Blue Sky, White Cloud

By Aloka David Smith

the immanent model of dharma training is well known for its epithet of being a 'practice of no practice'. the paradoxical nature of this form of training found traditionally in china, japan and tibet is one that so easily defeats the western mind as this generally will only accept something that fits its logical conditioning.

in this new book western dharma teacher aloka david smith, who has nearly 40 years of traditional dharma training experience, teaches this often misunderstood training model to the sangha of western practitioners of his dharmamind buddhist group. this teaching is delivered through a series of talks given on retreat, where he offers from his considerable experience how it is possible to become comfortable with this paradox and put it into everyday practise, both on the meditation cushion and off it. with dedication and commitment this training he proclaims will bear fruit and bring a level of contentment that offers spacious mental and emotional freedom from suffering, and the environment for profound life-changing spiritual insight.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Aloka David Smith
• Release date: Jul 10, 2012
• ISBN: 9780954247553

Aloka David Smith

I was born in Oxford, England, in 1946, and I've been a practicing Buddhist for nearly 40 years. I began training with Zen, practicing with the Venerable Myokyo-ni, a teacher from the Rinzai school, at the Buddhist Society in London. This was my practice for more than five years, before travelling to Sri Lanka in 1980. Here I lived for three years as a Theravada monk under the guidance of the Venerable Dhammaloka Maha Thera. It was while I was in Sri Lanka that my spiritual breakthrough took place in 1981, and it is this that forms the framework of my first book, A Record of Awakening, published in 1999.On my return from Sri Lanka I matured my practiced by essentially living on my own for a number of years in east London. At the time of my breakthrough in Sri Lanka my teacher told me I should travel and begin to teach, but it was to be around 20 years before I took that role by leading retreats at several retreat centres of the Triratna Community in the UK and abroad. My association with this movement came to an end in 2006.My second book, Dharma Mind Worldly Mind, was published in 2002.My third book, A Question of Dharma, was published in 2008.My fourth book, The Five Pillars of Transformation, was also published in 2008, with a second edition in 2009.My fifth book, Blue Sky, White Cloud. has now been published.DharmaMind Buddhist GroupAs well as being a guest leader of retreats at various Buddhist centres around the country and abroad, I have also been leading my own Dharma group for several years, whose practice framework is within the all-embracing spirit of Mahayana Buddhism, and focuses primarily on the formless approach to practice known as "silent illumination" of the immanent model. This independent Western Mahayana Buddhist group first started in London in 1997, and is now located in Birmingham, where I have lived since 2001. We moved to our current meeting venue located at the Friends Meeting House in Kings Heath, in January 2007. A superb facility ideally suited to our needs.The name 'DharmaMind' is my term to denote the type of mind that it is crucial to cultivate in order to aspire to freedom from self and enjoy happiness of heart. The heart and spirit of our training is closely allied to Chan, Zen and Dzogchen - a practice of 'no-practice' that embraces all of life, which is practiced in the body through direct experience, before thinking. It is a practice whose spirit nurtures the ability to live life without the burden of spiritual ambition and goals, and which has the delicious taste of freedom from attachment.The group has now grown beyond the weekly and monthly meetings that had been its limits over the early years. Retreats are now scheduled at various locations and local groups are being set up as an ongoing development. For more information on these activities go to the Group page.Āloka David Smith.

Book preview

Blue Sky, White Cloud

The Buddhist Practice of Silently-Illuming

By

Aloka David Smith

Smashwords Edition

Copyright David Smith 2012

What others say about this book…

Excellent book for the committed practitioner - …Initially it goes into great detail about getting your posture right, getting your breathing right, and how much can be learned about yourself and the Dharma by getting these basics right, acknowledging that this can sometimes be a painful process. So it starts right at the beginning. Then the book goes into great detail, in a way I have not found anywhere else, about how to approach your practise as it matures a little, when Stillness starts to become a more familiar experience. Reading this has really helped me, and that's why I say this is a book by a practitioner for practitioners. It touches on the stuff that is real for me from day to day. Highly recommended. - Mike Hogan (London)

Fresh and inspiring guide to practising the dharma - This book is a fantastic manual for any committed dharma practitioner. Unlike many books I have tried, this is written for a place of wisdom and experience which shines through on every page. I really can't recommend it enough. - A. Elliott (London)

