The Buddha speaks within your mind

Today, I am going to offer a unique and novel view about one of the Buddha's teaching techniques, which I've never encountered from any source. This is strictly my own interpretation:

I propose that the Buddha was able to not only read minds, but was able to speak within the minds of his many disciples. He did so by imitating each disciple's inner voice of conscience.

I reason as follows:

ONE: When the Buddha taught the Great Assembly cited in the Lotus Sutra, he addressed "living beings from numerous worlds" simultaneously. He had to have had some way (other than speaking) to convey his teachings, since any one language he might have spoken would not have been understood by most in that Assembly.

TWO: It's an acknowledged power of a Buddha that he can read minds, so it's not that great a leap (given the nature of his other supernatural powers) to conceive that he could speak within each of our minds (by throwing his voice, in a manner of speaking).

THREE: One of the powers of a Buddha is the ability to generate and sustain an infinite number of (what are called) emanation Buddhas. This is done so that the Buddha could simultaneously teach his path to enlightenment to living beings on other worlds, even while he was/is on earth teaching us. [I say "was/is" because (as I've written earlier) I believe that Shakyamuni Buddha did not die thousands of years ago in India, but is in fact still alive and among us.]

FOUR: Buddhism speaks of humans (and other living beings) as being possessible by spirits. We in the West are familiar with claims of demonic possession, for which exorcisms are necessary. [I find it interesting, though, that Westerners don't dwell on angelic possession.]

FIVE: I believe that each of us (yesterday, today, and tomorrow) is co-inhabited by one of Shakyamuni Buddha's spirit emanations. I don't say that we're "possessed" by this spirit, since it doesn't seek to dominate or control us. What does it do? It resides silently within us strictly as an observer, watching our lives (from our point of view) and looking for opportunities to teach us. When it senses an opportunity, then it speaks. When your internal dialog kicks in (when you are, in effect, arguing with yourself), one of those voices could well be the Buddha's.

SIX: The Buddha "speaks" within us by disguising his voice as the voice of our conscience, our unspoken inner voice. Why? It is written that "the voice does the Buddha's work." It is not written that it necessarily has to be the Buddha's own undisguised voice. With students who are prideful and stubborn, it is helpful for a good teacher to make new ideas seem (to the student) to be his or her own ideas. We tend to resist the ideas of others a lot more than ideas we think are our own.

SEVEN: The Buddha only sparingly uses this power to disguise his teaching voice as your own inner voice. For several reasons: We might get suspicious if too many unusual thoughts welled up from within. And the Buddha knows that we must be allowed to make our own mistakes and so at times withholds his teachings.

EIGHT: Why wasn't this power described in the sutras which were faithfully handed down by his disciples over the centuries? The Buddha purposely remained silent since he knew that our fragile egos would be shaken to the core if we knew he was always within us. In a sense, we'd become afraid of our own shadows (innards!), not knowing which of our thoughts were genuinely ours.

A Sacred Relationship

The sacred relationship is not the one between master and disciple, but is instead the one between a disciple and the Law. When the Buddha spoke of "wisdom that comes of itself, teacherless wisdom," he was trying to free us from the limitations of teachers. Many modern Buddhists behold their teachers with starry-eyes and sometimes suspend their own personal judgments (thinking themselves unworthy).

QUOTE:  In a scripture called the Nirvana Sutra, the Buddha says, "Rely on the Law and not upon persons." ... Not relying upon persons means not relying on persons other than the Buddha...UNQUOTE.

This quote is attributed to Nichiren Daishonin (1222-1282), who was the founder of a school of Japanese Buddhism. Naturally, I saw this teacher in a favorable light because his modern day disciples first introduced me to Buddhism in the early ‘70s.

However, for many of us, there comes a time when we disagree with our teacher, sometimes even rejecting him. I came to reject Nichiren simply because I know that Shakyamuni Buddha is still in this world, perfectly willing to teach me. So it is Shakyamuni I embrace as a teacher, but...I don't rely on him. I rely on "the Law and not upon persons." Even though Shakyamuni speaks within my mind using my own voice, that is still the voice of a person which I do not rely on, and do not have to rely on.

Since each of us has the capacity to become a Buddha, if we encounter a universal truth, it resonates within us thereby awakening our Buddhahood. Therefore, no actual teacher is required.

NOTE: The item quoted above is from Volume 4, page 175-6 of The Major Writings of Nichiren Daishonin.

Steven Searle, just another member of the Virtual Samgha of the Lotus

Contact me at bpa_cinc@yahoo.com