The three most important questions in all religions are “What is the meaning of life?” “What happens after I die?” And, “How can I be happy?”
These are questions that have vexed humans since the beginning and exceeds any words, no matter how erudite and eloquent, to explain. Answers can take a lifetime of deep philosophical and religious thought and contemplation. In the end, words fail and one can only experience Life.
All religions seek to answer these fundamental existential questions. Each coming to – sometimes – vastly different ideas and concepts that on the surface look mutually exclusive and incompatible. Thousands of books have been written about this question! Unfortunately, and ironically, a large number of wars have been fought over it.
Which path one choses depends on them. What feels right? What can one intellectually and rationally accept as a model? It’s a deeply personal question, and ideally one which everyone can respect for another without judgement or criticism.
Many in the West find the traditional monotheistic religions lacking in some way and have found aspects of Buddhism attractive and engaging. They wrestle with integrating Buddhism into their lives as Westerners, a culture that is largely based on Judeo-Christian forms and norms. A significant percentage of the Insight Buddhist Movement have either mixed it with Judaism or Humanism (secularism).
I think this quest to experiment and integrate Buddhism into one’s personal life, family, neighborhoods and culture is all a natural and healthy part of Buddhism’s growth and evolution. The world saw similar things happen when it migrated from India to China to Korea to Japan. Buddhism changed, absorbing local cultures and practices.
It is important to start with an understanding that Buddhism is more than a philosophy, it is a religion. Because it seeks to answer these existential questions of “What is the meaning of life?” “What happens after I die?” And “How can I be happy?”
All Buddhist teachings, concepts, and practices are skillful means to guide people toward their own direct experience of Life. At their core, these concepts are simply trying to get people to see beyond their fixation with their little-self ego. Beyond words and fixed interpretations – dogmas – so one can have a personal and direct experience of Life.
Being attached and clinging to this idea there is a ‘self,’ leads people to conclude that there is either a permanent unchanging and independent self - eternalism - or that there is no meaningful existence or continuity of the self – nihilism. The Buddha basically said, “neither of these ideas is correct.”
Ah, wait, what?
While Buddhism does carefully avoid answering the question, “is there a God,” it does embrace there is something “larger” than “me.” Something boundless, wonderous, mystical, unknowable. That words can never describe. When we open ourselves to “it” we can feel it, and it feels magnificent. This is encoded in our very mantra of “Myo Ho.”
Pulling from Robert Silverberg, a famous Sci-Fi author (aren’t Sci-Fi authors the cleverest philosophers?), book Nightwings:
“This was not the merging of communion, in which a [person] sinks anonymously into the [divine], but rather a union of self and self, maintaining independence within a larger dependence.”
I find great synergies between all the world’s wisdom and mystical traditions, which in general ground their religious systems and models on contemplation, whether they call it prayer or meditation.
Paraphrasing the Buddha, “try things out for yourself and see which work best for you.” And, knowing this might change as you grow and mature on your spiritual journey. None of us can save anybody else. One can only save oneself. This may be the biggest difference in approach between a theistic religion which seeks salvation and intervention from something outside, and Buddhism which says self-responsibility is the key to salvation.
Now here is where things get tricky for Buddhists. The Buddha refused to answer the question if there was a Creator. He just said it was irrelevant to living a happy life. That the important thing was understanding the Four Noble Truths and living a wholesome moral life following the Eightfold Path and Six Paramitas.
I find the beauty of Buddhism that it uses riddles forcing one to deeply think about something by asking one to hold two opposing ideas in their mind simultaneously, as a jedi mind trick, to get one to think beyond words. To go deeper than their cognitive consciousness and mental constructs to see into the true nature of life.
So, to greatly over-simplify, because that’s what’s required in the modern era of social media, 144 characters sound bites, the Dharmakaya is as close as Buddhism comes to a “God.” However, that said, there is no direct correlation. The Dharmakaya is not “The Creator,” but It is “Creation.”
These are some of my personal thoughts from a Nichiren Buddhist perspective.
