From An Introduction to the Tradition of Serene Reflection Meditation
<https://www.shastaabbey.org/pdf/IntroSRM13.pdf>
The Five Laws of the Universe.
Rev. Master P.T.N.H. Jiyu-Kennett, M.O.B.C.
Law 1. The physical world is not answerable to my personal will.
I am not the Cosmic Buddha and there is nothing in me that is not of the
Cosmic Buddha. Thus no Zen Master ever says he is either enlightened or
unenlightened. That Which Is is not a personal God.
Law 2. The Law of Change.
There is no such thing as a separate, individual “soul” or
“spirit”2 that
goes to a God or a Buddha to live unchanged in its individuality at the
time of physical death. The physi- cal body parts from the seemingly
individual part of the Buddha Nature 3 which man mistakenly calls his soul
or spirit at the time of what is presently described as death. The body in
its present form is unplugged, as it were, from the apparent life force and
disintegrates into various compo- nents which turn again into other life
forms or life-sustain- ing forces, e.g. worms, maggots, compost, water,
etc., noth- ing whatsoever being wasted, all being recyclable.
Law 3. The Law of Karma is inevitable and inexorable.
The spiritual aspect of the so-called individual “spirit”* which a being,
male or female, has thought of as himself returns to the Source, called
herein the Buddha Nature (the third Body of the Trikaya ), in its entirety
only if all past karma, both of the life-existence just ended, and those
life- existences prior to it, has been purified. For example, a person who
has lived an exemplary life during this lifetime may still not become one
with the Buddha Nature if he has not looked deeply within himself and
purified the karma he inherited from former lives.
That part of the karma that is purified, however, returns to the Buddha
Nature and becomes one with it, so that which is being thought of as an
individual spirit becomes divided up, like returning unto like: the
purified part of the spirit returns to the Buddha Nature and the unpurified
part is reborn into whatever is a suitable form for its presently
unpurified state. It should be noted that spirit, however uncleansed, is
still spirit and herein lies its ability to bring life into existence no
matter how debased the form may seem. Thus, a person who kept all the
Precepts prohibition against carnal lust would find only the lustful nature
of himself reborn as we know life, probably, but not necessarily, in animal
form or as one of those unfortunate humans who are always in trouble for
carnal acts they have not committed, the purified karma of his former life
return- ing to its rightful home in the Buddha Nature.
For centuries the argument against rebirth has always been statistical,
i.e. if a person dies another must be born in his place, so why is the
world population always changing? Rebirth does not work this way. The
physical body dis- integrates and becomes recyclable material for use by
the as yet unpurified karma-carrying sparks of spirit. These sparks become
living organisms exactly in ratio to their own unpurified karma and are
thus again given a chance to transcend that karma by purification,
thereafter returning directly to the Buddha Mind, sometimes called the
Buddha Nature.
Because of the above it is impossible, and even stupid, to expect a baby
human to be born every time another hu- man dies. Anything can be born as
the result of any death, whether human or animal and, because every being
in the world has done totally different things from everybody else, there
is no formula that can be laid down as to what will happen specifically to
anyone. Only the individual can do something about that, for himself,
through meditation. All that can be truly said is that certain acts will
have adverse effects on new life and other acts will have beneficial ones.
The Buddhist Precepts are the nearest a person can get to a working formula
for this purpose.
Nor is just one being likely to result from the death of a previous being.
An unconverted carnal lust may be reborn in animal form, an unresolved
confusion at the time of death may be reborn in a muddle-headed human and a
secret and hidden evil act may cause the birth of a fixed or wandering
ghost, just to give a few examples. Thus the death of one human could
result in the rebirth of an animal, a human and a ghost all out of the
unpurified part of that human’s karma which will then become purified in
its own way to become a beautiful part of the Buddha Mind. Such unpurified
karma becomes a karmic debt which the new-born creature inherits.
Thus Buddhism says, with absolute truth, that that which is reborn is not
the same spirit as that which died nor is it different from it. No being
keeps his imagined “spirit” intact at death. In the case of one who has
purified every karmic jangle within that “spirit” from the time that
it was
part of the original Buddha Nature before the universe began to the
present, that which was his or her spirit returns in its entirety to the
Buddha Mind at the time of death, for it is indeed the whole of that Buddha
Nature, and loses its indi- viduality therein leaving nothing whatsoever to
be reborn. Therefore there is no individual soul and, thus, the Zen Master
can say with truth that enlightened action leaves behind it no speck of
dust.
Very occasionally a person may be the inheritor of a lot of the karma from
one particular previous existence and it may seem to him that he has
inherited the equivalent of a whole previous personality. This is the main
cause of the belief in reincarnation, however one should know that how-
ever much karma a person may inherit from one place, he still will not
inherit an individual soul since that which was purified in the former
being will have returned to the Cosmic Buddha.
Law 4. Without fail evil is vanquished and good prevails; this too is
inexorable.
