Teaching You Zazen 7: Ghosts, Spirits, Supernatural Powers, and Extraordinary Phenomena
2007/9/8 15:24:51
Ever since last week's post about how participating in the market right now is like walking on a knife's edge got over 300,000 clicks, that music-hosting website seems to have been crippled too. In short, it's been down all week, so no more music concerts, and previously uploaded content can't be downloaded either.
This ID has said before — there's really no need for so many people to come here. If coming here puts you in a bad mood and constantly aggravates you, you might as well not come. Even more absurd is that with more visitors, people wanting this ID to become a special invitee for ad testing have shown up too. This ID has no desire to have a pile of ads pop up with every click, so fewer people is better — fewer people means ads won't come bother this ID either, and everyone stays peaceful.
A declaration must now be made: if the ad network here insists on dragging this ID's space into their alliance, that is absolutely not this ID's idea, and this ID will not accept any advertising fees. But if ads suddenly get attached here in the future, it definitely wasn't this ID's doing, and this ID will absolutely not benefit from it in any way.
All crows are crows everywhere you go. Go to other places, and sooner or later you'll be harassed by things like ads too. Others spend money to set up venues, and profiting from them is perfectly natural. This ID relinquishes all rights to advertising revenue related to this blog — no share of any kind is wanted — as long as this ID is not harassed and the blog can operate normally, that's sufficient.
Speaking of zazen, it's impossible to avoid discussing ghosts, spirits, supernatural powers, and such nonsense. There isn't really much to discuss about this topic. Especially in modern times, those who claim to see ghosts and spirits or to possess supernatural powers are basically either grandstanding fraudsters or neurotic babblers. If principle is not understood, how can the matter be clear? As for those who categorically declare there are no ghosts, spirits, or supernatural powers — they're just like those who declare the speed of light cannot be surpassed: measuring the infinite expanse of the world through their own speculation.
Whether or not ghosts, spirits, and supernatural powers exist — if you haven't personally experimented to find out, then please maintain an attitude of open doubt. Don't act like you're God — does the existence or non-existence of the world depend on your preferences and judgments?
Here, we won't discuss whether ghosts, spirits, and supernatural powers exist, because this is something that requires personal verification. Moreover, it's something that can be repeatedly verified like a scientific experiment — the only question is whether you can reach the level required by the experiment. For example, if your zazen can reach the level of, say, the Fourth Dhyana, then the question of ghosts, spirits, and supernatural powers becomes an absolute, directly confirmable matter — just like verifying whether the sun exists right now. Otherwise, it's like asking a blind person without any sensation, a vegetative patient, to verify the existence of the sun — how could they?
How does one reach the level of the Fourth Dhyana? This is a rigorous experimental procedure that can be followed step by step. Anyone who follows the procedure, through varying periods of practice, can reach it. In ancient times, let alone the Fourth Dhyana, even the Cessation of Perception and Feeling was reached by many people. But now, in this era of rampant materialism, finding even one person who has achieved coarse stability is no simple matter.
Here we'll only say: if ghosts, spirits, and supernatural powers truly exist, then what exactly are they?
For a person who cannot eat with their mouth, eating with one's mouth would surely be one of the greatest supernatural powers. In a world where everyone can casually walk through walls, a person who cannot walk through walls would surely be one of the greatest possessors of supernatural powers. Our world is one of segmented consumption — even vegetarians are no different in this regard. So, does there exist somewhere in the universe a world where beings feed on fragrance? Or feed on thought itself? Where beings think a thought when hungry and become full? And there may be beings who feed on various nightmares, on fire, on vital essence and blood.
Furthermore, in our current world, everyone's body is what we call solid matter. Yet in the infinite worlds, some beings have bodies made of imagination — they possess forms and structures unimaginable to present-day humans. Their bodies are gaseous, liquid, light, electron streams, negative matter, or even not composed of any elementary particles known to our world. In their worlds, they have their own physical systems, completely different from ours.
