Soteriology of the senses in tibetan buddhism author(s)

Soteriology of the Senses in Tibetan Buddhism
Author(s): Holly Gayley
Source: Numen, Vol. 54, No. 4, Religion through the Senses
(2007), pp. 459-499
Published by: Brill
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/27643282
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NVMEN
brill Numen 54 (2007) 459-499 www.brill.nl/nu
Soteriology of the Senses in Tibetan Buddhism*
Holly Gayley
Harvard University, The Department of Sanskrit and Indian
Studies,
1 Bow Street, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA
[email protected] harvard. edu
Abstract
In Tibet, certain categories of Buddhist sacra are ascribed the
power to liberate through
sensory contact. No less than "buddhahood without meditation"
is promised, offering
an expedient means to salvation that seemingly obviates the
need for a rigorous regime
of ethical, contemplative, and intellectual training. This article
investigates two such
categories of sacra, substances that "liberate through tasting"
and images that "liberate
through seeing" as found in a mode of revelation particular to
Tibet and culturally
related areas, in which scriptures and sacred objects are
reportedly embedded in the
landscape as terma or "treasures" {gter ma). The author argues
that charisma invested
in these substances and images ? through an amalgamation of
relics and special
means of consecration ? provides the grounds for the
soteriological benefits claimed

as a result of sensory contact with them. The question is
whether these benefits suggest
a notion of grace in Tibetan Buddhism, and if so how it might
contravene without
contradicting the law of karma. Exploring this question sheds
light on the role of the
senses and the nature of Buddhist soteriology as it developed in
Tibet.
Keywords
charisma, senses, Tibetan Buddhism, terma, relics, grace
Among the wide range of benefits promised by sensory contact
with
Buddhist sacra in Tibet, the grandest claim of all is to liberate
merely by
seeing, hearing, tasting, wearing, or otherwise encountering
certain
* I would like to express my appreciation to Janet Gyatso,
Kimberley Patton,
Susanne Mrozik, and Meghan Howard for their comments on
early versions of this
article.
? Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2007 DOI:
10.1163/156852707X244306
2018 22:53:45 UTC
460 H. GayleyINumen 54 (2007) 459-499

types of texts, objects, and structures. Note the following
benefits to be
derived from ingesting a special type of ritually consecrated
pill:
Beings of the six realms, whether old or young, male or female,
virtuous or evil,
regardless of [their] good or bad tendencies, [attain]
buddhahood by eating this.
It works even when reaching one's last breath! By eating this
very pill, because one
need not read texts, the blind, though ingestion, [can attain]
buddhahood. Like
wise for the deaf, since one need not rely on hearing. Even if
the body is crippled,
this pill frees one from the dangerous pathway [leading] to the
three lower realms.
For any sentient being whatsoever, despite committing [one of]
the inexpiable
sins or accumulating evil deeds, suffering is pacified and bliss
is attained
What's more, by this pill, the mere size of deer droppings, one
is born into the
pure land of Avalokitesvara, the supreme place to practice.1
This passage is striking in its suggestion that the simple act of
eating a
pill can save beings from the karmic consequences of their own
nega
tive deeds. Any and all are included, even the greatest sinner
and those
whose faculties might hinder their access to receiving Buddhist

teach
ings. This pill promises no less than to "liberate through
tasting" {myong
grol), and its soteriological benefits range from blocking
rebirth in the
lower realms ? as an animal, hungry ghost or denizen of hell ?
to
buddhahood itself. Moreover, the culminating benefit listed is
rebirth
in the pure land of Avalokitesvara, from which point salvation
is by and
large secured.2 How should we understand such claims within
the over
all framework of Buddhist soteriology? What do these claims
suggest
about the role of senses in Tibetan Buddhism?
The promise of expedient means to salvation through the senses
is
nothing new in Buddhism by the time it reached Tibet (seventh
to
ninth centuries). Outside of esoteric spheres, this took shape in
devo
tional activities ? such as hearing, reciting, copying,
preserving, or
venerating a scripture ? accompanied in various Mah?y?na
s?tras,
1 Padma gling pa 1975, vol. 7:506.6?507.6, echoing a shorter
statement in
vol. 2:680.6?681.3. Elsewhere in his corpus of revelations,
these pills are specified
to be the size of droppings (ril ma) belonging to a small rodent
(bra ba) common
in Tibetan grasslands and mountainous areas, most likely a

pika. See vol. 2:677.4
and 681.2.
2 Kapstein 2004 calls this a "pure land orientation" in Tibetan
Buddhism.
2018 22:53:45 UTC
H. Gay ley / Numen 54 (2007) 459-499 AG 1
such as the Saddharmapundar?ka and K?randavy?ha, by a
generic list
of benefits including rebirth in Amit?bha's pure land of
Sukh?vat?.3
Moreover, the K?randavy?ha S?tra promises, for example, that
"by
merely seeing" {darsanam?trend) one who bestows the six
syllable for
mula of Avalokitesvara, Om Manipadme Hum, men, women,
children
and even animals will become "last-existence" bodhisattavas
(Sanskrit:
caramabhavika), freed from the sufferings of birth, old age,
sickness,
and death (Studholme 2002:141). By the thirteenth century, this
logic
had been extended by Guru Ch?wang, who vigorously promoted
the
cult of Avalokitesvara and the benefits from encountering this
bodhi
sattva's mantra, perhaps the most widely recited by Tibetans

still today.
In his Mani Kabum Chenmo, the mantra (in its seven syllable
form) is
promoted as an expedient means toward salvation by seeing,
hearing,
recollecting, touching, writing, holding, practicing, reciting,
and/or
explaining it. According to Guru Ch?wang, not only should the
man
tra be erected at crossroads for all to see and proclaimed so
that animals
can hear it, but even contact with the mantra by drinking the
water that
washed over it (for example, when carved in stone) leads to
rebirth in
Sukh?vat? (Phillips 2004T88-90).4
While the senses are touted as a means to salvation in
Mah?y?na
literature alongside other devotional activities, the promise of
libera
tion through sensory contact crystallized into particular
categories of
sacred texts and objects in Tibet and culturally related areas.5
A well
known example is The Tibetan Book of the Dead, whose
Tibetan title
3 I use "devotional activities" to mean those acts of veneration
geared toward earn
ing merit, following Schopen's characterization of "a context
the defining poles of
which are p?j? (worship, cult) and punya (merit)" (1977:189).

