The Diamond Sword - Chapter 1: Dependent Origination
The first chapter of a long piece on Buddhism.
This is the beginning of a large project I’ve been working on meant to discuss many complex Buddhist concepts using a narrative crafted around the Mahayana Buddhist figure of Akshobhya Buddha. Note that I have integrated many of my previous articles on here into this work, so some statements and descriptive text may sound somewhat familiar.
I may end up turning this into a full book if it gets long enough (and it’s starting to seem like it may), and maybe even release a physical edition. For now, here’s the first segment, which is already quite lengthy.
Introduction - The Fall
As I’ve grown older in this modern world, I’ve witnessed my generation, as well as the one that came after mine, spiral into a mental health hellscape, helped along by worsening economic conditions, drugs, alcohol, and toxic popular ideologies.
And it’s not just that people are mentally afflicted; some have even begun to praise their own weakness, placing it on a pedestal for others to see as a signifier of their elevated status in society. Mental illness is seen by these individuals as a sort of twisted claim to authority, letting them dictate how society as a whole should be run.
This has resulted in a kind of feedback loop where the mentally unwell create more mentally unwell people, and we’re left with an overmedicated civilization in mental and spiritual tatters. Everyone is suffering, but no one knows where to even begin ameliorating the situation.
Over the past few years, I have been very concerned with what exactly I can do to help the younger generations. I’m not wealthy or particularly influential. All I have is my ability to communicate ideas and write coherent sentences. But if I am to use these skills to help people, what ideas should I spread?
I continued to agonize over this problem as I plunged into my studies of various beliefs systems and theologies. Seeking desperately needed answers, I read up on mysticism, animism, panpsychism, and a host of other ideas outside the realm of conventional materialist thought. Meanwhile, the ailing younger generations I mentioned earlier were delving into their own forms of spiritual mysticism, albeit twisted and corrupted forms.
Ideas like “twin flames” (which is something like “soulmates” with the integration of more spiritual concepts) and the New Thought influenced “manifestation” (picturing or saying/writing about something to make it come into reality) had swiftly entered into the zeitgeist, and people were trying to escape reality by “shifting” into fictional ones where they could live out a completely different life.
Others claimed to be “otherkin” or “Therians,” beings with the bodies of humans but “souls” of animals or mythological creatures. There is also a growing movement of “Satanists,” who (rather than what their name may suggest) do not worship Satan as an entity, but instead worship the “self” and the various whims that come along with such a thing.
All of these forms of mysticism and spirituality centered around material wealth, love/sex, or the fabrication of a new reality as a way to numb oneself to the real world. Meanwhile, the people who practiced these became no happier than they were before. Some even became worse, as they were sucked into communities centered on these misguided practices and were influenced by others who were just as mentally troubled as them.
Why is this happening? In my opinion, it seems that the materialist, rationalist worldview held by most modern Atheists is rapidly losing its luster as consumerism and politics fail to fill in the Nihilistic void left by the decline of organized religion.
This, of course, leads us to a different problem: that the new forms of spirituality rushing to take the place of rationalist Atheism and Scientism don’t subvert the flaws that inevitably led to the decline in Atheism happiness. If anything, they reinforce them.
Instead of their adherents realizing that they’ve been desiring things that don’t really lead to contentment, they’ve come to the conclusion that the aforementioned previous beliefs simply weren’t efficient enough at delivering those things, so they’ve turned to “manifesting” and forms of mysticism around romantic love, or to simply crafting a new reality so they don’t have to consider how dismal their own state has become.
As this situation continues to evolve, the need for a healthy spiritual outlet that satisfies people both spiritually and intellectually is becoming increasingly clear. However, there don’t seem to be too many answers outside of the rapidly-declining established organized religions. This is why I am writing this book, to offer up new ideas to the zeitgeist in order to lead the curious younger generations away from harmful philosophies and practices and towards something much healthier both mentally and physically.
