As you practice meditation, your prajna begins to be sharpened. You are beginning to develop discriminating knowledge, and you are able to distinguish one dharma from another. It is like growing a baby in your body: as a fetus grows, it begins to react to what is other than itself. Your prajna begins to react that way too, distinguishing prajna from non-prajna. You find that when you develop mindfulness fully and properly, looking at the sun is much brighter, and food is much more tasty. It is not that your food tastes good or bad particularly, it is just more tasty. Walking, wearing clothes, and conducting yourself in ordinary life, you begin to realize that things have sharpened as a result of mindfulness practice.
At the same time, you begin to feel free from forgetfulness, because in dealing with the present, you experience the past as vivid and the future as clear. Because of that, the present situation has no fear. You have a perfect idea of how your future is going to be. For instance, you know that in the future your house is going to fall apart and all the systems are going to break down. You know it is either going to be sold or become a part of the landscape. It is quite simple, not particularly magical.
THE SWORD OF PRAJNA
Prajna enables you to cut through your early kleshas, which are known in the abhidharma, or teachings on Buddhist psychology, as mental events. With a tremendous sense of mindfulness, you begin to develop awareness as well. You acquire a sword at the shamatha level, quite a sharp one. At the vipashyana level, you acquire further knowledge so that in case that sword is corrupted, you know how to sharpen it again. The blade of this particular sword has two edges: it cuts both yourself and other. You begin to realize that you can actually cut the frigidity and fickleness of your own existence, the sense of individuality that you hold so dear and cherish so lovingly. You have been accustomed to it for so long that you would like to hold on to that “I,” or ego. I was quite amused to see the New Hampshire license plate, which says Live Free or Die. We have been looking for freedom by proclaiming our imprisonment, by wallowing in a state of existence rather than a state of freedom.
That which we cling to, hang on to, that very core, is what is cut by the double-edged blade of the sword of prajna. It is cut not in suicidal terms, but from the point of view of delight. There is delight in the sense that impurity has been purified. There is a gooeyness or dirtiness that we usually have in our attitude toward ourselves as “me.” We feel that we have to put up with ourselves, try to get along with ourselves, although there will be occasional embarrassing corners and deep pools of all kinds. Sometimes we are decorated with jewels, perfume, silk, or satin; nevertheless, we basically have a cheap notion of ourselves. That problematic view of ourselves is cut through by one side of the blade. And having cut through that, having destroyed it, we begin to develop an appreciation of ourselves. We replace that sense of cheapness with delight. Prajna, elegant and arrogant, begins to happen.
Having struck with one side of the blade, we then strike our sword in the other direction. We begin to realize that the outside world we are creating is precisely the same as that which we are creating in ourselves. So we begin to strike the other side and cut the outer world, or the relative situation, as well. This happens very naturally.
Having cut with both sides of the blade, we experience shunyata. We begin to realize the absence of fixations and clinging, the absence of random labeling and samsaric perception, or küntak. We find that we are without küntak, or false conceptions, all along. No küntak here, no küntak there, no küntak everywhere.3
THREE PRAJNAS
Prajna is divided into three sections: mundane prajna, prajna that transcends worldliness, and prajna that transcends dharmas.
Mundane Prajna
The first prajna is called mundane prajna, or common prajna. Common prajna is shared by theists and nontheists alike. According to tradition, you are supposed to learn how to read and write and how to think properly. You are supposed to learn mathematics and science and how to conduct yourself in the ordinary world. Having that kind of sophistication seems to be a requirement from the point of view of prajna. In other words, you cannot say, “I am just a simple yogi, practicing my own way. I do not have to learn how to put a stamp on my mail or how to put the zip code on somebody’s address.” If you shrink to that level, there is no prajna and there is no upaya either. Conducting yourself with some kind of intelligence and sophistication in your state of mind is necessary and important. You might have an idea that this kind of learning is a dead end, but it is not. On the nontheistic path, you realize that if you know how to go about your business in ordinary situations, it inspires further inquisitiveness. You want to learn more, to find out more. You are not intimidated by your world, so you can go beyond it and explore further.
Fundamentally speaking, mundane prajna is just an ordinary education. You learn to appreciate the arts, medicine, philology, and philosophy. That kind of education is very important, particularly if you are going to be a spokesperson for the buddhadharma in the future. If you are going to help people, you yourself have to be somewhat educated and learned. The point is not just to become qualified for your own sake, but also for the sake of liberating others. You do not have to be learned in everything, but at least you should be familiar with one area of learning. The Buddha was brought up as Prince Siddhartha, and he had to study and learn all kinds of technical and secular knowledge before he set out to become the Buddha.
Even your table manners are important. You learn how to eat properly and how to dress nicely, in accordance with social norms. You learn how to speak properly, and how to write and behave properly. You learn how to be good at doing things, purely by paying attention to reality. Mundane prajna deals with the basics: you learn how to be a good person, an artful person.