Schopen argues that
rebirth in the pure land of Sukh?vat? is "one of a list of stock
blessings" (180) to be
derived from this type of activity (180). See Gomez on hearing
the name of the bud
dha Amit?bha as a salvific act in the Sukh?vativy?ha S?tra
(1996:26 and 71-75).
4 The section on the benefits of touching Avalokitesvara's
mantra, from which this
final example is drawn, can be found in Chos kyi dbang phyug
1976:505.2?506.4.
5 Areas where Tibetan Buddhism has historically been
practiced extend across the
Tibetan plateau and into Himalayan areas such as Bhutan,
Sikkim, Ladakh, and high
alpine regions of Nepal, including Mustang, Dolpo, and Solu-
Khumbu. For the dura
tion of this article, I will simply use "Tibet" in order to avoid
the cumbersome addi
tion of qualifiers, and by this I refer to the so-called "three
districts of Tibet" {bod chol
ka gsum): central Tibet as well as Kham and Amdo to the east.
2018 22:53:45 UTC
462 H. GayleyINumen 54 (2007) 459-499
translates as Liberation through Hearing in the Intermediate
State {Bar do

thos grol); it provides guidance through the intermediate state
between
death and rebirth, often read aloud at the bedside of a corpse.6
A more
common category, "liberation through wearing" {btags grol),
refers to
amulets containing verbal formulas ? such as mantras or
dh?rani ?
wrapped in cloth and worn around the neck.7 The category of
"libera
tion through tasting" {myonggrol), by contrast, is applied to a
range of
sacred substances {dam rdzas),8 usually in the form of ritually-
produced
pills that are distributed by lamas on ritual occasions and in
private
audiences, also sometimes available for sale at monasteries.9
With per
6 The Bar do thosgrol is a revelation by Karma Lingpa, part of
his widely-disseminated
cycle of peaceful and wrathful deities, Zab chos zhi khro
dgongspa ranggrol. A number
of translations are available, including those by WY. Evanz-
Wentz, Francesca Freman
tle and Ch?gyam Trungpa, Robert Thurman, and most recently
Gyurme Dorje. For a
historical study of the Bar do thos groI and its transmission,
see Cuevas 2003, and for
its reception among Western audiences, see Lopez 1998.
7 These are also said to be worn in topknot of yogins and
placed on the chest of a
corpse when cremated (Cuevas 2003). Of course, dh?ranis are
an important site for

claims to expedient means of salvation, not only through their
recitation and recollec
tion, but also through seeing and hearing. See Scherrer-Schaub
1994 for an example
of dh?rani among Dunhuang manuscripts that claim to be
"means of rescue" (skyob
pa i thabs) from being reborn in hell through being seen and
heard.
8 The Bod rgya tshig mdzod chen mo (Krang dbyi sun 1993)
gives the etymology for
dam rdzas as dam tshig gi rdzas, referring to "samaya
substances," and defines it as
"material objects that have been blessed through mantra"
(sngags kyis byin gyis brlabs
pa i dngos po). I have chosen to translate the term more
generically as "sacred sub
stance" to reflect this consecrated status. In a similar vein,
Martin 1994 translates the
term as "consecrated substances."
9 There are a wide variety of categories of ritually-produce
pills, which at a certain
point get collapsed, such that today at Mindroling Monastery
outside of Lhasa you can
purchase pills considered to be "sacred substances that liberate
through tasting" (dam
rdzas myonggrol) as well as an "elixir" (bdud rtsi) and
"religious medicine" (chos sman),
bearing the label: Dam rdzas myong grol bdud rtsi chos sman.
Less typically, I have
encountered the term "liberation through tasting" applied to a
vase containing "water
of accomplishment" (sgrub chu) housed at Shalu monastery
near Shigatse and taken

from a site where the Indian master Atisa is said to have
meditated. The term sgrub chu
refers to water springing from a cave or other site where a
tantric master has meditated,
understood to contain the blessings of his or her
accomplishment. Its ingestion consti
tutes part of a broader tendency among Tibetans to gather
materials from pilgrimage
sites as "portable sources of a site's power to be directly
consumed, or carried off for later
use and further distribution" (Huber 1999:15).
2018 22:53:45 UTC
H. Gay ley I Numen 54 (2007) 459-499 A63
haps the widest range of application, "liberation through
seeing"
{mthong grol) made an early appearance in the fourteenth
century as
"natural liberation through naked insight" {gcer mthong rang
grol),
whereby "seeing" refers to insight into the nature of reality.10
However,
the term is more frequently found in the context of pilgrimage
to
denote specific types of images and the structures that house
them, as
well as st?pas containing the relics of accomplished masters.11
I have

also seen "liberation through seeing" applied to a laminated
image of
Avalokitesvara, photographs of Buddhist lineage holders, and
even a
VCD depicting the religious activities of a Nyingma lama.12
This phenomenon developed into groupings of "four
liberations"
{grol ba bzhi) or alternatively "six liberations" {grol ba drug),
though
there is little consensus regarding the constituent categories.
Two
commonplace sets of four are sometimes collapsed into six,
namely lib
eration through seeing, hearing, tasting, wearing, recollecting
and
touching.13 Reference to smell {dri) or the more generic
category of
10 This term occurs in the context of the introduction to
awareness {rig pa ngo
sprod). There are two translations of Karme Lingpa's Rig pa
ngo sprod gcer mthong rang
grol, in Reynolds 2000 and Gyurme Dorje 2006.
11 The use of this term in reference to structures housing sacra
or relics such as
st?pas, temples, and assembly halls can be found in the names
of the structures them
selves and in titles for the catalogues that list their contents. In
recent years, the Tibetan
diaspora has led to the construction and consecration of "great
st?pas that naturally
liberate upon seeing" {mchod rten chen mo mthong bar rang

grol) as far apart as Dehra
dun, India and the Rocky Mountains of Colorado.
12 I have seen a laminated image of Avalokitesvara for sale in
Lhasa, labeled as
mthong groland listing a host of benefits on its back side,
including rebirth in Sukh?vat?.
Moreover, formal portraits of the two main lineage holders of
the Drikung Kagyu,
currently on display at Songtsen Library in Dehradun, are
termed "precious photo
graphs that liberate through seeing" {skupar mthong grol rin p
o che). Finally, a VCD of
the tert?n Tulku Jigme Phuntsok (husband of Khandro Tare
Lhamo, 1938-2002)
bears the title: "A Compilation of Deeds that Naturally
Liberates Those Who Witness
It" {Mdzad bsdus mthong tshad rang grol).
13 Textual sources tend to deal exclusively with one or another
of these and may
mention different groupings of other senses in passing. While
the rubric of the "six
liberations" is in common parlance among contemporary lamas,
I have so far only
found groupings of four in textual sources. Moreover, there is
significant variation
regarding the constituency of these four, though two common
sets are: "liberation
through seeing, hearing, recollecting, and touching" {mthong
thos dran reg grol) and
2018 22:53:45 UTC