As I stated before, in order to find these ideas, I first had to go through many different schools of theology, spirituality, and metaphysical philosophy. While most were entertaining, there were very few that I truly latched onto. First I found Animism, then Shintoism, then Buddhism, and eventually ended up at esoteric Buddhism (mainly Japanese “Shingon” Buddhism). It was through this process I finally found many of the answers I’ve been looking for, and I want to share all of them with you.
The biggest problem with this, however, is esoteric Buddhism’s accessibility, or rather lack thereof. Not only does esoteric Buddhism require a sturdy foundation of exoteric Buddhist knowledge, but propagating its doctrines in the West to any substantial degree would require unlearning countless wrong views about Buddhism that have been implanted into our collective consciousness (some of the biggest of these are Buddhism being an “atheistic religion” or that Buddhism is Nihilistic and concerned primarily with self-annihilation.)
I’ve decided that rather than cover the entire scope of exoteric and esoteric Buddhism in one massive tome, I want to craft a kind of narrative that guides newcomers through what I believe to be the most important concepts of Buddhism, or at least the ones that have had the most impact on me personally. Obviously this kind of strategy won’t work for everyone, Buddhism teaches that different beings have different proclivities after all, but if it works for at least one person, I believe it would be worthwhile.
Each chapter will consist of two parts: the first part outlining the scriptural narratives and corresponding theological and philosophical concepts, and the second part explaining and elaborating on the first in more practical and easy to understand terms. If you don’t understand something in the first section, it may be worth reading through the second in order to clarify things.
So then, where exactly should this narrative start? I want to begin with a scripture that left a deep impression on me, and one that I believe to be extremely profound. It’s a story about an old Buddhist layman who reached a level of enlightenment second only to the Buddha himself. It’s called The Vimalakirti Sutra.
More specifically, I want to talk about the cosmic Buddha introduced in the sutra. Colored blue-black and residing in a paradise dimension (i.e. pure land) of perpetual joy called Abhirati, his name is Akshobhya, the “Immovable One.”
Chapter 1 - Akshobhya & Vimalakirti
The titular character of the Vimalakirti Sutra is a Buddhist layman who outwardly presents himself as a sickly old man in white robes. He upholds all of the virtues, compassion, and wisdom of Shakyamuni Buddha’s greatest disciples while still living within the mainstream society of the time.
Vimalakirti goes to places where gamblers, prostitutes, and drunkards congregate and, without indulging in the same vices, mingles with them and guides them towards a better path. He engages in business while acknowledging the emptiness of profit and material possessions. Through this, he is able to understand the proclivities of all types of people and guide them accordingly:
He was liberated through the transcendence of wisdom. Having integrated his realization with skill in liberative technique, he was expert in knowing the thoughts and actions of living beings. Knowing the strength or weakness of their faculties, and being gifted with unrivaled eloquence, he taught the Dharma appropriately to each.
There is more to Vimalakirti than what can be seen on the surface, however. Near the end of the Sutra, he is revealed to be a great bodhisattva from the pure land of the Buddha Akshobhya.
A bodhisattva is a type of being from Mahayana scripture. They are those who are close to enlightenment, yet postpone their enlightenment in favor of leading sentient beings out of the suffering of samsara. When they become bodhisattvas they make vows which they must fulfill before eventually attaining Buddhahood, and some of them continuously pursue the completion of these vows for many eons in hopes of saving as many sentient beings from the lower realms of existence as possible.
While any kind of sentient being can technically become a bodhisattva, the primary ones featured in Mahayana texts are supernatural entities, usually from other worlds (or “buddha lands”). They are ascribed immense supernatural abilities and can appear in countless different forms in order to preach the dharma. Vimalakirti is said to be one of these, and has appeared as an old layman as a way to bring others towards the dharma (i.e. teachings of ultimate reality expounded by Buddhism).
After the revelation of his true identity, Vimalakirti uses his supernatural powers to bring the pure land of Akshobhya into our world and show it to a grand assembly of divine beings, who all swear to one day be reborn there.