Prajna That Transcends Worldliness
The second level of prajna is prajna that transcends worldliness. This type of prajna is related with your understanding of the dharma. You are learning, you are contemplating what you have learned, and you are trying to practice what you have learned. Prajna is able to transcend worldliness by seeing through the ego of self. You understand the beginning, the middle, and the end of the teachings of dharma. The whole thing is understood.4
Prajna That Transcends Dharmas
The third type of prajna, superior prajna, is the prajna that transcends dharmas. At this level of prajna, you realize that all the dharmas you experience are unborn and unoriginated. Dharmas are free from dualism and free from theistic concepts. They have no origin, they just arise. Therefore you begin to see that there is no point in hanging on to them. Through superior prajna, you begin to realize that there is nothing to dwell on. You are not lost in nowhere, but you are unable to dwell or to label yourself. If you say, “I am Joe Schmidt,” where is this Joe Schmidt? Is he the name of the form, the feeling, the concept—the name of any of the skandhas? What was Joe Schmidt in the past? Who is he in the present? Who will he be in the future? When you examine and dissect the existence of Joe Schmidt, you find that there is no Joe Schmidt at all. You begin to wonder whether you exist or not. That is the state of egolessness.
There is nothing that you, personally, can actually pinpoint as “I am,” yet a general sense of cognition occurs. Cognition is like clear light; it is brilliant light shining through. Beyond that cognition, or basic consciousness, there is nothing at all. This is not a negation of existence, and it is certainly not an attitude of eternalism either. Instead, there is a sense that when you sit and meditate and follow your breath, you find that there is actually no one doing that, yet there is a process taking place.
Basically speaking, when you say “I am,” you begin to ask yourself the question, “Who said that?” You might say, “I said that.” But then you ask, “Who are you?” And when you look, you find it is very difficult to find out who that actually is. You might timidly come back to saying your name, thinking that this is who is speaking, but beyond the name that was given to you, nothing really exists. You may
think that you exist because your name is so-and-so, or because your driver’s license says so-and-so. But if you look beyond such things, and beyond beyond, you find that there is no substance. That is ultimate prajna: it is the discovery of egolessness, which frees you from fixation.
Ultimate prajna allows you to examine other things in the same way. You can look at people, or you can look at the phenomenal world. When you look at the phenomenal world, you see that although the phenomenal world does exist, it is a composite of many things. Therefore it does not exist as a single entity, as one thing. If you look closely and thoroughly, by means of the steadiness of mind of the meditation paramita, together with the wisdom of the prajna paramita, you see that the soul that theistic traditions talk about does not exist. By examining yourself again and again in that way, you find that there is no substantial “me.”
This particular message of the Buddha is supposed to have caused tremendous fear among the arhats and students of the time. It is said that many of the great arhats had heart attacks and died on the spot when the Buddha began to teach things like the Heart Sutra, shunyata, and egolessness. Obviously, the egolessness seen by prajna paramita was a breakthrough of some kind in the teachings of the Buddha. It is essential to understand.
SUPERIOR PRAJNA AND TWOFOLD EGOLESSNESS. This type of prajna is based on the experience of the twofold egolessness of self and of other, and on the understanding of the two veils of conflicting emotions and primitive beliefs about reality. It begins by realizing the egolessness of self. Finally, your prajna begins to see through that game. You begin to realize that ego is a nuisance, and you see that the ego of self is sophistry, a big joke.
You have developed twofold ego purely by assuming that there is this; therefore there should be that as well. And ironically, when you realize the existence of that, you use that to further confirm this. By throwing yourself back and forth in that way, and by means of neurosis and wishful thinking, you have developed the ego of self. Prajna cuts through that ego of self. You realize that the game you have been playing is absurd. You are lonely, you want company, so you recruit something—the other, the world—and you have been doing that for a long time. Once you have convinced yourself that you exist, you begin to recruit the other. You develop a system of reference points: that is good because this feels bad; or this feels bad, therefore that is good; or this feels good, therefore that is good as well.
You begin to develop numerous systems of stabilizing your fixation and holding on to things by re-creating reference points. It is like setting up an echo chamber. But soon it is no longer purely an echo chamber, because you begin to stabilize your reference points. You tape-record them, and you make photographs of them: stills, slides, and movies. You begin to make your world into a monument, create a “real” record of the whole thing. You take so much pride in it. You try to hang on to your reference points so much that sometimes the whole thing becomes revolting to you, and you begin to think that maybe it isn’t a good idea. But what else can you do? It might not be a good idea, but it is comfortable and predictable. You have been fixated on such reference points—and prajna begins to see through all of that.
At the first level, ego of self, you have both yourself and the other already. At the second level of ego, ego of dharmas, you and the other are in cahoots. You and the other begin to make up schemes: “Since we are here together, what shall we do now?” You and the other begin to develop policies, rather than just discovering that. You have discovered that already. You cannot discover the ego of self without having that, otherwise it doesn’t work. You have to have a reference point in order to have “me.” When you cut one-and-a-half-fold ego, there is no ego of this or ego of that, but there is still the ego of this and that together. There is still the scheme.5
Schemes are more solid than this and that. Schemes are our defense mechanism. That is why bodhisattvas of the highest level still have to overcome that scheming, which is the last stain of ego. It is like a bottle that once contained musk: you can still smell the musk although there is none left. In the same way, the smell of ego-schemes hangs on for a long time.