The importance of stillness - …There is a simple clarity in the way he expresses the Dharma. Everyday sentences hold deep transforming potential that can at times be jaw-dropping. I recommend this book to those who want to know the cause of why we suffer and are interested in finding a way out. James Ferguson (UK)

Video Presentation

First Published in 2012 by

DharmaMind Books

65 Linden Road

Bearwood

West Midlands

B66 4DZUK

e-mail: [e-mail]

web: dharmamind.net

© 2012 David Smith

Photo & Design: Aloka & James Ferguson

British Library Cataloguing in Publications Data:

A catalogue record of this book is available from the British Library

Ebook: ISBN 97809542475 5 3

Paperback: ISBN 97809542475 3 9

The right of David Smith to be identified as the author of this work has been

asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Design and Patents Act 1988

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Table of Contents

About the Author

Acknowledgements & Dedication

Introduction

Prologue

Talk 1: Creating the Form

Talk 2: Silent

Talk 3: The Landscape of Insight

Talk 4: Blue Sky, White Cloud

Afterword: Mutterings from an Ageing Practitioner

Glossary & Paperbacks

About the Author

Born David Smith in 1946 in Oxford, England. His Buddhist training began nearly 40 years ago, in Zen. He practised for six years with the Venerable Myokyo-ni, a teacher from the Rinzai school of Zen, at the Buddhist Society in London. He then went to Sri Lanka and lived there for three years as a Theravada novice monk and was given the name Aloka. It was while he was in Sri Lanka that his spiritual breakthrough took place, and it is this that forms the framework of his first book, A Record of Awakening, published in 1999.

Returning to England, he began working (and still works part-time) as a gardener. Greatly inspired by the direct non-conceptual approach found in Chan, Zen and Dzogchen, Aloka says the spirit of that training has never left him. Now that he has turned to Dharma teaching, he leads a traditionally-inspired yet non-sectarian Dharma group that has at its very basis the cultivation of that direct non-conceptual spirit. Its practice framework is within the all-embracing spirit of Mahayana Buddhism.

As guest teacher Aloka has led retreats around the UK and abroad, but now devotes his time leading the DharmaMind group teaching at retreats in the UK and Ireland.

He is the author of four other books:

A Record of Awakening, published in 1999

Dharma Mind Worldly Mind, published in 2002

A Question of Dharma, published in 2008

The Five Pillars of Transformation, published in 2009

Acknowledgements

I would like to take this opportunity to thank the group of students of the DharmaMind sangha, who persevered with the transcribing of the four audio talks recorded at Trigonos that provided a working framework that enabled me to write the teachings for this book. A big thank you also to those that helped me complete the manuscript with their editorial skills and useful suggestions that I hope has made this book more accessible to the reader. The hard work of editing was done by Rob Grant and Margaret Holmes ably supported by Katherine Sewell and Jonathan Apps. Thanks also to James Ferguson who created the cover layout with a special citation for making the sky on the photo taken by me at Trigonos a lot bigger and a lot less cloudy

Dedication

This book is dedicated to Venerable Myokyo-ni, Venerable Dhammaloka Mahathera and Venerable Nanarama Mahathera, who, when the time was ripe, came into my life to support and guide me with wisdom and inspiration during my years of dharma training.

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Introduction

This new book was inspired by a series of talks I gave at the DharmaMind Summer Retreat at the Trigonos Centre in north Wales in August 2010, and uses as its practice framework the traditional Chan training model of Silent Illumination, coupled with the metaphor Blue Sky, White Cloud which throws a fresh perspective on this ancient teaching. This model is further supported by being interwoven with the established training framework used by the group outlined in my 2008 book The Five Pillars of Transformation.

Before turning to the pages of this book it is important that the reader take time to read the prologue that follows this introduction. This is because to fully appreciate the teachings the reader should first have some background knowledge of the more unusual terminology and concepts that I often use in my talks. These references are invariably based on my own direct experience of the subject in question, and therefore not necessarily recognizable as the dharma teachings the reader may be more familiar with from other sources.

Because these teachings were given through live talks I seldom paused to explain the meaning of a number of concepts and expressions, both mine and traditional, simply because they would stall and distract from the point being made, or even divert the listener from the topic altogether. Because these talks were given to the students of the DharmaMind group whilst on retreat, I made the assumption that they were already familiar with the concepts and language I use anyway. It is therefore important that the reader of this book is also clear with this language, in order that they may fully appreciate and grasp the offerings that are being made.