Akshobhya’s pure land is described as a jeweled paradise that mirrors our own, with many different realms and heavens and even its own Mt. Sumeru. Unlike our world, these realms are of such equal splendor that three jeweled ladders were erected so beings could move from the earthly realms to the heavens at will. Whether in heaven or on earth, existence in the pure land of Akshobhya is unfathomable bliss.
These details all make sense within the fantastical Mahayana context, but there is always more to these kinds of texts than just their literal interpretations. Indeed, within the Vimalakirti Sutra itself, the true nature of a “Buddha” is described as “like the element of space” in that “he does not abide in any of the four elements… He is the essence which is the reality of matter, but he is not matter.”
Scholars in India, China, and Japan would create complex frameworks to interpret descriptions of the Buddhas in the Mahayana texts, with the most widely used being the “three bodies” of a Buddha. The historical Shakyamuni would be classified as a “transformation body,” which is a physical tangible manifestation of the Buddha. Akshobhya would be an “enjoyment” or “joy body,” a form of the Buddha that resides in paradisiacal pure lands and may appear to humans in dreams, visions, and teachings in order to help guide them towards enlightenment.
The last of the three “Buddha bodies” is the “dharma body,” the original source of all the Buddhas and equivalent to ultimate reality itself. The scriptural Buddha that is the closest to this category is Mahavairocana, the great cosmic sun Buddha, whose body is said to be that of the five elements themselves (earth, fire, water, air, and space) with his mind being the sixth element of consciousness.
In esoteric Buddhist thought, Akshobhya is one of the primary five “enjoyment body” manifestations of Mahavairocana, representing things like “mirror wisdom,” which is the ability to perceive reality as it truly is, and “immovability,” which can be characterized as unwavering diamond-like purity of mind, body, and speech. He also represents the element of water; ever-changing and fluid, yet able to harden and sharpen when the need arises.
As later tantric thought developed, Mahavairocana would be displaced somewhat by Akshobhya as the central representation of the “dharma body,” as Akshobhya’s diamond-like nature was seen as being of paramount importance to achieving ultimate enlightenment in our age of decline. Akshobhya came to represent the sword of purity and self-realization that was needed to cut through the impurities of our world and find the seeds of enlightenment within. In essence, he became synonymous with one’s inherent Buddha-nature.
Through this lens, the narrative of the Vimalakirti Sutra takes on a whole new meaning. Vimalakirti does not come from a different world, but is native to our own, and Akshobhya is the primordial origin of his enlightened state; the adamantine mind of ultimate reality itself.
When Vimalakirti reveals the pure land of Akshobhya to Shakyamuni’s assembly, he is providing a mirror to our own world or, more precisely, the realm of Buddhahood. In the sutra’s first chapter, Shakyamuni states that his Buddha-field (i.e. our world) is entirely purified, but its purity is not revealed to beings who are spiritually immature: “Sariputra, living beings born in the same buddha-field see the splendor of the virtues of the buddha-fields of the Buddhas according to their own degrees of purity.”
Essentially, it is Vimalakirti’s profound wisdom, pure karma, and diamond-like body, speech, and mind that let him reside in the pure land of Akshobhya, which is synonymous to the realm of Buddhahood. The pure land is accessible for all beings, as all things in this world are endowed with universal inherent Buddha-nature.
As Sariputra says upon seeing Akshobhya’s pure land: “May all living beings come to live in a buddha-field as splendid as that! May all living beings come to have miraculous powers just like those of the noble Licchavi Vimalakirti!”
Chapter 1.5 - Dependent Origination & Karma
Let’s step away from the lofty theological talk and start discussing these things in practical terms. What are the lessons one should learn from these concepts and put into practice within their daily lives? We’ll start with the basics, the lesson that Vimalakirti sought to teach through his example: the intertwined relationship between dependent origination and the imminence of the pure Buddha Land.
Dependent origination is an extremely old Buddhist doctrine, extending back to the earliest texts of the Pali Canon. In the Assutavasutta from the Samyutta Nikaya, Shakyamuni describes it as follows:
… The instructed noble disciple attends closely and carefully to dependent origination itself thus: ‘When this exists, that comes to be; with the arising of this, that arises. When this does not exist, that does not come to be; with the cessation of this, that ceases.
