Vajra Diaries: If You Meet the Buddha ‘on the Road’ Don’t Blink

 5/4/25

Going through the Buddha instead of around him may sound like one’s football coach’s defensive advice. But it may help to explain the old Zen dictum, “if you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him.” I’ve found this quite shocking, but then Zen, popular with the Shogunate, has a violent past. My old coaches advice to us linemen meant simply to fully engage and ‘takeout’ offensive players so they can’t create obstacle or take down your team’s  ball carrier. How any Buddha of the three times, or beyond, is an obstacle to becoming fully enlightened I don’t understand. Unless by Buddha what is meant is an objectification of a compassion and wisdom that’s beyond any representation. Where in fact there would be no killer, killed, or killing. This then is ‘understandable.’ But is not a suitable teaching for disciples of the lower vehicles who haven’t been taught the above analysis or dialectical skills necessary not to take such a statement literally. For such disciples, possessed of blind, non-analytical faith, all information is reifying of their unbridled, ego gratifying habituations and predispositions. Only the skilled Bodhisattva can ‘crack’ them. Such is the stubborn persistence of ignorance, the first cause in Buddha’s graphic teaching conveyed in his artwork ‘wheel of life’. 

“The different parts of the wheel of life all have their own specific meanings:

• The images in the centre of the wheel represent the three poisons of ignorance, attachment, and aversion.
• The second layer of the wheel represents karma.
• The third layer of the wheel represents the six realms of the cycle of existence.
• The fourth layer of the wheel represents the twelve links of dependent origination.
• The demonic figure holding the wheel represents impermanence.
• The moon depicted above the wheel represents liberation from the cycle of existence.
• The Buddha pointing to the moon is an indication that liberation is possible.
• The three inner circles demonstrate that the three poisons of ignorance, attachment, and aversion bring about both positive and negative actions; the result of these actions is called karma. In turn, karma brings about the six realms, which represent the different types of suffering within the cycle of existence.”(twinkl.co.uk)

Had for the endless time ‘the actor’s dream.’ But in my case, because I was a makeup artist, I didn’t have any makeup instead of not remembering my lines. I’m pretty sure others not in the entertainment business have similar dreams. Only they show up for work without any clothes, which would be fine if you were in the adult film business. Seriously though, what’s the significance of having dreams about being unprepared or lacking what is needed most? Since the function of dreams, last I heard, was ego compensation—giving the ego what it wants—then what does it mean in a frustrating dream not having what it wants? Answer: Ego rebalancing in such dreams makes everything all about the Big Baby—I, me, mine—not having what it essentially needs. The primal drama of getting or not getting enough at mother’s tit. Or any number of other ego gratifications or thwarting as the child progresses through gauntlet-like ‘rites of passage,’ where being the center of attention is often its principal agenda, on the way to adulthood. One’s ego not getting its major share, or not having enough, or any, of anything, is its raison in meta psychology’s architectural model of the psyche. Make no mistake, it is the prime mover in all our actions and ‘acting.’ The artist-poet William Blake expressed it best when he drew a cute little stick figure with a long gaffing stick trying to hook the moon, and saying, “I want, I want.”

The legitimate role of sexual attraction and longing in Tantric Buddhism is to link the limited bliss of ordinary sexual intercourse to the unlimited, extraordinary bliss of Mahamudra. This term, often translated as a ‘great symbol’ is anything but abstract, as all phenomena are unveiled and experienced, inexpressibly, beyond their imaginable dimensions. This is so through rigorous familiarity with the pure perception, enabled by doing one’s daily sadhana, whereby the extraordinary will replace the ordinary in all ways. The same is true with Guru Yoga. By projecting all of one’s wants and desire onto the Guru, offering them all one’s wealth, even one’s body transformed into luminous nectar, the very sight or smell of which produces ecstasy, then turns extraordinary and the ordinary is gradually phased out of existence. 

8/4

I was rolling along thinking my meditation routine on three or four different sadhanas was a maximal effort. My attitude has  suddenly shifted, not sure why, but now it seems hardly enough. In regard to how much of my time should be spent in front of my beautiful shrine doing pujas, my new frame of reference is like one has during an isolated retreat six weeks, three months, or nine, as I’ve previously done since retiring from the film business.  

12/4

The Abhisamayalamkara Sūtra says Bodhisattvas trained in the Perfection of Wisdom use non-Buddha Dharmas as their objective support so as not to ‘settle down’ and crave them. This distinguishes them from Listeners (Shravakas) who settle down on the Buddha’s words, thus becoming literalists and not interpreters, as they have not apprehended emptiness of own being, or signlessness, in those words. Bodhisattvas coursing in the Perfection of Emptiness take instead as their objective supports non-Dharmas, or non-truths, so as to see all aspects of knowledge in that emptiness of own being, thus counteracting all attachments. While Listeners attach to the first two Truths, concerning suffering and its  karmic causation, Bodhisattva of said skillful means course in the second two Truths, cessation and the path. 

While I live in a country steeped in the first two Truths, Cambodia, whose people largely appear to live in sin and its serial redemption, I know spend more time traveling where the second two Truths are more observed, India and Nepal. Why? Because when I moved here I couldn't begin to keep the five vows—no killing, stealing, intoxication, dishonest sex, and abuse of speech.—and needed a stern reminder of them, which the Kampuchea Preah sang handily provide every day in their söt (chanting.)

16/4

Early Buddhist carved out most of the caves in India in which to meditate and hold prayerful assemblies. The psycho-physical connection runs much deeper as the womb like enclosures recall the moment of conception and gestation. Also the bliss of the mothers empty space at the juncture of trunk and lower limbs. Later Buddhism, sutric and tantric, makes much of both this emptiness and bliss, echoing the Hindu yoni puja motifs, ontic symbolism, philosophical view that the Buddha clarified and out of which logical tenets obtained. So it’s supremely natural to find and makes caves in which to become enlightened. Pilgrimages to these caves and meditating in them—soaking up the thousand or two year Nirmanakaya blessing is an essential part of entering the Buddhas’ lineage.