464 H. Gay ley /Numen 54 (2007) 459-499
feeling {tshor) are less frequently found. Of rjiese, this article
will treat
substances that promise to "liberate through tasting" and
images that
promise to "liberate through seeing" as found in a mode of
revelation
particular to Tibet and culturally related areas in which traces
of the
past are said to be discovered in the landscape as terma or
"treasures"
{gter ma).14 Purported to be hidden away for future
generations by the
eighth-century tantric master Padmasambhava (and other
comparable
figures),15 these treasures can be texts, relics, images, ritual
implements,
medicinal pills and more.16
"liberation through seeing, hearing, tasting, and wearing"
(mthong thos myong btags
grol). There is also a distinct esoteric grouping of liberations
particular to Dzogchen or
the "great perfection" (rdzogs chen); however, it is beyond the
scope of this article to
delve into these. One important distinction to make is that the
esoteric version consti
tutes part of a meditative system in which their liberating
effect is understood to be
immediate, whereas the categories treated in this article have
more to do with devo
tional activities whereby the soteriological promise to a large
extent relates to future

lifetimes. One site where this distinction collapses is death
rituals in which meditative
insight and a favorable rebirth may be equally pressing and
immediate concerns. In
contrast to the groupings above, Tulku Thondup lists a set of
five liberations: diagrams
('khor 16) that liberate through seeing, mantras (gzungs sngags)
that liberate through
hearing, ambrosia or elixir (bdud rtsi) that liberates through
tasting, a consort (phyag
rgya) who liberates through touching, and transference ('pho
ba) that liberates through
thinking (1997:242, n. 152).
14 For seminal studies on the treasure tradition, see Tulku
Thondup 1997 and Janet
Gyatso 1986 and 1993. Within Tibetan Buddhism, treasure
revelation is primarily
associated with the Nyingma school, though treasures have
been revealed on a more
sporadic basis by prominent members of all schools (Smith
2001:239?40). Moreover,
the B?n religion in Tibet has its own substantial tradition of
treasure revelation; see
Martin 2001 and Karmay 1972. While treasure literature has
received considerable
scholarly attention, the material dimension of this mode of
revelation has yet to be
adequately explored. See my "Ontology of the Past and its
Materialization in Tibetan
Treasures" (forthcoming).
15 Gyatso 1993:98, n. 2 and Doctor 2005:198, n. 14 list the
names of other such
masters. On the role of Padmasambhava ? both historical and

mythic ? in the
propagation of Buddhism in Tibet, see Kapstein 2000:155-160.
16 Treasures purportedly revealed from the landscape ar e
called "earth treasures" (sa
gter) and typically consist of a treasure casket (gter sgrom),
containing texts preserved in
seminal form on yellow scrolls (shog ser) as well as relics and
other sacra. Each treasure
is said to have been entrusted by Padmasambhava to one of his
disciples for discovery
in a future lifetime. For an overview of typologies of treasures,
see Doctor 2005.
2018 22:53:45 UTC
H. Gay ley I Numen 54 (2007) 459-499 A65
In this article, I examine how charisma is invested in such
objects,
what benefits are claimed for sensory contact with them, and
the impli
cations of this for our understanding of Buddhist soteriology.
Here I
am using charisma following Stanley Tambiah in his study of
Buddhist
saints and the "transfer of charisma to objects" such as amulets
and
images. Tambiah makes the point that "objects are not merely
regarded
as reminders and fields of merit, but also as repositories of
power'"

(Tambiah 1984:6, 203). While images serve as a reminder of
the Bud
dha and the basis for making offerings in order to earn merit,
Tambiah's
point is that they are also understood to be efficacious in some
regard,
due to a power invested in them through their origins and/or
sanc
tification. In the context of Thai image veneration, this power
is said to
be the "fiery energy" of tejas,17 which emanates from the
Buddha's vir
tues and realization. By contrast, in Tibetan contexts, Buddhist
sacra
are understood to be receptacles {rten) for chinlab or
"blessings"
(Sanskrit: adhisth?na; Tibetan: byin rlabs),18 invested in an
object by
virtue of physical contiguity with Buddhist saints or through its
conse
cration. Chinlab carries associations of royal power as
"splendor" or
"majesty" and denotes an ability to influence or transform the
attitude
and perceptions of others.19 Though the function of blessings
has a
17 Tambiah follows Griswold by describing this power as a
"fiery energy" {tejas) in
the Thai context. See Tambiah 1984:203-4 and Griswold 1990.
I would like to thank
Donald Swearer for an illuminating exchange regarding the
Thai application of the
terms, tejas and adhisth?na (Pali: teja and adhitth?nd).

18 According to Martin, there are three main classifications of
rten: "body recepta
cles" {sku rten) referring to images of buddhas, bodhisattvas,
tantric deities and saints,
"speech receptacles" {gsung rten) referring to sacred texts, and
"thought receptacles"
{thugs rten) referring primarily to st?pas containing relics of
accomplished masters
(1994:275). These are also considered to be receptacles for
blessings {byin rten or byin
rlabs kyi rten).
19 Stein offers evidence for the royal associations o? byi n but
suggests an ambiguity
about whether archaic terms retained their previous meaning
when subsumed into
new Buddhist bin?mes ? in this case byin rlabs which he
defines as benediction (Stein
1983:197-200). Elsewhere he correlates byin rlabs, gzi byin
and gzi brjid in non-Bud
dhist sources as equivalents meaning "majesty, prestige,
charisma" (164). The Bodrgya
tshig mdzod chen mo (Krang dbyi sun 1993) defines byin as "a
potency or power that is
able to transform the attitude and perceptions of others"
{gzhangyi bsampa dangsnang
ba sogs bsgyur thub pdi nus pa am mthu), rlabs as "a degree of
potency and force" {nus
2018 22:53:45 UTC

