#prajna

Photo by Alley Feeley

This post was originally posted on my blog Restorative Luciferianism

a: ability to discern inner qualities and relationships : insight b: good sense : judgment c: generally accepted belief d: accumulated philosophical or scientific learning : knowledge 2: a wise attitude, belief, or course of action 3: the teachings of the ancient wise men

- Merriam Webster

Wisdom is a concept or quality associated with Lucifer and demons via King Solomon, a significant figure in the Hebrew Bible who later lent his name to "Solomonic magic." This is because 17th-century compiled magical texts such as The Lesser Keys of Solomon bear his name. In the Jewish texts, King Solomon is the third king of ancient Israel and is specifically known for his grand wisdom. The most infamous story about him in the Torah (I Kings) involves two women fighting over a baby being brought to him. He suggests they cut the baby in half to share, knowing the real mother will desperately try to intervene and thus prove her parentage.

In the Talmud, King Solomon features in other stories, including those that involve the demon king Ashmedai (often currently called Asmodeus). Ashmedai himself is probably a figure descended from the Zoroastrian daeva* Aēšma, viewed through an ancient Jewish lens. In the first such story, King Solomon wishes to build a special temple and, after torturing a couple of demons for information about it, all he yields is that he should ask Ashmedai. Ultimately, King Solomon tricks Ashmedai out of his heavenly and earthly studies by getting him drunk on wine, which Ashmedai drinks only out of desperate thirst, in order to to compel him to build the temple against the latter's will. From a modern perspective, it's an interesting albeit ethically terrible story. However, we do see Ashmedai laughing, crying, and feeling sorrowful for humans throughout the course of the narrative, demonstrating a wide intellectual and emotional range. It accidentally reveals that demons are also people in the course of this.

Prajna is a puppet made and manipulated by Orochi, one of the bosses from the game

Prajna just look really cute, especially the attire, very adorable

THE DUHKHA-PRAJNA SUTRA

Thus have I heard. In the quiet dusk the Blessed One addressed his disciples on Wisdom-through-Disillusionment:

The Sutra of the Heart of Transcendent Knowledge

Thus have I heard. Once the Blessed One was dwelling in Råjagriha at Vulture Peak mountain, together with a great gathering of the sangha of monks and a great gathering of the sangha of bodhisattvas. At that time the Blessed One entered the samådhi that expresses the dharma called “profound illumination,” and at the same time noble Avalokiteshvara, the bodhisattva mahåsattva, while practicing the profound prajñåpåramitå, saw in this way:

He saw the five skandhas to be empty of nature. Then, through the power of the Buddha, venerable Shåriputra said to noble Avalokiteshvara, the bodhisattva mahåsattva, “How should a son or daughter of noble family train, who wishes to practice the profound prajñåpåramitå?” Addressed in this way, noble Avalokiteshvara, the bodhisattva mahåsattva, said to venerable Shåriputra, “O Shåriputra, a son or daughter of noble family who wishes to practice the profound prajñåpåramitå should see in this way: seeing the five skandhas to be empty of nature. Form is emptiness; emptiness also is form. Emptiness is no other than form; form is no other than emptiness. In the same way, feeling, perception, formation, and consciousness are emptiness. Thus, Shåriputra, all dharmas are emptiness. There are no characteristics. There is no birth and no cessation. There is no impurity and no purity. There is no decrease and no increase. Therefore, Shåriputra, in emptiness, there is no form, no feeling, no perception, no formation, no consciousness; no eye, no ear, no nose, no tongue, no body, no mind; no appearance, no sound, no smell, no taste, no touch, no dharmas; no eye dhåtu up to no mind dhåtu, no dhåtu of dharmas, no mind consciousness dhåtu; no ignorance, no end of ignorance up to no old age and death, no end of old age and death; no suffering, no origin of suffering, no cessation of suffering, no path, no wisdom, no attainment, and no nonattainment. Therefore, Shåriputra, since the bodhisattvas have no attainment, they abide by means of prajñåpåramitå. Since there is no obscuration of mind,

there is no fear. They transcend falsity and attain complete nirvåna. All the buddhas of the three times, by means of prajñåpåramitå, fully awaken to unsurpassable, true, complete enlightenment. Therefore, the great mantra of prajñåpåramitå, the mantra of great insight, the unsurpassed mantra, the unequaled mantra, the mantra that calms all suffering, should be known as truth, since there is no deception. The prajñåpåramitå mantra is said in this way:

OM GATE GATE PÅRAGATE PÅRASAMGATE BODHI SVÅHÅ

Thus, Shåriputra, the bodhisattva mahåsattva should train in the profound prajñåpåramitå.”

