Sometime in the early 1970s, two Buddhist masters met in Cambridge, Massachusetts. One of them, Kalu Rinpoche, was a renowned Tibetan meditation master who had spent many years in solitary retreat in the remote mountain caves of Tibet. The other was Seung Sahn, a Korean Zen master who had recently come to the United States and was supporting himself by working in a Providence, Rhode Island, Laundromat, slowly planting the seeds of Zen in the minds of those coming to wash their clothes. At this now famous meeting of enlightened minds, Seung Sahn held up an orange and, in classic Zen dharma combat fashion, demanded, “What is this?”
Kalu Rinpoche just looked at him, wonderingly.
Again Master Seung Sahn asked, “What is this?”
Finally, Rinpoche turned to his translator and asked, “Don’t they have oranges in Korea?”
We are living in remarkable times. A genuine Western Buddhism is now taking birth. Its defining characteristic is neither an elaborate philosophical system nor an attachment to any particular sectarian viewpoint. Rather, it is a simple pragmatism that harkens back to the Buddha himself, who pointedly questioned the established tenets of ancient Indian thought. It is an allegiance to a very simple question: “What works?” What works to free the mind from suffering? What works to engender a heart of compassion? What works to awaken?
In the West, our open, diverse society acts like a magnet for different spiritual traditions, and over the past few decades many people have been turning to the wisdom of the East in search of practical and tested methods of spiritual inquiry. Because Buddhist practices rely on wise investigation rather than belief and dogma, they resonate strongly with the scientific and psychological paradigms that inform our culture.
What makes this time unique in the development of Buddhism is not only that East is meeting West, but also that isolated Asian traditions are now meeting for the first time in centuries, and they are doing so here in the West. Emerging from the fertile interaction of these ancient teachings is what we can now begin to call Western Buddhism.
Not bound by Asian cultural constraints and strengthened by a society that encourages investigation, we are willing to take what is useful and beneficial from different traditions and add it to our own practice experience. These diverse methods of cultivating wisdom and compassion enhance one another and, at the same time, challenge our familiar ways of understanding. Teachings are being tested by other points of view, not in schools of abstract philosophy, but in our own lives and meditation practices. Many of us are learning and practicing several of these different disciplines simultaneously. It is not unusual for people to list as their different teachers Tibetan Rinpoches, Burmese Sayadaws, Korean, Japanese, or Chinese Zen masters, Thai Ajahns, and Western teachers of all the various schools.
This abundance and variety of teachings in one place has not happened since the great Indian Buddhist University at Nalanda, which flourished from the fifth to the twelfth centuries. According to documented reports of travelers in those times, there were over two thousand teachers and more than ten thousand monks from all over the Buddhist world who practiced and studied there side by side. Today, although we are not all gathered on one campus, the ease of travel and communication has created a similar wealth of available teachings.
But as old traditions meet in new ways, pressing questions arise. Is the melting-pot approach simply creating a big mess in which essential teachings of a tradition are lost? Or is something new emerging that will revitalize dharma practice for us all? Will it be possible to preserve the integrity of each of these distinct cultures of awakening, even as we nurture the enrichment that comes from their contact with each other? How much of our spiritual practice and discipline is embedded in cultural overlays from the East that are neither relevant nor helpful in our Western society? And do we sometimes water down—or leave behind—the essence of the teachings simply because they take us out of our Western physical or psychological comfort zone? How much can we pare away or alter before we start missing the point of it all?
Other questions too, more personal and immediate, burned in my mind as I began to study with teachers in different traditions, who often expressed contradictory viewpoints. What do you do when two of your most respected teachers say opposite things about that which is most important to you? Which fork in the road do you take when both signposts seem to point in the right direction? As I struggled with these dilemmas, one underlying and vital question began to surface: Is there a path to liberation that embraces them all?
One Dharma explores the answer to this question. It is neither a scholarly examination of comparative Buddhism nor an exhaustive study of particular traditions; rather, it is an inquiry born from my own meditation practice and from a compelling interest in understanding—and realizing—the essence of freedom.
This exploration leads to some fundamental and thorny issues: What is the ultimate nature of the liberated mind? Is it something already here that we need to recognize, as some of the traditions suggest? Or does it have a transcendent nature quite apart from our ordinary experience? Is it the total absence of any nature at all? Is it all of these? Do different methods of meditation practice in fact lead to different ends? Or, on the path of One Dharma, is there a way of holding even opposing perspectives in a greater unity?
The investigation of these questions requires great humility. When we step outside the safe bounds of the various individual traditions, each consistent within itself, we need to acknowledge the exploratory nature of a unified theory of Dharma, continually testing it against both our experience and the teachings as they have been passed down over thousands of years.