Periodically it is necessary for the Buddha Nature to give more of Itself
to a new-born being than is usual, other- wise there is no way in which
that being will have sufficient purified spirit to be able to cleanse its
present load of karma. For this purpose there comes forth from the Buddha
Mind that which is termed a Bodhisattva version of the unpurified karmic
stream in order to bring it to the Bodhisattva state. The following is a
typical example. A person whose nature alternates between extremes of
cruelty and compassion in his or her present existence be- gins to meditate
deeply. He finds within himself two dis- tinctly different natures and
longs to be undivided. As his meditation deepens he experiences past lives
wherein that which he has inherited has been sadistic time and again down
the centuries starting with little acts of excessive love which eventually,
several lives later, became cruelty. For such a person the next step would
be to be born mad had it not been for the fact that, at the hour of death,
he or she had begun to doubt the wisdom of his or her actions. This doubt,
constituting the equivalent of he or she saying “I could be wrong,” is
sufficient to cause the Buddha Nature to pour out compassion; thus there
issues forth a stream of pure spirit which picks up the impure stream and
converts it from within. Herein the truth of the Fourth Law is proved:–
without fail evil is vanquished and good prevails. No matter what a being
has done, either in this life or in a past one,
if he or she truly repents, or so much as even doubts, the wisdom of his or
her evil acts as late in life as the moment of death, he or she opens the
door to freedom. If, however, he or she willfully persists in his or her
evil there will be born, soon after his or her death, some unfortunate
being who will, through no fault of its own, carry that karmic stream and,
unless it is converted either from within by a Bodhisattvic stream, or by
meeting a priest or doctor who possesses such a stream, that unfortunate
being will be born mad and remain mad.
Law 5. The intuitive knowledge of Buddha Nature occurs to all.
All beings have the intuitive knowledge of the Buddha Nature down the
centuries. When man does not heed this intuitive knowledge, body and spirit
separate and the cycle of birth, old age, disease and death becomes as a
binding cord from which he cannot be free until he again decides to heed
the still, small Voice within which is the voice of that intuitive
knowledge which comes directly from the non-personal Buddha Nature. As a
result of modern thinking man edu- cates his children away from this and,
with the spread of materialism, man is increasingly looking for the cure of
physical and mental illness outside of himself rather than within and the
young become steadily more confused at an earlier and earlier age.
***
Notes.
1. Cosmic Buddha. The Buddha Shakyamuni said, “There is an Unborn,
Uncreated, Undying, Unchanging.” A term for the Dharmakaya, Eternal Nature,
Buddhahood or Amitabha Buddha. The Buddha who appears in every place and
time and in all beings; also called by various other names such as
Vairocana Buddha, Amitabha Buddha, Dharmakaya, Buddha Nature, Lord of the
House, That Which Is. It can be revealed by genuine training but It cannot
be explained as existing or not existing or in any other dualistic way.
2. What people usually think of as their “self,” “soul,” or
“spirit” is
actually an impermanent combination of several components. Some components,
such as the ego, the sense of self, the body image, and the like are
personal and individual but are continually changing and do not survive
death. Another component, the Buddha Nature, because it is one with the
Buddha Essence of the Universe, is unchanging and eternal and yet, for the
very same reason, is neither personal nor individual. A third type of
component is what is known as karma; this is the spiritual force set in
motion by all volitional actions, whether good or ill. When we speak of a
person’s karma, we refer to the sum total of all such forces currently
remaining effective which he or she has produced in this life- time or has
acquired at the time of conception from other beings which have left it
unfulfilled at the times of their deaths. Positive volitional acts produce
positive karma, sometimes called merit, which has positive effects on the
lives of beings. This positive karma, already being at peace by its very
nature, is at one with the infinite Sea of Merit of the Cosmic Buddha upon
the death of the individual and thus provides no basis for an immortal
soul. Negative karma, if not exhausted or purified in this lifetime,
continues on after death and conditions the conception of a new being who
will have an opportunity to allow it to run its course or to purify it,
thus setting it to rest. Once its force is spent, negative karma ceases to
exist, hence it, too, cannot produce an immortal and individual soul. The
karma produced in this life and the karma inherited from other
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beings are not of different types: they both act in the same way and are
indistinguishable. Thus, in Buddhism, there really is no such thing as an
individual and immortal soul; we use the term “spirit” here to refer
to the
entire matter described above, as a paragraph such as this cannot be
inserted each time the concept is used.
3. Buddha Nature, Bussho (J), Buddhata (S). That which is shared by oneself
with the Cosmic Buddha. One’s own True Nature, True Self. After Shakyamuni
Buddha was enlightened He said, “All beings without exception have the
Nature of Buddha.” One’s own Buddha Essence. Buddha Nature also implies
Cosmic Buddha.
4. Trikaya (S), Sanshin (J). The Three Bodies of the Buddha which are
unified throughout the universe as well as in one’s own body. “I am not
Buddha and there is nothing in me that is not of Buddha.”
5. Precepts, kai (J), sila (S). The ways of living that are in accordance
with the Dharma. The second Paramita. One of the fundamental
practices of the Bodhisattva training along with meditation, compassion and
wisdom. The Precepts include the Three Refuges (I take refuge in the
Buddha, I take refuge in the Dharma, I take refuge in the Sangha), the
Three Pure Precepts (cease from evil, do only good, do good for others) and
the Ten Great Precepts (do not kill, do not steal, do not covet, do not say
that which is not true, do not sell the wine of delusion, do not speak
against others, do not be proud of yourself and devalue others, do not be
mean in giving either Dharma or wealth, do not be angry, do not defame the
Three Treasures).
6. The reader should be aware that this statement, like all statements
about the operation of the Law of Karma, is an oversimplification and an
approximation. The full scope and operation of this Law is so vast and
complex that it can be understood fully only by the Mind of a Buddha. Karma
is not a substance which has a physical location and the use of the words
“sparks” or “karmic residues” does not imply a material existence
for them
although they can be recognised through meditation.
7. Bodhisattva (S), bosatsu (J), pu-sa (C), “enlightened (bodhi) being
(sattva).” A being which seeks enlightenment not only for itself but for
all living beings as well, devoting itself to the Precepts, Four Wisdoms
and Six Paramitas. A being which undertakes training to become a fully
enlightened Buddha for the benefit of all beings including itself. The
Bodhisattva ideal is the central aspect of Mahayana Buddhism. Bodhisattvas
come forth for many reasons other than those given here.
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