if the I is always in your thoughts.
          The Mahayana was a response to this issue.  In the Mahayana the ideal is the Bodhisattva who selflessly practices so that all beings may attain liberation.  The Bodhisattva path is to practice selflessness.  The Bodhisattva path is to drop thought of self in both meditation and the other activities of life and function for the good of others.  The ideal of the Bodhisattva is one who delays one's own liberation until all other beings are also liberated.  And yet if one completely and truly practices the Bodhisattva path for even a few moments then that person is already liberated because Buddhist liberation or enlightenment is to be liberated from the self.  And if one truly understands this then they will discover that with one person's liberation the whole Universe becomes liberated.  
         Even the Bodhisattva path has problems because though it embraces selflessness it misses the other side of the equation.  True selflessness can only exist in non-duality where neither an individual or a Bodhisattva exists