Yanas

The topic of "yanas" has been relevant to me lately, in the way I'll describe below.

I remember listening to a talk given by Alan Watts where he described a "yana" as being like a raft one uses to get from one shore to another. The idea was that once you get to the other shore, you don't need to carry the raft around on your back. You can leave it behind and get on with your life. I used to like this idea quite a bit, because I held a more transcendent view about what practice was supposed to be about.

However, the more my view aligns with one where emptiness and form are nondual, the idea of reaching another shore that transcends this reality is pointless. Awakening is each moment in this view, since emptiness and form are never actually separate. This has caused my understanding of "yana" to change significantly.

If a yana is a vehicle, and the destination is here, than a yana can be none other than what directs our awareness to notice what is happening right now, as present experiencing. One yana can be exchanged for another based on its utility for keeping us present and seeing things clearly. But it's not as though we actually reach another shore and then decide no longer to practice a yana. On the contrary, once we open up to naked, unconditioned wakefulness, than being with THAT is our yana. In other words, practice never stops, and there will always be some form of yana to practice.

Interesting, eh? I'm curious to know whether any of you have similar or contrary views.

The problem, for me, with these kind of views, is that they seem to simply reflect whatever I'm working out or not working out. During periods where life's just trundling along and there's some minor day to day knot-untangling going on but nothing huge - attention paid, but not overwhelming - I might tend to think "this is just what awakening is, endless little untanglings and a kind of normal life; people who talk about perfection, endings, trajectories are just mythologizing."

But when I'm in a really heavy dark-night-like period, where applying practice doesn't even seem relevant (like trying to light matches in a storm), my "worldview" tends to shift to thinking this process is definitely cyclical, because here I am repeating verbatim my howls of terror and frustration from that one time last year, or that one time three years ago. And I know people definitely don't stay in these phases where they are practically zombified by purification, any more than they stay in phases of total bliss-out ecstasies so it's not "just life happening." And it's not in response to some life event, like someone died or my house burned down. So it takes on a supernatural quality, being so deeply interior and weird. And I tend to go right back to mapping/modeling language in those times, because makers of maps and models have tended to write about these sorts of extremes, and there's comfort in that.

But when i'm in a really open/released phase I barely even think about "practice" and the whole idea of paying attention seems forced and weird, and I just go about days doing life stuff and forget about theories and maps and models again. And I tend to feel like I finally have weathered the worst of things - at least for another year or so - and that it really might be that given how things are trending one might end up more and more in this sort of non-territory where awakening isn't anything really. I probably wish to end up staying there because it's really the most comfortable, far more so than the ecstasy bliss out stuff. Definitely more so than the torture stuff.

Overall there's been far less of the extremes over time. Whether that indicates a potential ongoing trend, I cannot say. I would like that.

I tend not to trust my own evaluations of "this is how things work long term" since I haven't any long term hindsight.

(But yes, the specific practice that seems relevant in any given period does change, for me, and I think of that as being led by the Holy Spirit to whatever is needed.)

Ona Kiser wrote: (But yes, the specific practice that seems relevant in any given period does change, for me, and I think of that as being led by the Holy Spirit to whatever is needed.)

Yes, that's what I was pointing to, Ona. I don't see this as a linear process at all. I think my main point was that even when things are going as well as possible, there's still practice. But it doesn't have to be the same practice. It can be whatever we find helpful for bringing the attention back to what is happening now.

The idea of "yana" comes when when considering not just the different practices we can perform, but also the views through which we understand our lives and the world at large. View is as much a part of the practice as the specific instructions. Both are expressed together as yana.

If a moment-to-moment analysis of the suffering aspect of the body helps us let go, great. If merging with a visualization of Chenrezig helps us to have compassion for ourselves and those for whom we harbor ill will, fantastic. Whatever points us at our life, and inspires us to do so as well, is what I'm thinking of as yana.

The whole idea of "yana" is something that is fundamental to the Aro teachings; another way it is expressed is that everything can be understood as a matter of "principle and function." Each yana functions on the basis of its specific logic, from the premise of "where you are" via the best method of working with that, with a result in mind. And you're right-- "yana" is very "mappy;" it's an ancient analogy about practice as a matter of "travelling" along a spiritual "path." Each yana is a mode of travel; the mistake is to forget that they are not absolutely higher/lower, better/worse-- but more or less suited to the circumstances wherein one finds oneself. A car, a bicycle, a boat, or an airplane is not the invariable best mode of transport for every situation.

www.aroencyclopaedia.org/shared/text/c/c...r_01_oneself_eng.php is a link to the first section of a long series unpacking these principles.