466 H. Gay ley/ Numen 54 (2007) 459-499
wider application in tantric ritual and warrants further study,
for our
purposes, we could characterize it as a potency or power
localized in a
sacred object that is understood to transform its immediate
environ
ment and those who come into direct contact with it. As I hope
to
demonstrate, blessings are understood to have an apotropaic
effect,
conferring worldly benefits (such as protection from illness,
obstacles
and malignant spirits), as well as a soteriological effect, geared
toward
salvation in subsequent rebirths or alternatively release from
cyclic exis
tence, or samsara, altogether. Thus, in the Tibetan case, the
power
attributed to Buddhist sacra goes beyond the "this-worldly"
efficacy dis
cussed byTambiah and into the domain of soteriology.
I introduce the term, soteriology of the senses, to denote a
notion artic
ulated in treasure literature that certain objects are so highly
charged
with blessings that sensory contact with them promises
salvation in one
of three forms: its proximate form of a favorable rebirth; its
ultimate

form of buddhahood; or a synthesis of the two, namely rebirth
in a
Buddhist pure land.20 The latter constitutes a favorable rebirth
and is
pa dang mthu stobs kyi tshad) though it can also simply mean
"wave," and byin rlabs as
"a potency or power that resides in those religious objects
[pertaining to] the noble
path" {'phags pa? lam chos kyi don gang yin pa la gnas pa i nus
pa am mthu). Dungkar
Rinpoche concurs on byin as power {nus pa) within the term
byin rlabs but suggests
that the influence of byin rlabs can be positive or negative
(Dung dkar 2002:1487).
Martin suggests an etymology for byin rlabs as "received by
(way of) giving" (1994:274)
choosing to take byin as the past tense of the verb sbyin pa (to
give). However, this
etymology misses the association of byin rlabs with power ?
one of the meanings of
adhisth?na in Sanskrit as well ? and fails to capture the agency
and directionality of
byin rlabs, which is not a receptive capacity but an active force
that operates on its
environment and those who encounter it.
20 Here I follow the definition of Buddhist soteriology as
developed in Spiro 1982.
Spiro has two categories: proximate salvation, related to karma
and improving one's
prospects of a favorable rebirth (his kammatic orientation), and
radical (what I am
calling ultimate) salvation, pertaining to transcendence of

worldly suffering in samsara
altogether (his nibbanic orientation). Note that a favorabl e
rebirth here refers to rebirth
within the cycle of samsara in one of the higher realms as a
god, demigod, or human
and thereby avoiding rebirth as an animal, hungry ghost, or
denizen of hell. To this
must be added a third category, a pure land orientation, not
relevant to Therav?da
context in which Spiro developed his schema, but which figures
prominently in East
Asia. Though only so far examined in Kapstein 2004, this pure
land orientation also
exists in Tibetan Buddhism, albeit not as a separate school.
2018 22:53:45 UTC
H. Gay ley /Numen 54 (2007) 459-499 467
also understood to offer the ideal conditions in which to
complete the
path to enlightenment. If the ingestion of sacred substances, for
exam
ple, offers not only the medicinal effects of a temporal panacea
but also
the soteriological promise of rebirth in a pure land and even
buddha
hood, then to what extent does this imply the possibility of
salvation
through grace in Tibetan Buddhism? Grace faces the same
problem

that the transfer of merit does, described by Melford Spiro long
ago as
a "vexatious problem for the metaphysics of karma" since
"according to
karmic law, retribution for one's acts devolves exclusively on
the actor"
(Spiro 1982:124).21 As we will see in the following, sensory
contact
with certain categories of sacra are credited with the power to
tip the
karmic scale, thereby sparing individuals the results of their
own vices
and enabling even the worst of sinners to gain a favorable
rebirth. As
such, the four (or six) liberations raise important questions
about the
role of the senses and about the very nature of salvation in
Buddhism as
it developed in Tibet.
Because of the diverse range of apotropaic and soteriological
claims
made regarding sensory contact with certain texts, images,
substances,
mantras and structures in Tibetan Buddhism, one has to be
quite careful
about generalizations at this early stage of research.22 A
narrowly-focused
21 With reference to versions of the Sukh?vativy?ha S?tra,
Gomez poses this as a
tension between the "ideals of self-cultivation" and "trust in the
Buddha's grace"

(1996:28). Harrison draws a similar contrast between "a
tradition of self-emancipation
through insight" (which he associates with Chan masters) and
"a tradition of salvation
by faith in the grace and power of certain personifications of
the Buddha-principle"
(associated with Pure Land schools of Buddhism in East Asia).
However, he argues
that during the formative centuries of the Mah?y?na there is
"little sense of mutual
opposition of 'faith' and 'works' which is evident, for instance,
both in Christian writ
ings at the time of the birth of Protestantism and the polemics
of later Japanese Pure
Land masters" (Harrison 1978:35).
22 To date, there is only one article treating this phenomenon,
Tokarska-Bakir 2000,
which presents a broad overview of different types of sacra that
promise liberation
through sensory contact, discussed in comparison with
European conceptions about
the role of the senses in religious experience. Unfortunately,
Tokarska-Bakir fails to
consult primary sources, except those few that are available in
translation. Because of
this, for example, she mistakenly takes "liberation through
wearing" (btags grol) a cat
egory dating back at least to the fourteenth century where it
appears in several treasure
collections (Snying thig y a bzhi, Bla ma dgongs 'dus, and Kar
gling zhi khro) to be a
subclass of "liberation through touching," which is rarely
discernable as a separate

2018 22:53:45 UTC
468 H. Gay ley I Numen 54 (2007) 459-499
study will allow us to identify a coherent soteriology and lay
the foun
dation for further research, and so I will restrict myself here to
a com
parison of two specific types of treasure objects. The first is a
substance
said to "liberate through tasting," called kyedun, a pill
purportedly made
from the flesh of one born "seven times" {skye bdun) a
brahmin but
which became transformed in treasure lore into the flesh of
Avalo
kitesvara, the bodhisattva of compassion whose special domain
is said
to be Tibet. And the second is a type of image promising to
"liberate
through seeing," called a kutsab or "representative" {sku tshab)
of the
eight-century tantric master Padmasambhava, who is credited
in trea
sure lore with a seminal role in propagating Buddhism in Tibet.
Both
these types of treasure objects constitute a narrow and
somewhat rarified
subset of a broader category, for kyedun, liberation through
tasting and,
for kutsab, …