In Buddhism there are many names for ultimate freedom: Buddha-Nature, the Unconditioned, Dharmakaya, the Unborn, the Pure Heart, Mind Essence, Nature of Mind, Ultimate Bodhicitta, Nirvana. Various Buddhist traditions give it different names, each emphasizing certain aspects of this absolute nature. Although philosophical disputes often arise because of these different perspectives—some of these issues have been debated for thousands of years—a harmonizing understanding comes when we move away from the confines of metaphysical systems or statements and enter into the world of direct experience.
Although there are references to this philosophical discussion—and even some slight speculative indulgence—the heart of this book is practice and experience, not theory: “What works to free the mind?” I draw on aspects of three Buddhist traditions (Theravada, Tibetan, and Zen) while acknowledging that not only are there other schools of Buddhism, but even within these three, there is a great variety of lineages and sects. The criteria for reference and inclusion are simply the particular passions of my own spiritual journey: a long familiarity with Theravada teachings, the profound inspiration of a few remarkable Tibetan masters, and my great appreciation of Zen Buddhism’s direct pointing to the enlightened mind.
Four basic principles, or understandings, lie at the heart of One Dharma: first, that philosophical concepts are only descriptions of experience, and not the experience itself; second, that mindfulness, compassion, and wisdom weave together as the essential strands of a nonsectarian path of practice; third, that what is called in Buddhism “the two truths”—the relative and ultimate perspectives of reality—together provide a framework for holding divergent points of view; and, last, that the mind of nongrasping is the essential unifying experience of freedom.
I begin, in Chapter 1, with an introduction to the meaning of One Dharma. This is followed, in Chapter 2, by a brief historical overview of early Buddhism, which highlights just a few of the issues that spawned the great profusion of different traditions. This chapter simply touches on a complex and intricate history that many scholarly books examine in great detail. It is included, though, to ground the understanding of the great movements of Buddhism in the context of their times and to draw parallels to the issues facing us today. Chapters 3–4 examine the mind-changing reflections that first bring us to the Dharma and the faith and confidence that sustain us. These are common themes in all three schools.
In the next section, Chapters 5–7 lay the foundation for the entire path of One Dharma. They are an elaboration on “the teachings of all the Buddhas,” a verse from the Dhammapada, one of the treasured books in the Theravada tradition. Then, in Chapters 8–9, teachings from the different schools on bodhicitta, lovingkindness, and compassion are introduced, helping to widen the perspective of our journey. And finally, in Chapters 10–12, we see great masters from all the traditions point to the essence of the liberated mind. The temple bells of Theravada, the wooden clapper of Zen, and the long horns of Vajrayana all awaken us to ultimate freedom.
Although this outline appears very orderly, all along the way elements of the different schools weave in and out of the story. All the traditions are complete in themselves, but each one also brings a unique perspective, emphasis, and inspiration that illuminate the others in some unexpected ways. At times, Theravada discourses complement and elaborate Zen understandings. And Zen teachings sometimes resonate most deeply with profound Tibetan practices. Fundamental differences between the schools also rise up into view, and I explore the possibilities of holding them in a larger and more unified context.
My intention is twofold. First, it is to leave readers with a path of practice that integrates various teachings and methods of these several traditions—from the first steps of entering the path to the transformative experience of sudden awakening. And second, it is to show that, beneath the differences of method and philosophy, there is a deep common vein of liberating wisdom that runs through all the lineages of Buddhism. Increased mutual understanding is slowly creating the rich and subtle tapestry of One Dharma.
The implications of One Dharma for both Buddhism and our own culture are enormous. A wise cross-fertilization of spiritual practices can only deepen and broaden our understanding. It will foster not only tolerance, but also genuine respect and unity, as we each find from the great treasure-house of Dharma those teachings that benefit both ourselves and others. One Dharma is, of course, in the very beginning stages. Someone once asked an Asian teacher what Western Buddhism will be like. He replied, “We’ll know in a couple of hundred years.”
A FEW WORDS ARE NEEDED HERE TO EXPLAIN THE USE OF Pali and Sanskrit terms. Pali derives from the vernacular languages of Northern India at the time of the Buddha and the following few centuries (between the sixth and third centuries B.C.E.). Sanskrit was both the sacred and the literary language of ancient India. Because the Buddha believed that the Dharma should be taught in ways that even the simplest people could understand, he gave his discourses in Pali. The Theravada teachings have been preserved in this language, and this body of literature is usually referred to as the Pali canon.
As Buddhism evolved over the centuries, teachings and discourses from the later schools were written in Sanskrit, and many of the Buddhist terms we are most familiar with today are in this language. The two languages are closely related, as you can see from these pairs of Sanskrit and Pali terms: dharmal dhamma, sutra/sutta, bodhisattva/bodhisatta, nirvana/nibbana. For ease of recognition, I have used the more familiar Sanskrit forms, except when quoting or referring to Pali texts. A few times you may see both forms on the same page.