The idea as described here is invoked as a means to unravel the clinging to a sense of self by ignorant beings through a deeper understanding of causation. What one calls the “mind” is not “them,” but rather a product of an advanced chain of causation made up of the “four elements” (which can be as high as six elements in other Buddhist doctrines). To this point, the same sutta states the following:
... As to that which is called ‘mind’ and ‘mentality’ and ‘consciousness’ —the uninstructed worldling is unable to experience revulsion towards it, unable to become dispassionate towards it and be liberated from it. For what reason? Because for a long time this has been held to by him, appropriated, and grasped thus: ‘This is mine, this I am, this is my self.’ Therefore the uninstructed worldling is unable to experience revulsion towards it, unable to become dispassionate towards it and be liberated from it.
Vimalakirti echoes nearly this exact sentiment in the second chapter of the Vimalakirti Sutra, stating:
Alas! This body is like a machine, a nexus of bones and tendons. It is like a magical illusion, consisting of falsifications. It is like a dream, being an unreal vision. It is like a reflection, being the image of former actions. It is like an echo, being dependent on conditioning. It is like a cloud, being characterized by turbulence and dissolution. It is like a flash of lightning, being unstable, and decaying every moment. The body is ownerless, being the product of a variety of conditions.
Vimalakirti later describes enlightenment as “the seat of interdependent origination, because it proceeds from the exhaustion of ignorance to the exhaustion of old age and death.” “Ignorance” and “birth and death” (or Samsara) are components of the 12-link chain of dependent origination, more precisely the first and last in the chain, which is meant to illustrate how ignorance is the primary cause of Samsara, and thus must be rectified in order for beings to become enlightened and enter into Nirvana.
Ignorance leads to transient formations, which lead to consciousness, which leads to name and form, which leads to the senses, which lead to contact, which leads to feeling, which leads to craving, which leads to clinging, which leads to deluded existence, which leads to birth and “aging-and-death, sorrow, lamentation, pain, displeasure, and despair.”
The meaning behind Vimalakirti’s “exhaustion” of this chain is the reverse-engineering of it in order to destroy ignorance and thus liberate all beings from their aimless transmigration through the realms of samsara. When one sees ultimate reality as it truly is, they can extinguish each link of the chain and sever themselves from the delusion of death and rebirth and realize the nonexistence of a true “self.”
This idea that the “self” does not exist is another old Buddhist doctrine and, as I’m sure you may have caught on by now, is intimately related with the dependent origination doctrine. While many hear the term “no self” and assume it’s some nihilistic view that humans do not really exist and thus life is meaningless, that is not the case in the slightest. It is a complex view of true reality as seen through the lens of dependent origination and the aforementioned reverse-engineering of it.
“You” are not an entity separate from the greater cosmos, but instead are a mere part of it and cannot be even partially separated from the context in which you exist and the chain of causation which brought you here. In essence: “you” exist only in relation to everything else, and it cannot be any other way.
Mahayana Buddhist texts like the Vimalakirti Sutra expand on this concept quite a lot, particularly in relation to ultimate enlightenment. The logic is that if the “self” does not exist, then the liberation of a “self” from samsara is a meaningless endeavor. It is instead all sentient beings, or rather the entire cosmos, that must be liberated.
Vimalakirti explains this in a conversation with the bodhisattva Maitreya, who was previously prophesied to be the next Buddha in our world long after Shakyamuni’s passing:
Maitreya, is your reality from birth? Or is it from cessation? Your reality as prophesied is not born and does not cease, nor will it be born nor will it cease. Furthermore, your reality is just the same as the reality of all living beings, the reality of all things, and the reality of all the holy ones. If your enlightenment can be prophesied in such a way, so can that of all living beings.