Take-home midterm exam
The take-home midterm exam involves 1 short answer and 1
longer essay-style question. While you will have to answer the
assigned prompt for the longer essay-style question, you will be
able to choose between 2 prompts for the short answer. Your
short essays should be between 500 words. Your longer essay
should be 800 ca words.
Your essays should be double-spaced. Please, include the word
count for both answers.
Part I – Short Essay (400-500 words ca)
This shorter essay is explicative. Choose either A or B from the
options below.
A. There are multiple iterations of the categorical imperative
throughout The Groundwork. Explain the first 3 (that is, leave
out the “kingdom of ends”), and explain how they are linked.
B. What is the difference between acting according to duty and
acting from (or for the sake of) duty? In addition to giving
examples of each, make sure to talk about the categorical
imperative, the importance that the moral law is necessary and
universal, and the role of motives.
Part II – Long Essay (800 words ca)
This longer essay is a thesis-driven, organized, academic essay
that focuses on the morality of open borders.
Thus far, we have learned about two ethical approaches,
utilitarianism and deontology. We read articles that discuss the
question of open borders using both a utilitarian and a
deontological approach. In the essay, compose an argument
about which approach (utilitarianism or deontology) you find
most helpful in arguing for open borders. Since this is an
argumentative essay (a thesis-driven essay), you need to provide
reasons why one approach is better than the other, and
successfully defend your reasons (or why that is the case). You
can draw from any readings done in class to come up with

reasons or shortcomings of each approach that may be relevant
for your argument. Moreover, working closely with the primary
texts (this means citing relevant passages and including page
numbers), in the essay you also need to explain the main
differences between utilitarianism and deontology as they are
formulated by Mill and Kant, respectively. This means
discussing a) what the principle of morality is for each
approach, b) why each philosopher thinks that is the case, and
c) how each approach determines what is moral/right.
MINDFULNESS AND MINDLESSNESS IN EARLY CHAN
Author(s): Robert Sharf
Source: Philosophy East and West, Vol. 64, No. 4, SPECIAL
ISSUE: TENTH EAST-WEST
PHILOSOPHERS' CONFERENCE, "VALUE AND VALUES:
ECONOMICS AND JUSTICE IN AN
AGE OF GLOBAL INTERDEPENDENCE" (OCTOBER 2014),
pp. 933-964
Published by: University of Hawai'i Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/43285932
Accessed: 28-03-2018 22:31 UTC
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MINDFULNESS AND MINDLESSNESS IN EARLY CHAN
Robert Sharf
University of California, Berkeley
[email protected]
The Chan tradition is renowned as the "meditation" school of
East Asia. Indeed, the
Chinese term chart (Jpn: zen ) is an abbreviated transliteration
of dhyäna, the San-
skrit term arguably closest to the modern English word
"meditation." Scholars typi-
cally date the emergence of this tradition to the early Tang
dynasty (618-907),
although Chan did not reach institutional maturity until the
Song period (960-1279).
In time, Chinese Chan spread throughout East Asia, giving
birth to the various Zen,
Sõn, andThien lineages of Japan, Korea, and Vietnam,
respectively. Today these tradi-

tions continue to promote, at least in theory, meditation
practices, and these have
been the subject of considerable scholarly interest.1
It may then come as a surprise to learn just how little is known
about the medita-
tion techniques associated with the "founders" of this tradition
- the masters associ-
ated with the nascent (or proto-) Chan lineages of the seventh
and eighth centuries.
It was during this fertile period - which, following scholarly
convention, I will call
"early Chan" - that the lineage myths, doctrinal innovations,
and distinctive rhetori-
cal voice of the Chan, Zen, Son, andThien schools first
emerged. Although hundreds
of books and articles have appeared on the textual and doctrinal
developments as-
sociated with early Chan, relatively little has been written on
the distinctive medita-
tion practices, if any, of this movement.
This essay emerged from an attempt to answer a seemingly
straightforward ques-
tion: what kinds of meditation techniques were promulgated in
early Chan circles?
The answer, it turned out, involved historical and philosophical
forays into the notion
of "mindfulness" - a style of meditation practice that has
become popular among
Buddhists (and non-Buddhists) around the globe. Accordingly,
I will digress briefly to
consider the roots of the modern mindfulness movement, and
will suggest possible
sociological parallels between the rise of the Buddhist
mindfulness movement in the

twentieth century and the emergence of Chan in the medieval
period.
The Nature of the Sources
I would note at the outset that the Chan, Zen, Son, and Thien
traditions that survive
today are of little help in reconstructing early Chan meditative
practices. Take, for
example, the two largest and best-known schools of modern
Japanese Zen: Sõtõ
and Rinzai. The former is most closely associated with the
practice of shikantaza
-RlfíTâlè or "simply sitting," while Rinzai is renowned for its
kõan practice -
meditation on cryptic utterances of past masters. Both of these
practices are rela-
tively late. The Sõtõ school holds that shikantaza originated in
China and was
Philosophy East & West Volume 64, Number 4 October 201 4
933-964 9 33
© 2014 by University of Hawai'i Press
2018 22:31:44 UTC
transmitted to the founder of Japanese Sõtõ, Dõgen Kigen (1
200-1 253), by
his Chinese teacher Tiantong Rujing (1 163-1228). However,
the term shi-
kantaza does not appear in surviving Chinese documents, and

most nonsectarian
scholars now approach "simply sitting" as a Japanese
innovation, based on Dögen's
idiosyncratic understanding of the "silent illumination" (
mozhao chan teach-
ings he encountered in Song dynasty China. As for Rinzai, the
notion that kõans,
which developed as a literary genre, could serve as objects of
seated contemplation
dates no earlier than the Song, and even then it may originally
have been intended
as a simplified exercise for laypersons rather than a practice
befitting elite monks
who aspired to become abbots. Moreover, the approach to
kõans altered over time
in both China and Japan as the literary and scholastic skills
necessary to engage the
kõan literature qua literature were lost (Sharf 2007). In short,
contemporary Asian
practices cannot be used, in any simple way, as a window onto
early Chan.2
What practices, if any, were propagated within the communities
that gave rise to
the early Chan lineage texts - texts that appeared centuries
before the advent of kõan
collections or talk of "simply sitting"?3 As mentioned above,
this question has re-
ceived little sustained attention, and for good reason: the
sources for the study of
early Chan - primarily the Dunhuang Chan manuscripts and the
writings of medi-
eval "witnesses" such as Daoxuan jüÄ (596-667) and Guifeng
Zongmi íéiIÍtkiS
(780-841) - have much to say about competing Chan schools
and ideologies but