Nichiren Buddhism is a devotional form or Buddhism. This is why we chant “Namu.” We take refuge, find solace and sanctuary in Myoho Renge Kyo, or the Dharmakaya or Buddha-nature or Eternal Buddha. But uniquely in the Nichiren Tradition we do not place all emphasis on either the nihilistic ‘self-power,’ as Zen, or the eternalist ‘other power,’ as Pure Land. Nichiren found a middle way between either of those extremes.
Nichiren taught about the Three Bodies of the Buddha, or three aspects of a buddha being: the Dharma-body representing the ultimate truth to which a buddha is awakened; the Reward-body, the joyous realization of this awakening ,” and the Accommodative-body which gets ‘born’ into this world as“historical manifestations of buddhahood, or any of us when we are fully awake. All three aspects are One, which is the Buddha-nature, that can be personified as the Dharmakaya or “Eternal Buddha.”
Nichiren frequently uses a favorite Buddhist metaphor of the Moon to describe this Three Bodies of the Buddha. The Dharmakaya is the moon, the Samboghakaya is the light of the moon - the photons waves/particles, and the Nirmanakaya is the moon’s reflection on the water. No moon, no reflection. No water no reflection. No light no reflection and so on.
So we can see that the Dharmakaya (Buddha-nature/Eternal Buddha) is very similar to some interpretations of God, as Brother David Steindl-Rast writes: “Thus, belief in Creation and belief in [Dependent Origination] are two different expressions of one and the same underlying faith—two different pointers toward the same experience.”
I want to share something from “Deeper Than Words: Living the Apostles' Creed” by David Steindl-Rast (a Benedictine monk) whom I love and respect:
(When the Dalai Lama asked Brother Steindl-Rast his thoughts on Buddha and God, it motivated him to write a whole book!)
“…stay(ing) true to my Christian tradition’s belief in Divine Creation and show that it was compatible with Buddhist belief in Interdependent Arising. It all hinged on bridging the gap between Creator and creation… Thomas Merton wrote, ‘God isn’t someone else.’ For the mystic there is no gap between Creator and creation. The whole universe is an expression of divine life. The cosmic web of mutually interdependent cause and effect in which all things arise is what the mystic poet Kabir sees as ‘the Secret One slowly growing a body.’”
“Thus, belief in Creation and belief in Interdependent Arising are two different expressions of one and the same underlying faith—two different pointers toward the same experience. Faith as experience lies deeper than words and concepts. It is an inner gesture by which we entrust ourselves totally and unconditionally to life—life perceived as our own, yet as a power greater than ourselves.”
“Life—makes us human; and each culture, each period of history, gives this faith new expressions in beliefs that are determined by historic and cultural circumstances.”
“Deep inner peace, a sense of belonging, and a firm anchorage in the eternal Now of the present moment.”
My teacher Rev. McCormick, Nichiren Shu priest, wrote:
To start off it has long been my conviction that the ultimate truth is not a person but it is personal.
There are certainly deities in Buddhism like Brahma, who exemplify loving-kindness and even believe themselves to be the creator. In the Pali Canon the Buddha reveals this to be a delusion. But in other places in the Pali canon the Buddha speaks of having been a Brahma while on the bodhisattva path. This means that the being that many believe to be the creator - God - is both deluded about being such a god and is also a bodhisattva, who can help other bodhisattvas and into whose heaven we can make causes to be reborn into for millions of years by cultivating loving-kindness, compassion, sympathetic joy, and equanimity. All this is taught in the Pali canon.
But this idea of a god-creator is merely the heavenly realm and not even on the level of the two hinayana vehicles. Why is it merely the heavenly realm? Because the God believed in is believed to have an eternal fixed independent individualized self-nature which is the delusion of eternalism. Those who are in heaven and those who aspire to it are still caught up in trying to find unconditioned happiness through conditions (whether real or imagined).
The difference between the six lower realms and the four higher is not that the lower look outside themselves for happiness. Those who reach the heavenly realms have themselves turned away from externals and cultivated inner bliss. The real difference is that the lower six all look to conditions (internal and/or external) for unconditional happiness. Those in the four higher realms all realize that only by not being entangled by conditions (whether cognitive or affective) can they awaken to the unconditioned. The voice-hearers and privately-awakened ones realize the conditioned nature of selves, but the bodhisattvas and buddhas also realize the conditioned (or empty) nature of all dharmas.