Why? Because reality does not consist of duality or of diversity. Maitreya, whenever you attain Buddhahood, which is the perfection of enlightenment, at the same time all living beings will also attain ultimate liberation. Why? The Tathagatas do not enter ultimate liberation until all living beings have entered ultimate liberation. For, since all living beings are utterly liberated, the Tathagatas see them as having the nature of ultimate liberation.
This is why so much emphasis is put early in the Sutra on Vimalakirti’s interaction with the common people, as well as his deep knowledge of the “faculties of sentient beings.” It’s these aspects of Vimalakirti that make him so skilled at bringing others to the dharma and ultimately towards liberation. In a conversation with the bodhisattva Manjusri, he elaborates on this mission as follows:
“ ...my sickness comes from ignorance and the thirst for existence and it will last as long as do the sicknesses of all living beings. Were all living beings to be free from sickness, I also would not be sick. Why? Manjusri, for the bodhisattva, the world consists only of living beings, and sickness is inherent in living in the world. Were all living beings free of sickness, the bodhisattva also would be free of sickness.
For example, Manjusri, when the only son of a merchant is sick, both his parents become sick on account of the sickness of their son. And the parents will suffer as long as that only son does not recover from his sickness. Just so, Manjusri, the bodhisattva loves all living beings as if each were his only child. He becomes sick when they are sick and is cured when they are cured. You ask me, Manjusri, whence comes my sickness; the sicknesses of the bodhisattvas arise from great compassion."
In this passage, we can see the view of all beings being connected. Like sickness being passed from a child to its parents, so too can spiritual sickness (i.e. ignorance or delusion) be passed from one sentient being to another. In this sense, it becomes abundantly clear that this doctrine of “no self” is not Nihilism, but rather the opposite. It’s a call to action for every sentient being who understands the inherent meaning.
Moreover, one’s actions carry more weight when you realize how intimately interconnected we all are to each other. Everything is empty, but everything is also full. Every molecule in the cosmos is connected and lacking a self-identity, meaning everything affects each other through various means.
The Zen priest Suzuki Shosan has a fascinating view of this doctrine that instilled profound meaning into every profession at the time and conceived of their work as a form of Buddhist practice. One of my favorite passages from his writing reads as follows:
The generosity of farmers, the generosity of tradesmen, the generosity of clothing and cloth-making, the generosity of merchants, the generosity of the mutual interdependence of all occupations - if you know these well you will not withdraw from men. You must always be receptive to the mind of others. Thus when you are in the presence of your lord, put yourself in his place and realize the shortcomings of all you do. When in the presence of inferiors, put yourself in their place and never forget how beings suffer.
Never give up pondering, day and night, the woes of great heat, of hunger and cold, of physical exhaustion and mental anguish. Peasants and farmers, they say, injure both body and mind at their unrelenting labors, and they grow the five grains and feed everyone in the whole land. Each grain of rice stands for the work of a hundred hands. Never forget what troubles they have borne.
One way in which this deep interconnectedness is conceived is through the concept of “karma.” While the Vimalakirti Sutra has little to say on karma specifically, it’s an integral component of Buddhism in general.
While popular notions of karma interpret it as “people who do bad things have bad things happen to them and people who do good things have good things happen to them,” the reality of it is much more complex. People do indeed generate positive or negative karma within their lives, but they also inherit the karma of those who came before them, and can be affected by the karma of other beings.
Remember that we are dealing with a lens that views the “self” as inextricable from all other things, and karma is no exception to this. In fact, in Mahayana scripture like the Flower Adornment Sutra, karma is imbued with an enormous amount of importance, being described as the force of causation through which worlds themselves are born, shaped, and inevitably decay:
Some lands are defiled, others pure.
The joy and misery of each being
Differs because of the inconceivable sea of karma.
The cyclic flow of dharmas is eternally thus.
We can see a similar idea in the Vimalakirti Sutra’s conception of the true pure nature of our world (i.e. Shakyamuni’s “Buddha Field”). The Buddha claims that "this buddha-field is always thus pure, but the [Buddha] makes it appear to be spoiled by many faults, in order to bring about the maturity of the inferior living beings.”
