If a Bodhisattva retains the thought of an ego, a person, a being, or a soul, he is no more a Bodhisattva.” –Diamond Sutra, translated by D. T. Suzuki in the Manual of Zen Buddhism
It was reported on the news that on Wednesday March 8, some people celebrated “A Day Without a Woman” with various kinds of activities and protests such as walking off their jobs for the day. Apparently the intent was to air grievances and declare some level of victimhood. If people in the ordinary human world wish to spend their time doing that kind of thing, I guess it is their prerogative.
In Buddhism we cultivate a different kind of thinking and a different kind of attitude. The target in Buddhism is to transcend being a human being, which means to transcend self. We transcend self and all that it entails to be human and what it means to have human consciousness and awareness of self.
To be a human being means that one has many attributes, traits, and characteristics. In Buddhism we cultivate the mindset of recognizing that they are all empty and ultimately meaningless, and in our practice we actively and deliberately throw them all away. In Buddhism we awaken the truth—the truth that we stand nowhere. We aim to be nothing but a fresh breeze in zazen and in our activities and relationships.
What are the many attributes of a human being? We could list many of them, couldn’t we? A human being must be either male or female, to begin with. A human being has cultural and ethnic background. A human being’s cultural and ethnic background is almost always a blend of a variety of ethnicities and cultures. As well, we individuals each have a plethora of distinctions and personality traits. There are many things that distinguish each individual as compared to other humans and other beings in general.
In Buddhism we consider all these things to be empty. It becomes poisonous to attach to any of our attributes or characteristics or distinctions. In the Diamond Sutra it says, “Dwell on nothing whatsoever.” This means non-attachment. This is what compassion is: To teach others not to attach to self or to any phenomena in any way.
No attribute or characteristic exists without consciousness. The true nature of consciousness, self, and existence are the core issues of Buddhism.
A practitioner of Buddhism does not dwell on whether he is a woman or a man. We practice to throw this and everything else away. People in the general population who do not cultivate wisdom hang onto these attributes, characteristics, and personality traits very tightly. To do this is to hang on tightly to self.
The ordinary human world teaches to hold onto self, fixate self and assert self. To one-sidedly affirm self is the cause of all suffering. To hold onto self guarantees suffering. To fixate consciousness one-sidedly this way is the illness of the human world. To fixate self and always assert, “I am a woman” or “I am a man,” for example, becomes a poison. To become entrenched in one’s identity and fixate there makes one ill.
We should celebrate a day called “A day without a woman or a man”—or even better—“A day without a human being.” This would be a day that brings happiness. There was a Zen master who said, “I am not a human being.” This was told in one of the koans of the Mumonkan, Case Number Two entitled, “Hyakujo and a Wild Fox.”
The only true way to experience One World is to realize the truth of One Buddha Nature. This is the quest of one who seeks perfection of wisdom. Many in the ordinary mindset of the ordinary world think they should try to manipulate and mold the world into their vision of what it should be. That is the mindset of conquest. If one wants to experience One World, one must negate the self completely and realize true self which is no self.
One should take one’s place on the Great Mandala—the great cosmos—and do his best to manifest his true nature, his true self. True self is No Self. No Self is True Love. To manifest true self is to manifest True Love. Why is true self No Self? Because self is nothing but a production of human consciousness.
From the Buddhist standpoint, every day is “A Day Without a Woman” because there is no woman in existence. There is no man in existence. There is no human being in existence.
The primary state is the source of self, and the primary state is No Self. True self is always there, but we are not experiencing it because we have obscured the truth with layers and layers of false views created by conditioned human consciousness.
When the emperor of China asked Bodhidharma, “Who is this before me?” Bodhidharma said, “I don’t know.” This “I don’t know” was not a simple, ordinary statement. It was a manifestation of true nature, One Buddha Nature—it was the manifestation of the Thundering Silence
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