RINZAI VS. SOTO ZEN

The two schools of Zen that are currently the most active are Rinzai, which favors the koan, and Soto, which employs the zazen method.  Though Ch'an (Zen in Japanese) was introduced from China into Japan several times prior to the twelfth century A.D., it wasn't until Eisai (A.D. 1141-1215), a Japanese scholar monk, went to China, studied it, and brought it home that it took hold in Japan.  The Lin-Chi school of Ch'an was the style that Eisai studied and brought back, Lin-Chi transliterated as Rinzai. 

Although zazen, sitting in meditation, is also an important part of Rinzai, in Rinzai the emphasis is on sudden enlightenment gained through the "conquering" of verbal or nonverbal impasses.  These are in the form of the unanswerable question (koan), the nonsensical dialog (mondo), unexpected silences, paradoxes, pantomime, blows, and other techniques that are used to shock the monk into awareness. 

The Rinzai monk often serves for long periods, even for a lifetime, in the monastery, under the direct supervision of a Zen master.  The monk is expected to solve a certain number of koans, fifty or more possibly, for which there are no established "answers."  Much depends on the relationship with the master in working out the koan, and a lot of Rinzai teachings are secret, for  much of what takes place depends on intuition rather than on formal doctrines or written scriptures.

One of Eisai's later disciples, Dogen (A.D. 1200-1253), eventually questioned the koan method, broke with Rinzai, and established the other great form of Zen called Soto.  The Soto, or "gradual," school aims at the same ends, but proceeds somewhat differently.  Soto stresses "quiet sitting," again zazen, which is the practice of "observing one's mind in tranquility."  This sitting is considered to be an "Indian" form of meditation for this is the method practiced by Gautama Buddha himself. 

Soto stresses the immediacy of the present, which is to say the "acting like the Buddha" now rather than trying to become like him in the future.  As Dogen put it in his great work Shobogenzo (Treasury of the Eye of the True Doctrine):  "Without looking forward to tomorrow, every moment you must think only of this day and this hour.  Because tomorrow is...unfixed and difficult to know, you must think of following the Buddhist way while you live today."

PRAJNA-PARAMITA

There are two ways of dealing with Nature, according to Zen.  One is to distinguish, describe, analyze, and, in pursuit of practical ends, manipulate it from the outside.  This is to deal in concepts and acts that are disjunctive and misleading. 

The other way is to contemplate Nature, much as the Taoist of China does, from the position of one who is indistinguishably one with it.  By identifying oneself with Nature, one acquires prajna-paramita, the wisdom that has gone beyond--to the beyond that is within.

There is a metaphor that perfectly suggests what prajna-paramita means.  It is the metaphor of crossing a river by raft or ferry to get to the farther shore (Nirvana).  The nearer bank of the river is this world, known to the senses.  From it one cannot imagine at all what the farther shore in the distance is like.

But the ferry arrives, piloted by the Buddha, and when one boards it (i.e. adopts the Buddhist view) and begins the crossing, the receding nearer bank gradually loses reality and the far shore begins to take shape.

At length only the far shore seems real, and when one arrives there and leaves behind him the river and the ferry, they too lose all reality, because one has now gained final release, which alone is utterly real.

Here the former bank, the river, the ferry, the Buddha, and even the goal from the start of gaining the far shore (Nirvana), are equally and completely void, that is, done with.

DEPENDENT ORIGINATION

The Buddhist principle of Dependent Origination states that what is, is dependent upon something else, the law of cause and effect. If this is, that comes to be; from the arising of this, that arises; if this is not, that does not come to be; from the stopping of this, that stops. The skillful man asks, “What are the consequences of my actions? Will it lead to hurt of self, of others, or of both? What will happen if I stop, or do nothing?” It is like a clock where if one wheel turns, all the wheels turn. Everything changes with one change, or not.

CATEGORIES OF CREATION

The term "creatio ex nihilo" refers to God creating everything from nothing. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth (Genesis 1:1). Prior to that moment there was nothing. God, therefore, did not, as some have argued, produce the universe from preexisting building blocks but rather from scratch.

Just to clarify, the Bible never expressly states that God made everything from nothing, but it is implied. In Hebrews 11:3 it states, “By faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that the things which are seen were not made of things which are visible.” Scholars interpret this to mean that the universe came into existence by divine command only, with nothing pre-existing.

This is difficult to comprehend.  The “first law of science” states that matter (the stuff the universe is made of) is neither created nor destroyed. Matter can be converted from solid to liquid to gas to plasma and back again.  Atoms can be combined into molecules and split into their component parts, but matter cannot be created from nothing or completely destroyed. And so this idea that God created everything from nothing is not natural to us. Creation was supernatural is why, it is maintain.  Judeo/Christian denominations, most of them, hold this view.

The next category, accordingly, is "creatio ex materia."  This is creation out of some pre-existent, eternal matter, which is the belief of the Mormon church.

