The Peak of Wisdom

In January of 1989 I had the good fortune to make a pilgrimage to Vulture Peak, where according to tradition it is said that the Buddha taught some of the Perfection of Wisdom (Prajnaparamita) sutras. It was really wonderful to physically be at the place where this teaching was transmitted; it had a very sacred quality to it. In ancient times, about two days walk from Vulture Peak, was a university called Nalanda where Nagarjuna was a professor. I'm sure Nagarjuna must have visited Vulture Peak, and of course was aware of it's history. So when I visited Vulture Peak and Nalanda, I was reminded that Nagarjuna was very much in a practice tradition, and he too must have been inspired when he visited the peak.

Modern scholars often refer to Nagarjuna as a logician or a philosopher and they emphasize his importance in the development of Buddhist thought. This is true, but first and foremost, Nagarjuna was a Bodhisattva. Later literature such as the Lankavatara Sutra, also tells us this. So, being a Bodhisattva, he experienced something in his practice, and he taught out of his practice; this is what he reveals to us, his own attainment. Even if he uses logic to do so.

If you happen to read Nagarjuna's works, which are all in verse stanzas, the stanzas come originally out of dialogues between Nagarjuna and other individuals at the university of Nalanda. Dialogue and debate with strict use of logic is very much what this tradition is about. I learned this first hand when I studied with Geshe Sonam Rinchen at the Library of Tibetan Works and Archives. We would translate the text together, then we would talk. The commentary section of my book is a result of my questions and our dialogues together, which I then edited into a commentary on Nagarjuna's text. Geshe-la would also ask me questions out of the blue to see if I was learning anything. I usually got the answers wrong, and he'd laugh uproariously. That kept things in perspective....that's an old Buddhist tradition. Now let me connect with something which could be in your experience. If you happen to attend services at one of the Zen centers in the USA, you will hear people chanting the Heart Sutra. The Heart Sutra was transmitted at Vulture Peak; it is a very concise perfection of wisdom sutra. In one English translation there are only twelve sentences in the heart sutra, which makes it one of the shortest perfection of wisdom sutras. The longest one, which was also transmitted at Vulture Peak, has about 100,000 Sanskrit lines. In fact, Nagarjuna is said to have brought the 100,000 Line Perfection of Wisdom Sutra to human beings from the world of the nagas. But more about this later.....

In Nagarjuna's time a much shorter version of the Perfection of Wisdom was studied, which was only about 8,000 lines. For Mahayanists, this 8,000 line version is probably the most sacred of scriptures, and is probably the oldest version of the perfection of wisdom we have available. Scholars will say that the Heart Sutra is not as old as the 8,000 Line Perfection of Wisdom Sutra.

So anyway, when I visited Vulture Peak, I was reminded that this was where the 8,000 Line Sutra was transmitted. The Sutra is full of mystery and magic, all kinds of phenomena not of ordinary reality. Dragons, tree spirits, all manner of improbable things are part of this Sutra. For example, at the beginning of the Sutra it says:

"Thus have I heard at one time. The Lord dwelt at Rajagriha, on the Vulture Peak, together with a great gathering of monks, with 1,250 monks, all of them Arhats...."

Now that point is very interesting to me, because when I was at Vulture Peak there were about 20 of us on the peak and room for about 20 or 30 more. More than that and people would have been sliding down the hill. Presently there is a foundation of an old temple on the peak, so it is very flat and many can sit there. But in the Buddha's time it was just an outcroping, so certainly 1,250 monks couldn't have been sitting on the top of Vulture Peak, unless they were floating in the air. So from the outset we are in the realm of magic. Bear this is mind, as something important, because the perfect wisdom is a way of understanding reality which defies ordinary ways of grasping at things. In fact, that's it's point.

Wisdom is something with which we are not familiar in our current life and tradition. Wisdom is a different way of understanding reality. The perfection of wisdom is the highest, most unsurpassed way of understanding reality. It is the peak of wisdom and it is certainly not the way we understand reality. I may or may not know what this wisdom is, but I certainly know that I don't know what it is, because it is this very extraordinary, unordinary thing. I think that all these legends and fabulous things in the sutras are allusions to the extraordinary view of reality that this teaching is about.

