There is one dharma, not many.
Distinctions arise from the needs of the ignorant
—SENG-TS’AN, THIRD ZEN ANCESTOR
DAI BOSATSU MONASTERY NESTLES IN THE CATSKILL Mountains of upstate New York. About forty of us were sitting in the meditation room of the guest house overlooking Beecher Lake. It was early May, and winter was finally giving way to spring. Nyoshul Khen Rinpoche, a renowned Tibetan Dzogchen meditation master, had initiated us into the practice with empowerments, teachings, and his own amazing presence. As with many Tibetan teachers, he combined a great earthy humor with the realization of extraordinary wisdom and compassion.
The setting was tranquil and the teachings profound, yet a raging battle was taking place within my mind. There are a few times in one’s life when philosophy, the love of wisdom, transforms from a gentle muse to a life-challenging god. This was one of those times. I was impaled on the sharp horns of a spiritual dilemma, and my mind could not find a way through. I felt as though I had, in good Zen fashion, swallowed a red-hot iron ball that I could neither digest nor expel.
What precipitated this crisis was the coming together of two ancient Buddhist traditions, each with its own methods, language, and philosophy, each with its own point of view. For more than twenty-five years I had been immersed in the teachings of the Theravada tradition, particularly as it was taught by the Venerable Mahasi Sayadaw of Burma. His profound wisdom and knowledge were largely responsible for the renaissance of interest in the practice of Satipatthana, also known as the “Four Foundations of Mindfulness,” the practice the Buddha called the direct way to awakening. From this Burmese perspective, the practice of meditation leads to a freedom that transcends even awareness itself. Anything less than that is to still be caught on the wheel of life and death.
But in that spring of 1992 I was hearing Dzogchen teachings about the nature of mind that didn’t quite fit the Burmese model. Dzogchen, also known as the “Natural Great Perfection,” is the highest teaching of the Nyingma school in Tibetan Buddhism. In language both poetic and inspiring, Rinpoche was teaching the Dzogchen view that the union of awareness and emptiness is the very nature of the liberated mind. So for more than a month two questions plagued me mercilessly: “Which path is right—freedom transcends awareness or freedom is awareness?” and “How could I know?”
After several weeks of valiant but vain efforts at reconciliation, it became clear that I would never resolve these questions through my thinking, reasoning mind. What to do? I was benefiting tremendously from both practices and teachings, and I had deep respect for all my different teachers. Out of this intense grappling with a conflict that seemed to hold the direction of my entire spiritual life in the balance, there spontaneously arose one of those transforming moments that bring with them an unpredictable resolution. I realized that with regard to the ultimate nature and description of the fully enlightened mind, I just didn’t know. A new mantra began to emerge in my practice, and it was a very truthful response to the conflicts that had been plaguing me: “Who knows?”
But instead of ignorance or confusion in this “not knowing,” I felt released from the self-built prison of spiritual concepts and models I had accumulated over many years. An amazingly fresh breeze of interest and openness blew away some long-held opinions about the ultimate nature of reality. Is awareness the end of the spiritual path or is it a means to the end? Or both? What is the nature of awareness? Instead of holding to conclusions, it became more interesting and spiritually vital to hold the questions.
“Don’t-know mind,” a phrase often used by Zen master Seung Sahn, enabled me to embrace a variety of perspectives, seeing the different views and methods as skillful means for liberation, rather than as the statements of absolute truth I was taking them to be. It is this understanding that provides a context for exploring the One Dharma of freedom.
“Skillful means” is a phrase often found in Buddhist literature referring to the particular methods and practices used to help people free themselves from the bonds of ignorance. As skillful means we can employ whatever is useful, whatever is truly helpful. For each of us at different times, different traditions, philosophical constructs, and methods may serve us, either because of temperament, background, or capacities. For some, the language of emptiness may be as dry as the desert, while for others it may reveal the heart-essence of liberation. Some may quickly recognize the nature of awareness itself, while others emphasize the letting go of those mind states that obscure it. Some may find that the path of devotion truly empties the self, but for others this way may simply act as a cloud of self-delusion. We each need great honesty of introspection and wise guidance from teachers to find our own skillful path.