"Creatio ex deo" is creation out of the being of God and is where Vedanta is found.  Here, God IS creation.  God, in this viewpoint, literally shares in the existence of everything created through everythings' experience of it.  And as everything grows and develops, so does God.

A fourth category of creation is no creation.  The universe, in this instance, had no beginning and will never end.  One model of this is an endless series of Big Bangs and Big Crunches lasting trillions of years, with God present the whole time.  God, here, is either a separate phenomenon, an interpenetrating entity, or existence itself.  God is not the creator, though.

The fifth possibility is also no creation, but this time there is no God present at all.  The universe is merely a phenomenon that always was and always will be.  Again, it might go through phases, such as a chain of Big Bangs and Big Crunches, but no God is involved with it.  This category is where Buddhism would be, since it does not accept that a creator ever existed.  The Buddha held that the universe abounds in gods, goddesses, demons, and other nonhuman powers and agencies, but all, without exception, are finite, subject to death and rebirth, and therefore are inconsequential. 

THE AVATAR

On February 10, 1954, the Indian mystic and spiritual master Meher Baba declared that he was an avatar.  But what exactly is an avatar?

In Hinduism, an avatar is an incarnation of God.  God, or Brahman, is made flesh many times in different ages and in different forms, even other than human, the purpose of which is to protect and save all of creation through His earthly role.  The "body" or shape of an avatar is not human stuff, so to speak, but is composed of heavenly matter, called suddha sattva, and is a temporary manifestation only.  The Hindu, incidentally, can accept Christ as an avatar, but according to Christian theologians familiar with the doctrine, Christ, "the Word made flesh," both human and divine, cannot be considered an avatar in Christian teaching.  Avatars are countless, according to Hinduism, for besides the popularly known figures, such as for example the Buddha and Sri Ramakrishna, any spiritual teacher is an avatar to some degree, being at least in part if not fully an embodiment of the Divine.

Christopher Isherwood has a strict view of the avatar;  he discusses it in his book Ramakrishna and his Disciples.  He states that what a Hindu means by the term is something quite precise and not merely a vague expression of reverence.  There is a difference, according to Isherwood, between an avatar and a man who, in the highest form of samadhi, realizes union with Brahman.  The man who realizes the Godhead does so as a result of many human births.  His karma from past lives, growing ever better, has impelled him through countless births, deaths, and rebirths to this moment of realization.  It is, as it were, the apex of a huge karmic pyramid.  But this saint is still a human being, while an avatar is not.  An avatar is other than a saint.  An avatar has no "past" in this sense, for he has no karma.  He is not driven by his karma to be born.  He takes human form as an act of pure grace, for the good of humanity.  Though he voluntarily enters the world of time and space, he remains eternal.  He is not bound by time.  He is not subject to Maya, the illusion of earthly existence.  He is the master of Maya.

MEHER BABA

Outside India, and at least to the 1960's generation in the West, Meher Baba is best known as the guru of Pete Townshend, guitarist/songwriter of the rock band The Who.  Inside India, Meher Baba is best known as the Silent Avatar.

Baba was born Merwan Sheriar Irani on February 25, 1894.  He led a normal childhood, showing no strong inclination toward spiritual matters to speak of.  When he was 19 years old, though, he had a brief contact with the Muslim holy woman Hazrat Babajan which resulted in a spiritual transformation in him lasting seven years.  During this time, he contacted four additional spiritual figures whom, along with Babajan, he called the five Perfect Masters.  One of the masters, Upasni Maharaj, was with him the whole time, until Baba began his public work.  The name Meher Baba means Compassionate Father in Persian, the name given to him by his first followers.

From July 10, 1925 until the end of his life, Baba maintained silence, communicating by pointing at letters on an alphabet board or by unique hand gestures. With his circle of disciples called mandali, he spent long periods in seclusion, during which he often fasted.  At other times, he conducted wide-ranging travels, public gatherings, and works of charity, including working with lepers, the poor, and the mentally ill.

Baba's many visits to the West began in 1931, during which he attracted many followers. Throughout most of the 1940s, he worked with a category of spiritual aspirant called masts.  These were people he said were entranced or spellbound by internal spiritual experiences. Beginning in 1949, he traveled incognito throughout India in what he called The New Life. Then on February 10, 1954, he declared that he was the Avatar (an incarnation of God) of the age.  On July 10, 1958, he released what he called his Universal Message.

After being injured as a passenger in two automobile accidents, one in the United States in 1952 and one in India in 1956, his capacity to walk became seriously limited.  Six years later, in 1962, he invited his Western followers to India for a mass darshan. a form of Hindu worship, that he called The East-West Gathering.

Concerned by the increasing use of LSD and other psychedelic drugs around the world, Baba stated in 1966 that such things did not convey real benefits to the individual.  This was what drew Pete Townshend, who admitted that The Who used drugs, to Baba.

Despite deteriorating health, Baba maintained what he called his Universal Work, which included fasting and seclusion, until his death on January 31, 1969. His tomb-shrine in Meherabad, India has become a place of international pilgrimage.