Teaching You Zazen 26: The Complete Classification Based on "You" and "Yours"

2008/3/1 10:46:38

Last week, using the example of Lenin's definition of matter, I illustrated that any so-called definition of this world must ultimately lead to God-like concepts. For example, if you don't say "matter," then you have to say "objective reality"; if you don't say "objective reality," you have to use some other concept. In short, this tedious game has no end, unless you turn one concept into a God-like undefined concept serving as the origin—and all of this is nothing but the tedious self-gratification of human consciousness.

What "you" can face is nothing more than what "you" are capable of facing. No person can find anything they can face that is not something they are capable of facing; conversely, what you are capable of facing must be what you can face. Your capability and its objects are all within "your" world—you are merely self-gratifying within this "your" world.

There is a type of fool in this world, bewitched by concepts and language, spinning in the maze of concepts and language, going on about this -ism and that -ism all day—and all of it cannot leave behind "you" and "yours."

So, for this "you" and "yours," all tricks of conceptual definition are useless. Here, the only viable approach is classification—complete classification.

Any classification must have a basis for classification. For the basis of classifying "you" and "yours," there is only one: your present physical body. This body, from your birth to your death, is the closest thing to you. Before any existence that can depart from the physical body can exist—or rather, unless you can enter a world completely free from all forms of physical body—this basis of classification necessarily exists in the present moment.

Note that this physical body includes what is called the mind. The split between body and mind is merely a farce of the Christian world.

So, how do "your" body and mind provide a present-moment classification principle? Eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body, and mind—these six classification bases completely encompass everything of "your" body and mind. You cannot find any part unrelated to these six.

Starting from these six bases, "your" world can be completely classified: each base can be divided into three. One is the material organ of this base, the so-called "root" (根). Another is the external phenomenon corresponding to that "root," the so-called "dust" (尘). For example, for the eye-root, all phenomena that can be reflected by the eyes are classified under so-called "eye-dust"—though it is usually not called that; the term "form" (色) is generally used. When root and dust interact, consciousness is produced. For example, when you use your eyes to look at a flower, you produce the image of the flower—this is "eye-consciousness." Of course, the production of an image generally involves the participation of mental consciousness; pure "eye-consciousness," without the practice of zazen, is generally unknown.

Therefore, for "your" world, there is this complete classification:

Eye	Ear	Nose	Tongue	Body	Mind
Form	Sound	Smell	Taste	Touch	Dharma
Eye-consciousness	Ear-consciousness	Nose-consciousness	Tongue-consciousness	Body-consciousness	Mental consciousness

These Eighteen Dhātus (十八界) form a complete classification. Any person, any present moment, anything in any "your" world cannot escape this classification and must inevitably fall within this complete classification. No one can produce a single counterexample.

Of course, for ordinary people, many of these Eighteen Dhātus are actually quite unfamiliar, or they go their entire lives without knowing them, but this does not affect anything.

This classification is a general-level classification, or, if one must use directional language, a horizontal classification.

As for the vertical classification, that is the so-called "Five Skandhas" (五蕴): form, sensation, perception, mental formations, and consciousness. But this classification is very difficult for ordinary people to understand, let alone recognize. Without the foundation of zazen practice, it is basically all conceptual speculation. One can say that we are all thrashing about within the Five Skandhas, but the realms of sensation, perception, mental formations, and consciousness are beyond ordinary people's wildest dreams. Ordinary people only thrash about in the coarser parts of the form skandha. So-called science and the like are all like this.

How high and far-reaching is this level? Let us illustrate the layers within: ordinary people live in a state of scattering. From this state to the state of the First Dhyāna, there are N quantum-like leaps. Note: the state of the First Dhyāna is not some psychological state of yours—it is an actual world-state. Our present world is a world in the state of scattering.

Our present world is like that of ants, while the world of the First Dhyāna is like that of humans. Using our present world to deny the world of the First Dhyāna is as laughable as ants denying the existence of humans. The world of the First Dhyāna naturally has entirely different physical and mathematical systems—what is so strange about that?

But the world of the First Dhyāna itself is divided into N different levels. Between different levels there are different leaps; the lower levels cannot even dream of the higher states, just as ants cannot dream of human high technology.

But these finely divided levels need not be discussed. After leaping through these subdivided levels, there is one great overall leap that brings you to the world of the Second Dhyāna. And so on, going upward—the Four Dhyānas and Eight Samāpattis, up to the realm of neither-perception-nor-non-perception—and at that point, you still have not left the perception skandha; you haven't even dreamed of the edge of the mental formations skandha.

Nowadays, frivolous people chant "the Five Skandhas are all empty" every day—that's just lip service, utterly useless. You haven't even fully dreamed of the coarser parts of the form skandha—what emptiness are you talking about?

Cultivation is not a matter of lip service. The minimum standard is to use your entire life to break through the predicament of birth and death. Moreover, even if you can transcend birth and death—that is, genuinely not be bound by birth and death—it is still not the ultimate in cultivation. That is merely a starting point.

Anyone who merely pays lip service has no qualification to discuss zazen practice. And those who truly practice zazen have no need for lip service—you face such a vast unknown world, and the coarse world you now see doesn't amount to even one part in a quintillion quintillion quintillion of it. What is there to run your mouth about?

What is most precious in this world? It is a true practitioner. This is something no emperor, sage, hero, thinker, or scientist can compare to, because the so-called world they conquered is merely the coarsest part. Cultivation is to penetrate into the deepest depths of this world.

Of course, in today's world, finding a true practitioner is surely the most difficult thing there is.

How to begin cultivation and zazen—start from this classification, start from the Eighteen Dhātus.

But hold on—Venerable One, setting aside seeing form through the eye-faculty and seeing form through the ear-faculty, how about hearing sound through the eye-faculty?

Investigate!