One of these extraordinary teachings is about Nagarjuna. As I said, he was a great professor at the Buddhist university of Nalanda. He would give his lectures to huge crowds because he was a very dynamic speaker, and a renowned debater. At a certain point he noticed these two people who would attend his discourses. Although they'd always stand in the back of the crowd, he noticed them because when they came he'd always smell sandlewood incense. Once they left, he would no longer smell it. After this happened at a few lectures, he went to talk to these two and asked them about it. They said, "Well, we are not really human beings. We're nagas (i.e., sea serpents) in disguise. We usually live in the ocean, and we don't like the smell of human beings. So whenever we come here, we cover ourselves with sandlewood paste so that we don't have to smell you. But the reason we have come is that in the Buddha's time, he taught some sutras that no one could understand. But we listened to these discourses, and understood them, and wrote them down. We've kept them in our palace at the bottom of the ocean. We have been waiting for a human being of sufficient wit to understand them. And we've come here because we believe that you are that person. Do you want to come with us and read these sutras?

Well of course he did; who wouldn't? Magically he lived in their undersea kingdom. He studied the sutras that they had; he was taught by the nagas. Then he returned to our world with one of the sutras, the 100,000 Line Perfection of Wisdom Sutra, which he then taught. Traditional scholarship says he was the great commentator on the perfection of wisdom sutras. But I think he was more than the great commentator on them. I believe he was the great transmitter of something very extraordinary, even otherworldly, and that's what this story hints at: Nagarjuna taught the serpent wisdom which comes from a world different than our own.

Now my modern American mind says that this is all metaphor, and I know that oceans and waters are symbols for the mind. So to go to the bottom of the ocean means to dive deeply into the depths of the mind. And I know that a certain kind of energy and wisdom is associated with the serpent: Kundalini energy, which is called by Buddhists the "wind in the central channel." So I think Nagarjuna is master of this high energy wisdom, which is associated with snakes and sea serpents. This serpent wisdom/energy has a bad reputation in the Western Bible story of Eden, though not the rest of the world, because it is the wisdom of total non-duality, the wisdom of emptiness, shunyata. It is beyond all the logical pairs, such as "is" and "is not," "good" and "evil." This non-duality is so complete, that if you don't understand it, it is totally terrifying and dangerous, much like a dragon or a serpent. Nagarjuna even says that: "A wrongly conceived [wisdom of] emptiness can ruin the dull witted. It is like a snake incorrectly grasped or some magical knowledge incorrectly applied." (Mulamadhyamakakarika, XXIV 11). This wisdom is scary; it makes good and evil relative. Grasping it incorrectly is dangerous because one could erroneously reject the necessity for moral action, which as Nagarjuna says in his Ratnavali (II 20) is the road to hell. And even more terrifying, the wisdom of non-duality transforms one's sense of self, especially oneself and their relation to others!

So, I don't think it is an accident that in the western tradition of dualism which affirms the logical pairs as absolutely distinct, and one's own individuality as permanent, that all the stories about serpents or dragons are negative. The Knights of the Round Table go out to slay dragons; serpents are the source of evil. In the Buddhist tradition dragons and serpents are not negative, they are positive because they reveal a view of non-duality, a view of the relativity of all logical pairs, rather than the view of excessive duality with which we are familiar. However the sutras do say there is something scary about this view. So let's return to the 8,000 Line Perfection of Wisdom Sutra to explore this.

The Sutra begins:

Thus have I heard at one time. The Lord dwelt at Rajagriha, on the Vulture Peak, together with a great gathering of monks, with 1,250 monks, all of them Arhats, - their outflows dried up, undefiled, fully controlled, quite freed in their hearts, well freed and wise, thoroughbreds, great Serpents, their work done, their task accomplished, their burden laid down, their own weal accomplished, with the fetters that bound them to becoming extinguished, their hearts well freed by right understanding, in perfect control of their whole minds .....

Thereupon the Venerable Subhuti, by the Buddha's might, said to the Lord: The Lord has said, `Make it clear now, Subhuti, to the Bodhisattvas, the great beings, starting from perfect wisdom, how the Bodhisattvas, the great beings go forth into perfect wisdom!' When one speaks of a`Bodhisattva,' what dharma does that word `Bodhisattva' denote? I do not, O Lord, see that dharma `Bodhisattva,' nor a dharma called `perfect wisdom.' Since I neither find, nor see a dharma `Bodhisattva,' nor a 'perfect wisdom,' what Bodhisattva shall I instruct and admonish in what perfect wisdom? And yet, O Lord, if, when this is pointed out, a Bodhisattva's heart does not become cowed, nor stolid, does not despair nor despond, if he does not turn away or become dejected, does not tremble, is not frightened or terrified,it is just this Bodhisattva, this great being who should be instructed in perfect wisdom. It is precisely this that should be recognised as the perfect wisdom of that Bodhisattva, as his instruction in perfect wisdom. When he thus stands firm, that is his instruction and admonition.Morever, when a Bodhisattva courses in perfect wisdom and develops it, he should so train himself that he does not pride himself on that thought of enlightenment [with which he has begun is career]. That thought is no thought, since in its essential original nature thought is transparently luminous.