Well then, from the perspective of present-day humanity, these beings are gods or ghosts. Their bodies and worlds may be material, may be non-material, may not be constituted by any specific material form currently known to our world. An even more important question is that their existence is not necessarily within our current universe. If you believe in the so-called Big Bang, then their universe and this universe supposedly born from the Big Bang are fundamentally not the same thing. Yet it's possible that their universe has a kind of interacting relationship with our current universe on the space-time level — even the most intimate kind of relationship, where their universe is the mirror image or anti-mirror image of ours.
Here, you can exhaust your imagination. You can even imagine that our universe has a mechanism, and the opening of this mechanism is all living beings themselves. All living beings are the exits of the universe. Through the death of these beings, humans can exit into another world. This exit mechanism has not yet been grasped by our science, because it is non-physical in nature. To believe that all secrets of this universe must be physical — probably no serious physicist of any kind would have such God-like arrogance.
Well then, no matter how you imagine it, no matter how bizarre your supernatural powers or ghosts and spirits may be, none of it escapes one point: any shared realm is nothing but the result of shared karma. So-called supernatural powers, ghosts, and spirits are merely the product of the shared karma that enables them. Supernatural powers, ghosts, and spirits are all merely created by their respective karmic forces. When the karmic force is exhausted, the show is over.
There is nothing extraordinary about supernatural powers, ghosts, or spirits. When a celestial being's karmic force runs out, that celestial being can become human or turn into a ghost. When the karmic force of supernatural powers is exhausted and the conditions and causes dissipate, the farce of supernatural powers is over.
Worldly people cling to supernatural powers, ghosts, and spirits simply because their thieving hearts refuse to die. As for those who want to achieve eternal heaven through the power of some God, that's even more delirious nonsense. Because thieving hearts refuse to die, they revolve through endless kalpas of samsara, bobbing up and down in the ocean of birth and death.
In fact, science is humanity's shared karma, and also one of humanity's supernatural powers. One gram of medicine can simultaneously kill all living beings — is that supernatural enough? N mushroom clouds can destroy the Earth — is that supernatural enough? But it's useless. Even if the human species, these ants, crawl across the entire Milky Way and the entire so-called universe after N years, they still cannot escape their karma.
Ants regard everything within their line of sight as the entirety of the world — but actually, it might just be a small mound of dirt. Humans regard the universe within their line of sight as everything — but actually, it might just be an illusion of shared karma.
Anyone who pursues supernatural powers, ghosts, and spirits is merely performing the farce of a thieving heart that refuses to die. If this principle is not understood, the endeavor will surely be delusional.
As for the so-called extraordinary phenomena that may appear during zazen and similar practices, they are even less worth clinging to. Moreover, these phenomena will be received by anyone — just as with your radio, when you tune to that frequency, the sound naturally comes through.
All phenomena do not depart from the six consciousnesses. The following phenomena were all experienced by this ID over ten years ago, and any person who reaches that stage will experience them.
For example:
I. Strange objects in the air.
First, you must confirm your eyes aren't diseased — if your eyes are diseased, naturally everything looks strange. Second, when you see these things, you're fundamentally not seeing them with your eyes, because whether eyes are open or closed, you can see them. Finally, and most simply, you can communicate with those strange things.
- Certain figures or beings
It might be a Daoist figure, or some strange entity. It might hover about a foot before your forehead. You can see it at any time — whether you're eating, sleeping, watching TV, playing, having a fling, etc. That thing may be there. Of course, when you're doing other things, you might not notice it, just like a vase that may be right there but you don't necessarily notice it — yet the moment you want to see it, you see it. When you're free, you can even communicate with it. Of course, speaking with it doesn't require actually talking out loud — whatever you ask in your mind, it will tell you.
Note: toward such things, you absolutely must pay no attention and remain indifferent. As the saying goes, encountering demons, slay demons; encountering Buddhas, slay Buddhas. You must not cling to any form, appearance, or sound. Especially — these things all have peculiar attributes, and you absolutely must not exploit them to do certain things. Planting such evil causes means repaying the debt for ten thousand lifetimes, with liberation indefinitely postponed.
- Certain strange non-living structures or substances
These substances have forms absolutely unlike ordinary material forms — they exist on the boundary between form and formlessness. Some are like the shape of the sun with an energy-reflecting nucleus at the center; some are like wheels, some like long serpents — their forms are endlessly bizarre. These things can be seen whether eyes are open or closed. Fundamentally, they're not seen with the eyes. Initially, you might only see them in lit places; later, you can see them in complete darkness. If you take these things to be real, then this world and yourself become like mere illusions.