little to offer in the way of concrete descriptions of practice.4
Zongmi acknowledges
the difficulty he himself had in finding materials on the
subject. At the beginning of
his Introduction to a Collection of Materials on the Sources of
Chan ( Chanyuan
zhuquanji duxu he notes that the materials at his disposal
"speak a
lot about the principles of Chan but say little of Chan practice"
One common scholarly response to this lacuna in the early
Chan corpus has
been to argue that early Chan was not, at least initially, an
independent school or
tradition. Rather, early Chan was a "meta-discourse" or "meta-
critique" that remained
parasitic on traditional forms of monastic life. This Chan was,
in short, an attempt to
"Mahäyänize" the understanding of practices that had their
roots in the pre-Mahāyāna
tradition. Early Chan communities did not tinker with existing
practices or institu-
tional forms so much as they tinkered with the doctrines
underwriting these prac-
tices.6 The early corpus should be read, therefore, as a witness
to ongoing tensions
between normative practices of considerable antiquity on the
one hand, and
Mahäyäna philosophical critiques of said practices on the
other.
If this theory is correct, then the Chan assault on seated
meditation was not in-
tended to be taken literally, just as the Chan critiques of image
worship, scriptural
study, and adherence to precepts were not meant to be taken

literally. This position
finds support in the writings of Zongmi, who addresses the
issue repeatedly in, among
other places, his Introduction to a Collection of Materials on
the Sources of Chan.
Near the beginning of this text, Zongmi's imaginary
interlocutor challenges him:
• WSULUéBnif gféfetíTiS • • fécSSifcMBPffi
ĚLW •
934 Philosophy East & West
2018 22:31:44 UTC
Vimalakīrti ridiculed quiet sitting. Heze [Shenhui] rejected
"freezing the mind." When
Caoqi [Huineng] saw someone sitting cross-legged he would
take his staff and beat him
until he got up. Now I ask you why you still rely on teachings
that encourage seated
meditation, [resulting in] a proliferation of meditation huts
filling the cliffs and valleys?
This runs contrary to the principles and opposes the
patriarchs.7
In his response, Zongmi distinguishes between methods that are
intended as anti-
dotes to specific afflictions and a more exalted practice that
Zongmi calls the "single-
practice samādhi" (yixing sanmei - íŤHBfc). The antidotes
include traditional seated

meditation practices; while these are mere "expedients"
appropriate for those of
lesser spiritual faculties, Zongmi insists they still have their
place. Zongmi writes:
Vimalakīrti says that it is not necessary to sit, but not that it is
necessary not to sit. Wheth-
er one sits or not depends on how best to respond to
circumstances.8
In contrast to such expedients, the single-practice samādhi is
for those of superior
faculties who understand that mind itself is buddha-nature, that
the afflictions are
bodhi, and thus that there is ultimately no need for antidotes. In
short, Zongmi avails
himself of the venerable doctrine of the two truths.
Writing in the early ninth century, Zongmi was seeking to
recover and make
sense of the origins of a movement from which he was already
several generations
removed, and his reconstruction of early Chan lay in the
service of his own declared
lineal affiliations and exegetical agenda. As such, he is an
invaluable but not entirely
reliable source on the Chan teachings of the previous century.
Nevertheless, the
Dunhuang materials do provide support for Zongmi's position:
despite their antino-
mian rhetoric, some early Chan patriarchs are on record as
endorsing seated medita-
tion. In the Record of the Transmission of the Dharma Treasure
(Chuan fabao ji

ÄI5), for example, the fourth patriarch Daoxin ?lfg (580-651)
exhorts his students
as follows:
tifimi • • JURIS • HJÜAsg • m
Make effort and be diligent in your sitting [meditation], for
sitting is fundamental. If you
can do this for three or five years, getting a mouthful of food to
stave off starvation and
illness, then just close your doors and sit. Do not read the
scriptures or talk with anyone.
One who is able to do this will, after some time, find it
effective.9
Daoxin's support for seated meditation is reaffirmed in his
work Fundamental Ex-
pedient Teachings for Calming the Mind to Enter the Way (
Rudao anxin yao fang-
bian famen if the traditional attribution to Daoxin is to be
believed. As this text, known from various Dunhuang
documents, is one of the few
early Chan texts containing detailed instructions for seated
dhyäna, we will return to
it below.
Daoxin is associated, albeit anachronistically, with the so-
called East Mountain
(Dong Shan Sí[JL|) tradition, a line later associated with (or
subsumed under) North-
ern Chan. It might then be argued that he was more
conservative in his approach to

Robert Sharf 935
2018 22:31:44 UTC
meditation than were the later Southern or "subitist" teachers.
But even the quintes-
sential text of the Southern School, the Platform Scripture of
the Sixth Patriarch ( Liuzu
tanjing Affli® M), seems to countenance, if only in passing,
seated practice. Near
the end of this work, the patriarch Huineng Hfg (638-713),
approaching his death,
instructs his disciples to persevere in communal seated
meditation:
• {i f*mm
"Be the same as you would if I were here, and sit all together
[in meditation]. If you are
only peacefully calm and quiet, without motion, without
stillness, without birth, without
destruction, without coming, without going, without judgments
of right and wrong, with-
out staying and without going - this then is the Great Way.
After I have gone just practice
according to the Dharma in the same way that you did on the
days that I was with you.
Even were I still to be in this world, if you went against the
teachings, there would be no
use in my having stayed here." After finishing speaking these

words, the Master, at mid-
night, quietly passed away. He was seventy-six years of age.10
Given the negative valuation of meditation found throughout
this text, this pas-
sage is striking. Huineng is famously depicted as gaining
awakening without any
prior study or meditative training: he had no exposure to
Buddhist practice before he
heard the Diamond Scripture chanted in a marketplace, yet he
immediately grasped
its meaning. When he proceeded to enter the monastery of the
Fifth Patriarch, he was
placed not in the monks' hall but in the threshing room, where
he spent his time
treading the pestle. Yet despite his lack of experience in
mediation, he quickly suc-
ceeded to the patriarchy.
The implied critique of traditional seated practices in
Huineng's autobiography
is accompanied by an explicit critique in his sermons. The
critique is tied to the
Southern School notion of "sudden enlightenment," which
affirms the identity of
means and ends - meditation and wisdom. Accordingly Huineng
repeatedly and rig-
orously castigates instrumental approaches to religious
practice. The following pas-
sage is typical.
• m®» - xâ*À*À»Cí*#*!I
. «s# « • -if • firaams • mmmm • • #*o
» • SMiansra . - mmm - xmrnzm -