Moreover, he further clarifies that “living beings born in the same buddha-field see the splendor of the virtues of the buddha-fields of the Buddhas according to their own degrees of purity.” This matches closely with a passage from the fourth chapter of the Flower Adornment Sutra, which states:
“... seas of worlds evolve through limitless stages of formation and destruction. By being inhabited by defiled beings, seas of worlds evolve through stages of defilement. By being inhabited by beings who vastly cultivate blessings, seas of worlds evolve through stages of defilement and purity. By being inhabited by Bodhisattvas of faith and understanding, seas of worlds evolve through stages of defilement and purity.”
Once again, invoking the doctrine of “no self,” all of this means that the purity of the land is revealed when all beings are liberated. One can find Buddhahood in hell, but hell does not cease to exist when one finds Buddhahood. It’s only when all beings are freed from the fiery realms of hell that hell will be rendered obsolete.
This idea is embodied by the bodhisattva Ksitigarbha, or “Jizo Bosatsu,” as he is known in Japan. This figure has vowed to save all beings from the lower realms of reincarnation, returning to the dismal hells time and time again using his millions upon millions of transformation bodies in order to liberate all the suffering beings from the depths, weeping at the consequences of out wretched karma as he does so. This dedication earned him the admiration of many earthly gods and spirits, as told in the Ksitigarbha Sutra:
At that time, the Earth God Firm and Solid said to Buddha, “World Honored One, I have respected and worshipped limitless Bodhisattvas and Mahasattvas since a long time past. They all possess inconceivable divine power and wisdom to cultivate and help all beings. However, the vow of Bodhisattva Ksitigarbha, Mahasattva, is deeper and weightier than those of the other Bodhisattvas. World Honored One, this Bodhisattva Ksitigarbha, has a close relationship with beings in [all] the worlds.
Even though Manjushri, Samantabhadra, Avalokiteshvara and Maitreya all have incarnated themselves into hundreds or thousands of forms to cultivate and help those beings in the six levels, their vows will be completed one day. However, the Bodhisattva Ksitigarbha cultivates and teaches all those beings in the six levels – from the time Ksitigarbha made the great vow to now being hundreds, thousands and billions of aeons.”
Ksitigarbha’s profound vows to save all other sentient beings are also connected to the Buddhist concept of reincarnation and transmigration through the countless realms. Buddhists see beings as all interconnected and in a constant state of death and reincarnation, with the death of the body being considered merely one means through which a “being” travels through the countless states and realms of existence.
Compared to the common notions of reincarnation, the full scope of the concept is far more complex, but one can clumsily summarize it as “beings are constantly dying and being reborn at every given moment.” What is “reborn” is technically a different being compared to the one that has died, with the later being inheriting the karma of the former (as discussed above) but they are simultaneously the same being through the lens of Buddhist non-duality.
Reincarnation is often seen as an optional view for Buddhists these days, particularly in the Western sphere where secular forms of Buddhism have become increasingly more common. I understand this, as modernity has trained us to have faith only in what we can directly observe via the five senses, while anything else is dismissed as primitive superstition outright.
It makes sense that some would be wary about believing such things either for fear of disapproval from their peers, or due to exposure only to Rationalist Materialist doctrine. However, I am of the belief that it is essential to internalize the concept of reincarnation in order to fully grasp all of the ideas outlined within this chapter.
When one sees themself as merely a flash in an infinitely long line of permutations, it’s far easier to realize the true depth of the “no self” doctrine, as well as one’s profound connection to everything in the cosmos. You have been a tree, a fish, a dog, a bird, a bear, a monkey, a beggar, a rich man, a murderer, a saint, and a bodhisattva. Realize that you have been everything and nothing, and the simultaneous immensity and smallness of the cosmos stretches out before you.
Yet this difficult awakening is only part of what Buddhism wishes to instill in all of us in order to lead us to the Pure Land of Akshobhya Buddha. It all becomes deeper and more complex from here as we turn our attention to yet another Mahayana sutra in the next chapter.
Thank you all very much for reading!