In this present book, editing the transcriptions of the talks which were kindly made by members of the DharmaMind group, I have tried my best to retain the spirit and spontaneity that characterized these dharma talks. What so often happens in these situations is that a transcription of a live talk ends up as only being a guide when it unavoidably gets revised in order to conform to the demands of the written word. Thus when I committed these talks to my 'two-dimensional' word processor this revision often meant losing much of the living spirit that can only be found in spontaneous speech. A great but unavoidable loss in my view, as experiencing the spontaneous spirit not only reveals the authenticity of the speaker’s direct knowledge of the subject, but is also a major source of inspiration for the listening dharma practitioner.

Giving talks unscripted as I do has a quality that many practitioners of the dharma appreciate greatly, but one of the drawbacks, which I've found applies to me at least, is that this way of teaching lacks detailed prior planning, and inevitably important points often mistakenly get omitted. How many times have I listened to one of my audio talks only to realise that I've missed out something important, or not explained a point thoroughly enough? The alternative to speaking directly in this way is to teach with notes; this at least has the merit of avoiding mistakes and omissions. This suits some practitioners, as this type of talk usually contains copious amounts of information that they feel is what they need to load themselves with in order to progress their dharmic development. But what this type of teaching invariably lacks is that sense of coming directly from the heart and direct experience, which for many is the most inspirational and important aspect of a teacher and their teachings. In my view, the pre-prepared method is usually an indication of the speaker’s own lack of the direct experience of the subject; and so in many practitioners’ eyes would lack authenticity, so seriously devaluing the teaching.

I have found that the great value of having the opportunity to work with the transcriptions of my own talks is that I can at least attempt to retain some of the language used, which was expressed from the spirit of direct experience. With the aid of my laptop and in the quiet environment of my home I can also pause and reflect on my work, edit, polish and sometimes even add further important information that I intentionally, or otherwise, omitted during the talk.

My teaching history began in 2000 after the publication of my first book A Record of Awakening, when several dharma practitioners after reading the book wished to meditate with me and discuss their practice. Over the next few years the numbers grew, and I was invited through an established western Buddhist order to hold retreats across the UK and Ireland, then in North and South America. So eventually it came to be that in 2007, along with several established students, I broke away and put my own sangha together, and so formed an independent dharma group. Although the group was, and still is, a wholly western group that doesn't belong to an established ancient or modern Buddhist tradition, it nevertheless follows the traditional so-called immanent model of practice of the Mahayana, found in the Chan and Zen of far eastern Buddhism; it also has the spirit of the other immanent model of practice found in Tibetan Dzogchen. This is the direct non-dualistic model of dharma practice whose fundamental principle is that all sentient beings have their own inner divine nature, which is whole and complete, and therefore there is nothing to add, create or achieve, in order to awaken to this truth. In contrast, there is the other option of training known as the developmental model found in the south-east Asian countries of Theravada Buddhism, in that they believe there is much to add, create and achieve through dualistic practices in order to awaken to their liberation.

The form followed by the DharmaMind group is wholly traditional with nothing added or rejected except the rejection of involvement in the cultural trappings of the east. My intention has always been to stay focused on a simple non-fussy traditional dharma form of training and discipline simply because as a westerner I have proved it has worked for me in the most positive way possible, as my experiences when living in Sri Lanka show. I therefore see no need to 'fix something that ain't broke' by westernizing the way the dharma is taught and practised. Many western teachers would not agree with this stance. They conclude we westerners are somehow a special case and therefore they as teachers need to tinker and reshape the established dharmic form, and so leave their mark on something that has been shown to have worked successfully in many cultures and countries for many centuries.

The teachings that I give, come from my direct experience which is based on nearly 40 years of practice that began with Rinzai Zen. Although in hindsight the koan system that characterises this form of Zen never suited me, the immanent model that is represented certainly did. This model suited my temperament and I clearly had affinity links with it that soon had me settled and opening up to a bigger picture that showed there was more to this 'dharma stuff' than just breaking the delusion of a self and ending suffering. Something more that was about awakening to a mystery that I was intimately connected to but somehow had little conscious connection with. This longing to embrace and be united with what was mysterious and exciting transcended any desires to be solely rid of a self, and instead it took me to an open, all embracing spirit, and still does.