If sitting without moving is good, why did Vimalakīrti scold
Šāriputra for sitting quietly in
the forest? Good friends, some people teach men to sit viewing
the mind and viewing
clarity, not moving and not activating [the mind], and to this
they devote their efforts.
Deluded people do not realize that this is wrong, cling to this
doctrine, and become con-
fused. There are many such people. Those who instruct in this
way are, from the outset,
greatly mistaken. Good friends, how then are meditation and
wisdom alike? They are like
the lamp and the light it gives forth. If there is a lamp there is
light; if there is no lamp there
is no light. The lamp is the substance of light; the light is the
function of the lamp. Thus,
although they have two names, in substance they are not two.
Meditation and wisdom are
also like this."
2018 22:31:44 UTC
A similar rejection of quiet sitting is found in the writings of
Huineng's disciple
and publicist, Heze Shenhui ünf### (670-762). In his
disquisition on seated med-
itation, Chan Master Cheng asserts:

Now for one who cultivates meditation, inner and outer are
naturally illuminated, and
this is to attain the perception of clarity. It is by means of this
clarity that one is able to
perceive one's [original] nature.
To which Shenhui responds:
' gerghi? - jejuei « • as : «»«HI* ' mmimw • Ù
[Original] nature has no inside or outside, so any talk of
illuminating inner or outer is
deluded from the outset. What is seeing one's original nature?
The scripture says: "The
practice of all the samādhis is movement, not seated chart. As
for the mind [simply] fol-
lowing the flow of objects - how could you call this
meditation?" If that is what were
meant by meditation, then VimalakTrti ought not to have
scolded Šāriputra for quiet
sitting.'2
Yet despite these pointed attacks on seated practice, the
Platform Scripture, a text
closely associated with Huineng and Shenhui, depicts Huineng
encouraging his fol-
lowers to continue in their seated practice after he is gone. This
seeming disparity
would appear to support the view that early Chan critiques of
seated meditation were
not intended to be taken at face value.
There is another related explanation for the reticence to
promote meditation
practices in early Chan texts. The sudden-enlightenment
polemic, as illustrated by

the Platform Scripture passage above, was directed against
dualistic distinctions be-
tween means and ends, path and goal, meditation (dhyäna) and
wisdom (prajnā). The
doctrine of inherent buddha-nature and the rhetoric of sudden
enlightenment ren-
dered it difficult if not impossible to champion dhyäna, since to
countenance any
technique was to betray an instrumental and hence misguided
understanding of the
path. This had the effect of instituting a rhetorical taboo
against prescribing, or even
discussing, specific techniques. Hence, the silence w ith regard
to meditative prac-
tices in early Chan materials is not, in and of itself, evidence
that the monks did not
engage in such practices.13 Zongmi would appear to have it
right: seated meditation
is not sufficient and perhaps not even necessary, but it still has
its place.
In discussing the rise of early Chan, I am making a distinction
between what
might be called "small-c" chan and "large-C" Chan. The former
refers to Chinese
Buddhist dhyäna techniques writ large, and encompasses a wide
array of practices
that made their way from India to China beginning in the first
and second centu-
ries c.E. These practices include meditations on impurity
(bujingguan ^#11, Skt:
ašubha-bhāvanā - often referring to meditations on a corpse or
meditations on the
parts of the body), breathing meditations ( anban Skt: ānāpāna -
including

counting or "following" the breath), cultivation of the four
immeasurable states (si
wuliangxin EIMÄ'O; Skt: catvāri-apramāņāni - namely
kindness, compassion, joy,
Robert Sharf 937
2018 22:31:44 UTC
and equanimity), recollection of the buddha (nianfo&fâ),
recitation of the buddhas'
names ( foming #&;&), and so on. Such practices were
widespread throughout the
medieval Chinese Buddhist world, irrespective of one's
ordination lineage or monas-
tic affiliation.14 In contrast, large-C Chan refers to a specific
lineage or school ( chart -
zong #;§?) that was based on the mythology of an unbroken,
independent lineage of
enlightened masters stretching from Šákyamuni Buddha
through Bodhidharma down
through six generations to Huineng and beyond.15
So in answer to the question as to why the earliest documents
associated with
large-C Chan say so little about the practices associated with
small-c chart, the re-
sponse has been to disaggregate rhetoric from practice. Early
Chan is not distin-
guished by forms of monastic practice and meditation

technique so much as by its
mythology, doctrine, and literary style. In time, the full-blown
Chan institutions of the
Song dynasty felt the need, despite the rhetorical taboo, to
create their own instruc-
tion manuals for seated meditation. That these later Chan
meditation primers are
closely modeled upon non-Chan prototypes is further evidence
that early Chan was
more about innovations in doctrine and rhetorical style than
about innovations in
technique.16
As elegant as this explanation may be, it may not tell the whole
story. That Zong-
mi is repeatedly drawn back to this issue, and that he
references a number of
Mahâyâna scriptures (some of them now known to be
apocryphal) to buttress his
apologia for seated practice, bespeaks a degree of
defensiveness and unease. Zongmi
was acutely aware of the apparent contradiction between what
famous Chan monks
and missives say on the one hand, and what Chan monks were
actually doing on the
other.17 Like many modern scholars of Chan and Zen,
Zongmi's approach is to brook
a distinction between theory and praxis - a distinction between
how one under-
stands meditation and what one actually does. There is
evidence, however, that at
least some early masters, particularly those associated with the
rhetoric of subitism,
found the theory/praxis distinction objectionable, and this led
to a spirited eighth-

century controversy concerning the value of traditional
meditation practices, as well
as to attempts to devise alternatives. But it is not easy to
recover precisely what the
alternatives looked like, both because of the philological and
hermeneutical prob-
lems that attend the surviving texts, and because the topic
matter itself - the nature
of meditative practice and experience - is so elusive.
Chan Mindfulness
As mentioned above, small-c chan referred to a vast array of
practices, from corpse
meditations and breathing exercises to repentance rituals and
the recitation of the
names of the buddhas. Large-C Chan masters tended to
deprecate or even reject such
techniques.18 In their place they championed a distinctive
practice, or cluster of
similar practices, that went by a number of related names,
including "maintaining
mind" (shouxin ^i», "maintaining unity" ( shouyi ), "pacifying
the mind" ( anxin
», "discerning the mind" (guanxin H'l», "viewing the mind" (
kanxin #<[», "fo-
cusing the mind" ( shexin SS'i», and so on.19 All these terms
appear repeatedly in the
2018 22:31:44 UTC

