UnMind 23. Heart Sutra Quartet 3: Nothing to Attain

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Nothing to attain!
Oh, what a relief it is —
this no-attainment

The third section of the Heart Sutra begins with the declaration that, although we speak of the difficulty of achieving the spiritual awakening of the Buddha, it finally cannot be an attainment:

With nothing to attain, a bodhisattva relies on prajna paramita

So what is this “prajna paramita” upon which the bodhisattva relies, in the absence of any such attainment? First we should recall that “bodhisattva” means “being,” the sattva part, and “awakening” or “enlightening,” the bodhi part. Presumably a human being, as other sentient beings are not considered capable of this process, owing to causes and conditions of their level of awareness; and awakening preferable to enlightenment, as it is a gerund form of noun, meaning it functions as a verb, an ongoing process. A bodhisattva is then anyone on the path to awakening, as was Buddha before his profound insight. You and I, all human beings, are on this path, whether we know it or not. Those who admit to it are bodhisattvas, no matter the degree or depth of insight they may evince at present.

“Prajna paramita” is often translated as “perfection of wisdom,” for which, again, and for similar reasons, “perfecting” is preferable, indicating an ongoing process rather than a state of existence. And wisdom is recognized as a result of practicing or perfecting the other five paramitas — namely generosity or charity, precepts (ethics or morality), patience or forbearance, effort or energy, and lastly concentration or contemplation (we usually call meditation) — rather than regarding wisdom as an isolate that can be developed separately, or gained by sudden insight, a change of perspective. Would it were that easy.

So this emphasis on process, rather than attainment, is intrinsic to the open-ended, long-term nature of Buddhism’s worldview and the practice of Zen, particularly its meditation. We practice zazen in the midst of the chaos of our everyday world without the additional burden of any expectation that we will attain some special, out-of-the-ordinary reward, called “enlightenment.” We are all enlightened, in that we have recognized the Dharma and are focusing our attention on it. That we are practicing Zen Buddhism at all is proof positive of this prosaic meaning — even though it is not yet Buddha’s awakening — much like the common cultural meme of enlightened self-interest. This distinction is necessary to embrace the idea that awakening itself is not something that we can do intentionally, but the natural result of a process that can come to fruition.

The sutra goes on to clarify:

and thus the mind is without hindrance — without hindrance, there is no fear

Along with setting aside the hindrance of the idea of attainment, all such expectations of something positive — and their doppelgängers, fear of negative developments — are cleared from the mind. This is the monkey mind of fame, the mind that imagined expectations of something to gain, or attain, in the first place.

As with most Buddhist teachings, the traditional view of what constitutes a hindrance to the clear mind organizes them into a set, and enumerates them as a mnemonic for purposes of memorization. Remember, these teaching were not written down, but only spoken, for the first four centuries or so of their propagation. The classic hindrances, like the skandhas, are five in number: sensory desire or pursuit of pleasure; ill will toward others, sloth, or torpor, particularly in the pursuit of one’s meditation practice; restlessness or worry, which today we call anxiety; and doubt, particularly insidious doubt directed toward the Buddhist teachings themselves.

Because fear finds its provenance in doubt, the sutra assures us that we will become fearless, especially in pursuit of awakening, and in the face of the circumstances of our daily lives, even when elevated to klaxon levels of pandemic and resulting panic. Worst case scenarios include panic attack, which often has no identifiable proximate cause, but feels life-threatening nonetheless.

But we should keep in mind that doubt is not a bad thing in Zen. In fact, keeping one’s doubt at a keen edge is one of the ancient admonitions in Zen. Like sharpening the sword of Manjusri, in order to cut through all delusion, relatively petty doubts, such as regards our own understanding of this difficult teaching, are nurtured, and allowed to grow, until they accumulate to the level of Great Doubt, in which our entire existence is called into question. The universe becomes just one big question-mark. Then, the resolution of this koan of reality will be commensurate in scale. All minor doubts can be resolved only if and when the central, fundamental doubt of not-knowing is embraced and transcended.

far beyond all inverted views, one realizes nirvana

Further, the sutra assures us, this resolution clarifies all of our views up till now to be inverted, or in the charming phrase of the original translation I learned, “topsy-turvy.”

The jargon term, “nirvana,” here is not capitalized, which helps to normalize it, as simply the worldview that one develops through this process of embracing the ambiguity of an attainment in which nothing is really attained. Getting beyond what is between us and the clarity of Zen’s take on reality is a matter of seeing this nothing that is to be attained, revealing the true source of our anxieties, doubts, hindrances and fears, and learning to live with them. Buddhism is not about avoiding suffering. Zen is about embracing it. Zazen is what to do about it. Sit with it. It is your best friend, and means you no harm.

The next bit is a bit like the “Thus have I heard” intro to all sutras. The messenger wants to assure us of the validity and historicity of the message to follow. We are not making this up:

All buddhas of past present and future rely on prajna paramita

Any so-called buddha worthy of the name emerges from the swamp of human existence by virtue of their reliance on the perfecting of wisdom, and no other process will result in the same, authentic credentialing. This cannot be gotten at through learning, intelligence, erudition or scholarship, and is not something you can glean from the leavings of others. Everyone climbing the Zen mountain has to climb all the way from the bottom to the top. And more difficult, perhaps, all the way back down. Otherwise, without re-entering the fray, all of that effort was for naught. In the beginning, the middle, and the end, the bodhisattva relies on perfecting the process of practice leading to wisdom, and the buddha, the awakened one, is at one and the same time the manifestation and the continuation of this same process. There is no end to it, and actually, there was never any beginning. It is buddha seeking buddha from womb to tomb and beyond, from time immemorial and endlessly into the fog of the future.

This section closes with a seeming contradiction:

and thereby attain unsurpassed, complete, perfect enlightenment

So, now you tell me! What is attained in unattainment is unsurpassed, complete and perfect enlightenment — in Sanskrit anuttara samyak sambodhi — another jargon term bandied about, as if we cognoscenti know what it means, and you hoi polloi don’t. Don’t be fooled. Even Buddha did not know the entire meaning of his experience. But that did not stop him from attempting to share it with others. Notoriously, there were those in his times that did not get it, refused to listen, insisted on arguing, even tried to assassinate him, if you believe the story. But I think we are left with this ambiguity, that while this is no attainment — nothing to see here, just keep moving along — at the same time, it is the only worthwhile thing to aspire to, in spite of the slings and arrows, disparagement and disrespect from others, that pursuit of awakening may bring down upon our heads. Throw the words away, and pay attention to the reality to which they are pointing. Then all will be well with you. Let nothing stop you, because nothing but yourself can stop you.