These things can interact with the human body, but for most people, they pass through like a knife cutting water. This ID is not speaking nonsense, because over ten years ago, this ID allowed one of them to interact with this ID. That afternoon, this ID suddenly had the interest to conduct an experiment — at the time, the outcome was unknown. This ID summoned tremendous resolve, absolutely with the determination to explore the Way at the risk of death.
One of these things — this ID allowed it to enter through a certain point in the center of this ID's forehead. The moment it entered, inside this ID's body it was as though a nuclear explosion began. First came an intense burst of light — the brightness of that light left a deep impression lasting several years afterward. Then every meridian system in the body was completely activated. This ID was as if pinned in place, unable to move. But the mind was extraordinarily clear — everything that occurred was in full waking awareness.
Later, after this thing's energy had forced open countless joints in this ID's body, it gradually subsided, and this ID could finally move again. This process took about half an hour or so — the exact time is hard to say, because when encountering such a thing, even with this ID's relatively strong psychological resilience, checking the time was the last concern.
Note: these things, while possessing strange qualities, don't warrant any intimate contact. None of this is the ultimate ground. Playing around is fine, but becoming obsessed with it leads to the same fate as being trapped for ten thousand kalpas with no return.
II. The world seems to vanish.
Those things above, whether living or non-living, all involve perceiving their forms within the world. But once the timing is ripe, you can see the other side of the world.
The first time this ID encountered this kind of situation was also more than ten years ago. That time was at night — this ID was in zazen. This time it began with the ears. A stream of energy (this word may not be strictly accurate, but there's no better one) came from distant interstellar space, passing through the ears.
Then, the entire body suddenly seemed to vanish. Eyes, ears, nose, body, the room, the universe — everything seemed to disappear all at once. There was only a lucid awareness there. The entire universe was in a blue light that penetrated everything. This blue light was not seen with the eyes — it was merely a direct response of awareness. Moreover, at that moment, awareness itself was completely stunned — there was only that decidedly non-worldly blue light. To be accurate, "blue light" is only a metaphor. Outside that state, human language is fundamentally incapable of describing it.
Much later, this ID wrote a line in a regulated verse poem: "Lapis lazuli purity, a universe without dust" (琉璃碧净宇无尘). Though it wasn't written specifically about this event, using it to describe that scene may be slightly more accurate than "blue light."
In that state, there was no time or space, yet awareness was clear. But that awareness was completely unlike the awareness produced under the brain's function, because at that time, the body and such things were as if they didn't exist at all. That awareness was simply floating in this blue light.
This phenomenon is even more harmful than things with form — once craving arises, you're drawn in. Form and formlessness, light and lightlessness, purity and pollution, movement and stillness — all are nothing but flowers in diseased eyes. At that time, this ID raised right mindfulness and resolutely refused to follow along. Slowly, awareness was able to become aware of itself again, then gradually extricated itself from the blue light, as if re-entering the world. Then the room, the body, and so forth were re-formed as images.
This process has one benefit: you can most lucidly experience how your six consciousnesses gradually function, how the six consciousnesses, six sense organs, and six sense objects mutually arise and intertwine, what the relationship between your awareness and your brain is, what the relationship between your visual consciousness and your visual system is. These things absolutely cannot be figured out by so-called scientific experiments. Researching human consciousness by studying a corpse's skull? Measuring so-called brainwaves to study human consciousness? This doesn't even rise to the level of blind men feeling an elephant.
Note: the above is only a rough division of initial situations one may encounter during zazen into three categories. All three categories are things that lead you astray. However, modern people's hearts are too soft. Generally, they only play around with this chi moving here, that essence rising there — spinning in circles inside their physical shell. The chances of actually encountering these three categories may be slim. But should you truly encounter them, you absolutely must not cling to them with craving. As for ghosts, spirits, supernatural powers, and such — you must cling to them even less.
When the strange is greeted without alarm, the strangeness defeats itself.