early Chan corpus, particularly in texts associated with the East
Mountain tradition of
the fourth and fifth patriarchs. The usage of these phrases
differs somewhat from text
to text, yet they seem to refer to a more-or-less similar
approach to practice - an ap-
proach predicated on two seminal doctrines. The first is that all
beings possess inher-
ent "buddha-nature" ( foxing ffc'lÉ), and thus buddhahood is
not something to be
gained or acquired from outside but rather something to be
discovered or disclosed
within. The second is that buddha-nature refers to mind itself.
Thus, whether one talks
of "maintaining mind," "discerning mind," or "viewing mind,"
the object is the same:
to attend to the apperceiving subject - conscious awareness -
rather than to the tran-
sient objects of expérience. Early Chan documents employ a
variety of related analo-
gies to illustrate the nature and inherent purity of mind: the
mind is like a mirror
covered by dust; one must focus on the innate luminosity of the
mirror rather than the
fleeting images that appear within it. Or the mind is like the
sun covered by clouds;
the sun is always shining irrespective of the clouds that conceal
it. In meditation, one
attends to the abiding luminosity of mind or consciousness,
which is to realize one's

inherent buddha-nature.
As mentioned above, one of the few detailed descriptions of
meditation practice
in the literature of early Chan is found in the Fundamental
Expedient Teachings for
Calming the Mind to Enter the Way, attributed to Daoxin. Here
"maintaining unity"
is presented as a kind of mindfulness practice (Skt: smrti; Rali:
sati; Chin: nian
sometimes rendered "reflection" or "recollection"), coupled
with a contemplation of
the emptiness of phenomena. I present here a few key sections
from the text:
*'íř8P®*» • • mmm • mmm • mmmm - • bpä$&. . . .
Why is it called "reflecting without an object"?20 The very
mind that is reflecting on bud-
dha is called "reflecting without an object." Apart from mind
there is no buddha. Apart
from buddha there is no mind. Reflecting on buddha is
identical to reflecting on mind. To
seek the mind is to seek the buddha. Why is this so?
Consciousness is without form. Bud-
dha too is without form and without manifest attributes. To
understand this principle is to
pacify the mind.
isaniss • mmm% - • m>mm - • &
• • •
The Scripture on the Discernment of the Buddha of
Immeasurable Life says, "The dharma
bodies of all buddhas penetrate the minds of all beings. This
very mind is buddha. This

mind creates buddha."21 You should know that buddha is
identical to mind, and that out-
side of mind there is no other buddha.
üm« • xttämm
. . .
There are many varieties of contemplation methods specified in
the various scriptures, but
according to the teachings of Layman Fu [497-569], one need
only maintain unity with-
out moving. First you cultivate the body, taking the body as the
basis for attentive contem-
plation. Note that this body is an amalgam of the four elements
[earth, water, fire, and air]
and the five aggregates [form, sensation, perception, impulses,
and consciousness]. In the
Robert Sharf 939
2018 22:31:44 UTC
end [this body] returns to impermanence without achieving
freedom. Although it has not
yet decayed and disappeared, ultimately it is empty.
- mnmmm -
m • • AS' mm -
m - $n ®mm& - TM&W - - m*m-m • #*oa®^*A&* • mat

• tom&mm - »b* . ^ai^A • ***£ • w*»*Ž
m - m&m&w - is^ngi* • • &üismii).22
Also, constantly contemplate your own body as clear empty
space, like a reflection that
can be seen but not grasped. Wisdom arises from the midst of
the reflection and ulti-
mately is without location, unmoving and yet responsive to
things, transforming without
end. The six sense organs are born in the midst of empty space.
As the six sense organs
are empty and still, the six corresponding sense fields are to be
understood as like a
dream. It is like the eye seeing something: there is nothing in
the eye itself. Or like the
image of a face reflected in a mirror: we clearly understand
that the various reflections of
forms appear in empty space, and that there is not a single
thing in the mirror itself. You
should know that a person's face does not come and enter into
the mirror, nor does the
mirror go and enter the person's face. From this analysis we
know that at no point in time
does the face in the mirror emerge or enter, come or go. This is
the meaning of "thus
come" (tathSgata). According to this detailed analysis, what is
in the eye and in the mirror
is inherently and permanently empty and still; what is reflected
in the mirror and reflected
in the eye is the same.
The objects of our perception, in other words, are like the
reflections in a mirror:
the mirror or mind is real; all else is mere appearance.
Doctrinally, there is nothing

distinctively Channish about this, as such fundamental
Mahâyâna notions as empti-
ness and the identity of mind and buddha are found throughout
Chinese exegetical
writings of the period. What may be more specific to early
Chan is the attempt to link
such Mahâyâna notions with a specific technique. Note also
that, despite the un-
usual level of detail for an early Chan text, the description of
the technique remains
sketchy. However, that the account begins with a contemplation
of the body, that the
body is the basis for reflecting on impermanence, and that the
goal is to reflect on the
nature of mind, is reminiscent of approaches to "mindfulness"
as taught by modern
Theravāda teachers.
There are, of course, daunting hermeneutic problems involved
in what might be
called the comparative phenomenology of meditation (Sharf 1
998). But consider the
following: in Daoxin's text, as in some modern Buddhist
"mindfulness" traditions,
the focus of attention is not an artificial or constructed object
(be it a physical image
or icon, kasiņa, mantra, corpse, or some other structured
visualization), but rather the
moment-to-moment flow of sensation, beginning with the
sensation of touch and
eventually extending to the other senses. This culminates in a
meditation on the na-
ture of conscious awareness itself. The goal is a kind of
figure/ground shift wherein
the yogi's attention is directed toward mind or awareness or
"witness consciousness"

itself, rather than to the fleeting phenomena that transpire
within the mind. In the
language of Daoxin's text, one meditates on the chimeric nature
of the reflections so
as to know (inductively?) the mirror. Sustained attention to the
mind-mirror is be-
2018 22:31:44 UTC
lieved, among other things, to thwart attachment to the
ephemeral phenomena of
unenlightened experience, and to reveal the intrinsic purity (or
buddha-nature) of
mind.
Mindfulness, Bare Attention, and Pure Mind
It is necessary to pause for a moment and consider the vexed
term "mindfulness."
The popular understanding of Buddhist mindfulness can be
traced to the Theravāda
meditation revival of …

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