What I believe should be clearly indicated to those that are familiar with my teachings, is that these talks come from a living practice, and that the teachings I give are always naturally evolving, thus revealing my own evolving clarity of understanding. This process does not mean that the fundamentals of insight and the form are being compromised, but rather that the clarity of understanding is always being polished with ever more purpose. I like to describe this evolving as 'polishing' because I see dharma training as akin to a sort of circular act of training; always coming back to where you've been before, but this time with a clearer view of what is becoming ever more familiar, rather than thinking change and a growing understanding is like going on a journey along a straight path with a desire to get somewhere and achieve something. I am fortunate in that there are now many audio and DVD recordings made during group meetings since around 2002 that illustrate over time this growing clarity of the dharma, yet even to this day I refer to aspects of understandings and training that haven't changed at all over the years. With polishing comes new ways of expressing the subtle nuances of the living dharma, which serves to enhance and strengthen, rather than challenge and undermine the established form that characterises this group's way of training.

A clear illustration of the group's committed living practice is revealed by the use and inspiration of the traditional Soto term 'silent illumination'. This beautifully succinct use of words brought to life by interpreting the Chinese phrase mòzhào more accurately as 'silently-illuming', describes perfectly the form of training that the DharmaMind group has aspired to mirror since it was formed. I have now given my understanding of this form of training in the pages that follow.

The book concludes with a section on my views of various topics of dharma that are particularly important to the subjects covered in this book.

Since this book is intended for the general reader, I have omitted all diacritical marks on Sanskrit and Pali words. Chinese characters have also been removed from ebooks.

Finally, there are a number of references to a couple of my books made in the talks. Full details of these and others that I've written can be found at the very end of this book.

Aloka David Smith

Bearwood, West Midlands, UK; winter 2011.

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Prologue

Here in the prologue I would like to introduce the reader to various topics and concepts covered in the talks and expand on them in more detail. Some of these topics are actually referred to in the talks anyway, but some are not. Whether covered or not, I think it is still useful for the reader to approach the talks armed with a clear understanding of these sometimes unfamiliar terms.

Silent Illumination Translation

I would first like to thank the Chinese translator William Giddings for his translation into English and his comments on the traditional Chinese term commonly rendered as 'silent illumination'.

William is a translator of ancient Chinese texts and at present is engaged in translating the Chinese version of the Prajnaparamita Sutra into English. This is his translation of the term Mòzhào along with his comments.

"Mòzhào (Chan) is pronounced Mo as in 'moor' with something near a Scots accent, and Zhao as 'jer-ow'.

Here are my comments as a linguist, for what they are worth.

Whilst 'silent illumination' is the conventionally accepted rendering, this is not quite accurate. Mo does mean 'silent' in the sense of 'quietly' doing something but it is not silence in the sense of not-talking, that would be wusheng: lit. 'soundless' or 'voiceless'.

Zhao is a verb, and so does not mean 'illumination' (which is a noun which has implications of thought or even receiving external revelation) but 'to illumine', in the sense of a torch illuminating a room. The Chinese word for a camera, for example, is zhaoxiangji: lit. 'an illuminated image machine'. A better rendering would be 'Shine' which, allowing for the usually grammatical changes needed in English, would give 'Shining Silently' which is verbal. But, seeing as we have the cultural-linguistic imperative to make life static and not dynamic (how very un-Buddhist yet very Greek) this would be made into the phrasal noun 'Shining Silence' which I see is also a rendering given by Master Shengyen in his book 'Illuminating Silence'.

The image depicted in zhao is interesting. It denotes the sun or fire, i.e. a 'light or beacon' and a man with an open-mouth 'beckoning'. The overall image then, is of someone going at night, with a torch in hand, leading or pointing out the way, or perhaps someone led by a light from the distance. By contrast, one of the more obscure meanings of mo is 'darkness', perhaps even the 'still of night'. So there is an image, a mental picture not so much of someone sitting quietly in a room (as the Japanese would suggest) but a dynamic situation in which one is leaving a place of darkness through the power of light."

Blue Sky, White Cloud

Silent illumination, or silently-illuming as I prefer, expresses both the fulfilment of training, which awakens us to our fundamental condition, and the training itself. A training that leads to spaciousness and stillness through learning to let go of habitual attachments, that reveals mental silence and the natural awakening of our innate wisdom and compassion. It becomes a discovery of our natural luminous condition before the world of ignorance and delusion is created. We begin to discover this when we learn to return and stay with our everyday experience of awareness, because our everyday familiar state of awareness is the direct and only gateway to our true nature. In many ways it is enough to be still for insight to arise from within, but there is also the danger that this peaceful state