"That is important: Buddhism is method; it is a way of realising truth. The expression is not necessarily truth in itself – it is not ‘the word’ as written that is truth. Everything within Dharma is a sign-post to that, something that helps you find that. But ‘the Dharma’ can never be expressed. If you look in the Sutras, you will find that Shakyamuni Buddha said: "I never taught the Dharma. The Dharma is non-existent." Apart from looking at that as some highly profound statement that one cannot understand, one can look at this as an expression of method. However Dharma is expressed, it is simply a method from which one can realise Dharma.
...
Because words change in meaning, Dharma always has to be re-expressed. There cannot be a fixed Dharma in terms of what is expressed."

Kate Gowen wrote: If you look in the Sutras, you will find that Shakyamuni Buddha said: "I never taught the Dharma. The Dharma is non-existent." Apart from looking at that as some highly profound statement that one cannot understand, one can look at this as an expression of method. However Dharma is expressed, it is simply a method from which one can realise Dharma."

Just to be difficult, I don't think the Buddha said this anywhere in the Pali canon - sounds like Maha-yana to me Approaching Aro is David Chapman, right? I find his stuff really thought-provoking, particularly because I'm in a place at the moment where the tantric approach to the question of transcendence really resonates as opposed to the Theravada/Pali approach, but at the same time he does set up 'Hinayana' or the 'Sutrayana' path as a bit of a straw man IMHO -

I know to some extent he realises and acknowledges that what he terms in this way is not 'early Buddhism' or Pali canon/Theravada as it's actually practised, and that he hedges his comparison with disclaimers, but even so I get the underlying feeling that this is seen as the 'Hinayana' path - check out Jayarava's post on the term.

Also, on a ranty side note, I almost feel now like it's time for a backlash against the backlash against 'consensus Buddhism' (Chapman, Brad Warner, What Makes You Not A Buddhist, Speculative Non-Buddhism, etc) - it's like this 'not being nice' has become a self-congratulatory consensus in itself.

every3rdthought wrote: Also, on a ranty side note, I almost feel now like it's time for a backlash against the backlash against 'consensus Buddhism' (Chapman, Brad Warner, What Makes You Not A Buddhist, Speculative Non-Buddhism, etc) - it's like this 'not being nice' has become a self-congratulatory consensus in itself.

I'm curious, do you have a direction that seems more on-track? I guess you answered it a little ("tantric approach to the question of transcendence really resonates") but any teacher/teaching in particular?

every3rdthought wrote: Just to be difficult, I don't think the Buddha said this anywhere in the Pali canon - sounds like Maha-yana to me

You might be right in terms of that not being a quote from a Pali source, but I don't know for sure. However, the idea of the dharma not being absolute is found in the Theravada tradition as much as the others. For example, Thanissaro often writes about how the path is a fabrication that we fabricate ourselves as we go along. In terms of Mahayana and Vajrayana, dharma is on the "form" side of the emptiness/form coin, and is thus impermanent. It's the same idea, basically.

Raft-like, it seems we always are drawn to conceptual frameworks that resonate with the stuff we are dealing with (thus feeling really right, hitting the nail on the head, describing exactly what we are fussing around or what we want to feel, etc.). As those knots untangle we either move to different conceptual frameworks altogether (Ahoy, Zen! On to Tantra! etc) or we find new ways to relate to/understand the framework we are already working in. Any given conceptual framework has actually a huge amount of space to play in it. The way a beginner relates to Zen is not the same as the way an awake person relates to Zen. Nor would any two individuals likely relate to it in just the same way, no matter what stage of practice they are at.

To clarify: the quote and the series on the yanas and compassion are from the website "Aro Encyclopaedia", an initiative of the Aro lamas themselves-- and the quote is from Ngak'chang Rinpoche. David Chapman's site "Approaching Aro" (along with "Meaningness" "Buddhism for Vampires", etc.-- he's kinda a geek's geek!) is his own initiative, and his own take: okay by the lamas, but he's not their spokesman. He, like me, is a student of the lamas-- although he has a decade more time in, than I do.

There are differences of import in the mode of expression; and GREAT differences in authoritativeness, which David acknowledges frequently.

What I was trying to convey with the quote is that dharma is the unfolding of the practice path for each person, not some fixed thing that we can pledge allegiance to, once and for all-- and then reject, when we find it, or ourselves, wanting. And that's the golden thread on which all the yanas are strung.