The original logic of “I” and “other” is not all that solid, but together the two create this world, which becomes more and more solid. That solidity is more like having a thick skin than having an actual, solid body. The outer layer is much more solid than the constituents of what is inside. You begin to see that you are not anything tangible, and that there is no substantiality to anything. Having realized the egolessness of self, you begin to realize the egolessness of dharmas.
First, prajna sees through the ego of self, which does not actually exist. Beyond that, the ego of self tries to find its mythical mate, known as the “other.” Then you and your mate go on to the ego of dharmas. You and your mate begin to name everything, one thing after another. You are confident in your own confusion and frivolity. That is how you build the whole world. And it is prajna that actually cuts through that particular situation.
Prajna sees things clearly. You have no room to dwell on anything. Prajna actually makes you homeless. The previous paramitas might still leave some reference point, but prajna cuts through the whole thing. With prajna, the idea of you practicing the dharma and gaining results is seen as hocus-pocus. Prajna says, “No. You cannot attain anything or gain anything because you do not have ‘it’ or ‘you’ at all.” This makes you see things in an entirely new light.
APPLYING THE BIGGER MIND OF PRAJNA. The egolessness of prajna is good background for practicing the rest of the paramitas. If you practice generosity with a sense of nonexistence, your generosity has no giver and no receiver; therefore, your gift is a pure gift. The same is true for discipline: since there is nothing or no one to discipline, discipline just dawns in you, so you are naturally disciplined. In the practice of patience, there is nothing to be angry about, so anger goes away naturally. With exertion, the joy of action and practice becomes natural because there is no one to pull you down and no one to be depressed. In the paramita of meditation, or shamatha-vipashyana discipline, there is nobody trying to accomplish or achieve anything, so meditation is effortless.
From the point of view of ego, the practices of the hinayana and mahayana may seem to be a form of imprisonment. If you are simply practicing the first five paramitas, you might feel that you are imprisoning yourself in little pigeonholes. If you do not cultivate the bigger mind of prajna, you may be imprisoning yourself by trying to be good at exertion, good at patience, good at generosity, good at discipline, and so forth. But with prajna paramita, nothing in these practices imprisons you. In the competitive world, you try to achieve, but through prajna paramita you begin to experience a larger world. In that larger space, nobody really needs to struggle. Struggles become just little ripples in the water. In fact, they go away completely.
Superior prajna is one of the most important aspects of practice. It is an eye-opener. Because of it, you can also practice mundane prajna. You can learn such things as art, poetry, drama, grammar, and philosophy, because there is no mental blockage; there is nothing but pure open space. You realize that all dharmas, all existence, and all the things that you examine in your mind are fundamentally insubstantial. They are not just insubstantial simply in the sense of being impermanent, but they are always insubstantial. Whether or not they go away, whether they die or live, they are insubstantial. Right at this very moment there is clarity and a wide view. That is why this is known as the mahayana, the greater vehicle. It is greater because it does not try to cling to any primitive beliefs in solidity.
TRANSFORMATION AND COMPASSION
With prajna paramita, you are getting somewhere. You are not just going to stay here as good old Joe Schmidt for the rest of your life. Instead, you are going to transform yourself, change yourself, go a little bit beyond. Going beyond is delightful, although there may not be anyone to congratulate you, or receive you, or take care of you on the journey. It is your own journey, a journey of your state of
being, rather than one in which you are trying to go somewhere else. Therefore, egolessness, or shunyata experience, is very important.
Prajna can discriminate every detail and particle of the world’s existence, because the process and processor are never stuck in a biased state of existence. Because there is no doer and nothing is being done, you are able to examine the entire world. Therefore, you can do the best research of all. Otherwise, if you get stuck in a particular philosophical bias or logic, if you believe in a particular axiom, and then conduct yourself according to that particular metaphor, you try to bring everything in line with your beliefs and ideas. When you do that, you lose that bigger reference point. You keep so much under your feet that you begin to lose the many other things that you haven’t even examined. You just look down, rather than looking at everything altogether, inside and out, everywhere, all over the place. When there is no looker or no searcher, everything is fluid. Everything is seen, experienced, understood, and realized. That is a basic and very primitive explanation of prajna paramita.
It is important to understand that Buddhism altogether, particularly mahayana Buddhism, is based on this theory of egolessness. We should not even call it a theory. It is nonexistence, nonlogic; therefore, it transcends all logic. According to Nagarjuna and to madhyamaka logic, if you do not claim anything, you are victorious. As soon as you begin to make a claim, you are making yourself into a target. Therefore, you could get hurt or be left behind. That seems to be the basic point of prajna, which is quite a mindful.
The Bodhisattva Path of Wisdom and Compassion Page 30