The Dalai Lama offered words very much to this point at a Buddhist-Christian conference held in 1996 at Gethsemane Abbey, the monastery where Thomas Merton lived and wrote for many years. Buddhist monks and practitioners from many different traditions—Tibetan, Burmese, Cambodian, Sri Lankan, Chinese, Thai, and American—as well as Christian monks, nuns, and laypeople from a variety of orders expressed a wide range of viewpoints about self and soul, meditation and prayer. When the Dalai Lama spoke of his understanding at this conference, he often said, “This is right for me. Your way of understanding may be right for you.”
If we hold metaphysical views (metaphysics being that branch of philosophy that examines the nature of reality) as statements of truth, conflict is inevitable, as we have seen in religious and ideological wars throughout history. And even in the more benign philosophical controversies of Buddhism, adherence to views has created sharp divisions of belief. Ideas of “right” and “wrong” are quickly followed by thoughts of “us” and “them.” Attachment to our own way of understanding then becomes the primary and misplaced issue of faith. But if we think of all metaphysics as skillful means, as tools for evoking new ways of perceiving, as methods for letting go of suffering, then it’s easier to open to someone else’s point of view. In this way, it actually becomes possible to learn from one another.
A thousand years ago, a great monk from Nalanda University named Atisha traveled from India to Tibet to help reestablish the purity of the monastic way of life. He was sixty years old when he arrived in Tibet and, although he had planned to stay only three years, he remained there until he died at the age of seventy-two. At one point, Atisha met one of the renowned translators of Buddhist texts into Tibetan, who asked him how best to practice. Atisha replied, “You should find the essential point common to all the teachings and practice that way.”
One Dharma is just this: experiencing the essential point common to all the teachings. But with so many different traditions and schools and ways of practice, how do we go about finding this common essence? Two things help us accomplish this. First, we need to create a foundation of basic understanding that will support our broader investigation. Because most of us have not grown up in a Buddhist culture where the fundamentals of Dharma are taught from childhood, we need to have some depth of experience and understanding in one practice before we can intelligently look for—and find—what is held in common by many paths. Rushing this process can simply lead to confusion.
The second means of realizing One Dharma, which applies even as we are practicing any one particular method, is an attitude of openness to diverse views and a willingness to learn from different perspectives. The great abundance of teachings now in the West offers innumerable styles of practice and systems of understanding. The result is a wealth of skillful means that allows each of us not only to find the particular method that suits our temperaments and aspirations, but also to draw on the richness and depth of many traditions. After we have become established in one tradition, we can then learn from others, understanding that at the heart of them all there is a common ground that supports our journey to freedom.
In the One Dharma of emerging Western Buddhism, the method is mindfulness, the expression is compassion, the essence is wisdom. Mindfulness, the method, is the key to the present. Without it, we simply stay lost in the wanderings of our minds. Mindfulness serves us in the humblest ways, keeping us connected to brushing our teeth or pouring a cup of tea. The Buddha also spoke of mindfulness as being the path to complete awakening, fulfilling our highest aspirations for happiness and peace: “This is the direct path for the purification of beings, for the surmounting of sorrow and lamentation, for the disappearance of pain and grief, for the attainment of the true way, for the realization of Nibbana.”
The expression of One Dharma is compassion. When we are mindful in the present, compassion becomes the natural response to the suffering around us. As we open to suffering, there is a simple and spontaneous movement of the heart to help in whatever way we can. Sometimes it is in small gestures of kindness, sometimes in more courageous acts of care and concern. We can also cultivate compassion as a practice, strengthening this intuitive response within us. Nyoshul Khen Rinpoche brought this practice to life in the most simple and direct way: “I would like to pass on one little bit of advice I give to everyone. Relax. Just relax. Be nice to each other. As you go through your life, simply be kind to people. Try to help them rather than hurt them. Try to get along with them rather than fall out with them. With that, I will leave you, and with all my very best wishes.”
The essence of One Dharma is wisdom. The perfection of wisdom is the light that illuminates our lives, revealing both the causes and the end of suffering. Through mindful attention in the moment, we see the impermanent nature of phenomena and understand the happiness of nongrasping. And through nongrasping, we experience for ourselves the innate wakefulness of the wisdom mind.
It is not enough to know this conceptually or to be satisfied with just brief glimpses of insight. One teaching of the Buddha serves as a profound reminder as we live immersed in the busyness of the world: when we practice, wisdom grows; when we don’t practice, it wanes. Wisdom is not something we get and then have forever; rather, it is an understanding we need to nourish and develop in our lives. The Buddha’s way is vast, and the potential for each of us is boundless. But it is up to us to take the next step.