Now here is the spin from the Nirvana Sutra and other Tathagatagarbha texts - while the nature of conditioned phenomena is impure, unsatisfactory, impermanent, and non-self, the nature of the unconditioned (i.e. nirvana, buddha-nature, Dharmakaya) is purity, bliss, eternity, and the authentic self (but somehow not the permanent self, or soul, believed in by brahmins).
The Dharma-kaya that is the true nature of life which all buddhas realize is pure, blissful, eternal, and the authentic true self or nature. It is marked by activity that is generous, virtuous, patient, energetic, calm, and wise. It is also loving, compassionate, joyful, and equanimous. It has all wholesome and skillful qualities. It is not localized, nor a self distinct from an other (nor an other distinct from any self), and also not really temporal either. Space and time and individuality have to do with conditions and changing conditions. This is the unconditioned. This is why it is not a person, but because of it there are personal qualities manifested by the reward-bodies and accommodative-bodies that are its activity.
Why is this a "self" and yet not the self of the brahmins? I think it is called a "self" in the sense that it is authentic, it is authenticity itself. Also, there is the sense in Buddhist discourse that a self is not simply an unchanging, independent entity but also able to control itself, to maintain itself and its functions and manner of being. The Dharma-kaya, being the body of reality itself has nothing outside of it that can impose any change or limitation upon it. It simply is what it is. In that sense it has that kind of control. However, it is not a distinct person, place, or thing. So to call it a "self" is really a misnomer as well.
There is a discourse in the Pali canon where the Buddha refuses to say whether there is a self or not in reply to a brahmin's question. Ananda asked him why he refused to say. The Buddha replied that either answer would be taken the wrong way. A denial would mistakenly lead to nihilism, an affirmation would lead to eternalism. And aside from that discourse the Buddha constantly warned against getting caught in the thicket of view. So taking a metaphysical position in favor of or in denial of a "self" (however it may be understood) is to cling to a view. Again and again the Buddha insisted that what really matters is understanding suffering, getting rid of its causes, realizing its cessation, and cultivating the means to do so. Then one can find out for oneself how the ultimate reality is directly. Then, perhaps, one will see how adequate or inadequate the concept of a "self" is.
In the meantime, Buddhists have long related to the reward-bodies as practically deities whose pure lands are practically heavens. But here, one can get tempted into what is functionally an eternalist view with all the attachment and clinging it entails. On the other hand, if skillfully related and understood, one can use such imagery to inspire one to become more buddha-like oneself and to cultivate the warm-hearted and expansive feelings that will help to realize the unconditioned. This may be why Nichiren himself spoke of the Eternal Shakyamuni Buddha and the Pure Land of Eagle Peak in such a way, esp. to the bereaved and those with grave illnesses.
The Dharmakaya is barely different that Meister Eckhardt's Godhead, or the Kabbalistic Ain, or Shankara's Brahman, Though I would point out that such monistic (or practically monistic) conceptions are different than the more process oriented thought of Buddhism.
There are personalistic aspects to Buddhist devotional practice and the way reality functions. Buddhism, including Nichiren Buddhism, however, shrinks from directing people to a personal being among beings as the ultimate reality, as this is speculative metaphysics which gives rise to clinging. On the other hand, at least in Mahayana and Nichiren Buddhism, the ultimate reality is a source of great compassion and perfect wisdom, the source of all skillful means, what allows there to be anything at all (in conjunction with the deluded activity of all beings), and characterized by purity, bliss, eternity, and authenticity.
From Eric Fromm’s “Psychoanalysis and Zen Buddhism”
“The common suffering is the alienation from oneself, from one’s fellow human, and from nature; the awareness that life runs out of one’s hand like sand, and that one will die without having lived; that one lives in the midst of plenty yet is joyless. For those who suffer from alienation, cure does not consist in the absence of illness, but in the presence of well-being.”