Sariputra: That thought which is no thought, is that something which is?

Subhuti: Does there exist, or can one apprehend in this state of absence of thought either a 'there is' or a `there is not?'

Sariputra: No, not that.

Subhuti: Was it then a suitable question when the Venerable Sariputra asked whether that thought which is no thought is something which is?

Sariputra: What then is this state of absence of thought?

Subhuti: It is without modification or discrimination.

(E.Conze; The Perfection of Wisdom in Eight Thousand Lines; p. 83-4)

So as I said earlier, when we hear about what is happening on Vulture Peak it becomes obvious that we are in a magical realm. There are 1,250 Arhats on a peak that might hold 50. They are called "great Serpents." The wisest of them all, Subhuti, is a monk so wise that the Buddha tells him to teach the others about wisdom. Can you imagine sitting with the Buddha and having him tell you to teach the Arhats about the highest wisdom? And Subhuti does so "...by the Buddha's might...," which means through the inspiration of the Buddha. In words inspired by the Buddha he tells the others that wisdom means that a Bodhisattva is a Bodhisattva precisely because he has mastered a wisdom, has attained a consciousness, which is characterized as wise because when he instructs Bodhisattvas he does not see Bodhisattvas! And he is wise because he does not think of himself as wise!

This is what the Sutra means when it says "....neither apprehend, nor see a dharma `Bodhisattva,' nor a `perfect wisdom'...." A dharma is a "phenomenon" in Buddhist technical language. So wisdom is, as Subhuti says, abiding in a state of consciousness which is free of mental modifications, is free of discriminating thoughts, is free of the thoughts of the pairs of opposites such as "is" and "is not." It is even free of concepts such as "I am wise" or "I am." No wonder such a wisdom could be terrifying: can you imagine having a conversation with someone whom you perceive as being both there and not there at the same time? And while having that conversation not believe that you are there, but not believe that you are not there?

It defies all our logic and or ability of comprehension, which is why it is wisdom! So no wonder magical things seem to happen on Vulture Peak, because the beings on Vulture Peak are in our reality, but some of them are also in another. They are in a realm without mental modification.

So how did they get to be that way? How did they attain that realm of absence of thought? Well, the Sutra tells us that at its beginning. For one thing, they gained "perfect control of their whole minds," i.e., they mastered the techniques of meditation, they were masters of zazen. They were "fully controlled," i.e., they were masters of ethics, of right thought, word and deed. And "their hearts were freed by right understanding." This right understanding is the subject of the Sutra, it is perfect wisdom, and Nagarjuna excelled at it.

Nagarjuna is viewed as a logician because he teaches a reality in his texts which is beyond the logical pair "is and is not." But he sees it because he has attained a state of absence of thought which "in its essential original nature.....is transparently luminous." (The light in "enlightenment!") So why the endless words of the 8,000 Line and 100,000 Line Perfection of Wisdom Sutras, and why the subtle logic of Nagarjuna's treatises? Because while "right understanding" is not to be found in words, it is also not not to be found in words. If it were not at all in words, why would the Buddha have uttered a single word? But if it were only in words, why would the Buddha have meditated and attained a state of absence of thought?

I suspect it is like this: if you were a monk walking in the jungles of India you might, at some time, step on a thorn. How would you get it out of your foot? You can't go to the medicine cabinet in your bathroom for tweezers to pull it out! You would take a second thorn and dig the first thorn out of your foot. But then you would throw both thorns away and continue walking along. So all the wisdom sutras and all Nagarjuna's texts with their crazy logic are like the thorn which removes a thorn. Words which destroy words.

And Vulture Peak is the place where this method was revealed. The magic place where our reality melts, where Bodhisattvas are Bodhisattvas precisely because they also are not Bodhisattvas. And if they are what they are because they also aren't what they are, why shouldn't they be on the peak of wisdom precisely because they are no longer on the peak of wisdom? They were there when I was there.

[Modified from a talk at San Francisco Zen Center; later published as David Komito: "The Peak of Wisdom," Wind Bell, Vol. 33, No. 1, 1989; pp. 11 - 17.]