“Well-being is the state of having arrived at the full development of reason: reason not in the sense of a merely intellectual judgment, but in that of grasping truth by “letting things be” (to use Heidegger’s term) as they are. Well-being is possible only to the degree to which one has overcome one’s narcissism; to the degree to which one is open, responsive, sensitive, awake, empty (in the Buddhist sense). Well-being means to be fully related to human and nature affectively, to overcome separateness and alienation, to arrive at the experience of oneness with all that exists—and yet to experience myself at the same time as the separate entity I am, as the individual. Well-being means to be fully born, to become what one potentially is; it means to have the full capacity for joy and for sadness or, to put it still differently, to awake from the half-slumber the average person lives in, and to be fully awake. If it is all that, it means also to be creative; that is, to react and to respond to myself, to others, to everything that exists—to react and to respond as the real, total person I am to the reality of everybody and everything as s/he or it is. In this act of true response lies the area of creativity, of seeing the world as it is and experiencing it as my world, the world created and transformed by my creative grasp of it, so that the world ceases to be a strange world “over there” and becomes my world. Well-being means, finally, to drop one’s Ego, to give up greed, to cease chasing after the preservation and the aggrandizement of the Ego, to be and to experience one’s self in the act of being, not in having, preserving, coveting, using.”
“Any person who listens to this question posed to them, and who makes it a matter of “ultimate concern” to answer this question, and to answer it as a whole person and not only by thoughts, is a ‘religious person;’ and all systems that try to give, teach and transmit such answers are ‘religions.’”
“However, as far as the “other power” popular interpretation and experience is concerned, this formulation means that instead of making decisions oneself, people leave the decisions to an omniscient, omnipotent father; who watches over them and knows what is good for them. It is clear that in this experience people do not become open and responsive, but obedient and submissive. Buddhism’s concept of Emptiness implies the true meaning of giving up one’s will, yet without the danger of regressing to the idolatrous concept of father [other power].”
“If we would try to express enlightenment in psychological terms, I would say that it is a state in which the person is completely tuned to the reality outside and inside of them, a state in which they are fully aware of it and fully grasps it. They are aware of it—that is, not their brain, nor any other part of their organism, but s/he, the whole person. They are aware of it; not as of an object over there which they grasp with their thought, but it, the flower, the dog, the person, in its, or their, full reality. One who awakes is open and responsive to the world, and they can be open and responsive because they have given up holding on to themself as a thing, and thus has become empty and ready to receive. To be enlightened means “the full awakening of the total personality to reality.”
“To ‘become conscious of the unconscious’ means to overcome repressedness and alienation from myself, and hence from the stranger. It means to wake up, to shed illusions, fictions, and lies, to see reality as it is. The person who wakes up is the liberated person, the person whose freedom cannot be restricted either by others or by themself. The process of becoming aware of that which one was not aware of constitutes the inner revolution of humans. It is the true awakening which is at the root of both creative intellectual thought and intuitive immediate grasp. In the last analysis, to make the unconscious conscious means to live in truth. Reality has ceased to be alienated; I am open to it; I let it be; hence my responses to it are ‘true.’”
A famous Zen monk wrote, “Before I was enlightened the rivers were rivers and the mountains were mountains. When I began to be enlightened the rivers were not rivers any more and the mountains were not mountains. Now, since I am enlightened, the rivers are rivers again and the mountains are mountains.”
The Eternal Buddha - refers to functions – a process – not to people places or things. Nichiren Shonin taught that the Eternal Shakyamuni Buddha is revealed in Chapter 16 of the Lotus Sutra to possess all three bodies and that all three are without beginning or end - a continuous unfolding process of creation. The Eternal Shakyamuni Buddha also displays the three virtues of ruler, teacher, and parent of all who live in the Saha world. This means that the Eternal Shakyamuni Buddha nourishes, teaches, and protects humanity through the power of the Wonderful Dharma. This is because those who have faith in the Lotus Sutra mature their wisdom, open their eyes to the truth, and are freed from suffering. The pure land of the Eternal Shakyamuni Buddha is the true reality of this world where the Original Buddha is always present expounding the Wonderful Dharma. As such it is sometimes called the Pure Land of Mount Sacred Eagle. In the Contemplation of the Universal Sage Bodhisattva Sutra this pure land is called the Pure Land of Eternally Tranquil Light.
With Deep Respect and Gratitude,
Namu Myoho Renge Kyo
Shami Mark Ryugan White Lotus