Then the Blessed One arose from that samådhi and praised noble Avalokiteshvara, the bodhisattva mahåsattva, saying, “Good, good, O son of noble family; thus it is, O son of noble family, thus it is. One should practice the profound prajñåpåramitå just as you have taught and all the tathågatas will rejoice.”

When the Blessed One had said this, venerable Shåriputra and noble Avalokiteshvara, the bodhisattva mahåsattva, that whole assembly and the world with its gods, humans, asuras, and gandharvas rejoiced and praised the words of the Blessed One.

---

Lotsåwa bhikúhu Rinchen De translated this text into Tibetan with the Indian païçita Vimalamitra.

It was edited by the great editor—lotsåwas Gelo,

Namkha, and others. This Tibetan text was copied

from the fresco in Gegye Chemaling at the glorious Samye vihåra. It has been translated into English

- A message from 23 nights temple -

“Knowledge without wisdom, leads to disaster, and charity without compassion leads to resentment.”

-二十三夜堂からのメッセージ-

The psychologization of the dharma in the west has not been an entirely negative movement. In many ways the marriage of psychology and mindfulness has been a fruitful one that has made Buddhist principles more accessible to the masses. Certainly the ongoing dialogue between observational science and Buddhist spiritual practice has helped to both verify and refine the transmission and translation of various doctrines and practices into a culturally accessible format.

However, this hasn’t been a movement without shadow. The conflation of the dharma with mindfulness alone, as the crown jewel of the psychological reductionist perspective has been a hindering force for many practitioners, who often come to conflate awakening with metacognitive awareness. That’s a grave mistake.

The dawning of metacognition is a substantial doorway, but a doorway nonetheless. It’s not the path made manifest. Likewise practice cannot be reduced to metacognition. Metacognition is a relatively early consequence of meditative practice, but it’s not samadhi, and it’s certainly not prajna.

Samadhi is often misunderstood as some kind of blank absorption into mindless being. This is a substantial pitfall, a trapping of the mind that the ego is all too happy to allow the practitioner to become infatuated with. Hanging out in “nothingness” after all is a safe space for the ego, wherein subject-object dualism can be safely maintained. After all, samadhi as it is most frequently reported is a state of “I” slipping away for a time, after which it can emerge from its bath in nothingness fully aware of its journeying, and often proud of it to boot.

True samadhi on the other hand, true meditative absorption into the heart of reality, is a manifestation of nondualism. It is the realization and effortless expression of subject-object sameness, and embodying of the true-self, which is limitless in time and space, while somehow yet identifiable through the singular body of one’s birth (after all, form IS emptiness and emptiness IS form). It is from this samadhic state that prajna, or the spontaneous expression of wisdom before thinking, can appear.

Zen Master Seung Sahn often noted that practitioners must find “correct situation, correct relationship, and correct function.” Situation, relationship, and function in spontaneous harmony and accord is, in effect, prajna arising from samadhi.

In this it may he further understood that samadhi is not a drop into some well of neutral blankness, but a conscious swim in-and-as the dynamic tension that may be interpreted through such terms as rupa and sunyata, purusha and prakriti, yin and yang, waves and particles, etc.

It is not with any degree of levity that Zen prescribes the essentials of great faith, great doubt, and great determination. We must have some degree of considerable degree of faith that our practice can yield resolution to the matter of life and death. We must uphold a continual resolve to push beyond the limits of what we hope to be the end of the path and into the real, doubting that the full picture has ever quite entered our conscious regard. And too, we must devote ourselves to persistence in this faith and doubt, understanding sadhana (shugyo) as the only path to true liberation and awakening.

~Sunyananda

We have a tendency to think that we have a separate self that is born at one moment and must die at another, and that is permanent during the time we are alive. As long as we have this wrong view, we will suffer; we will create suffering for those around us, and we will cause harm to other species and to our precious planet.

We are not limited to our physical body, even when we are alive.  We inter-are with our ancestors, our descendants, and the whole cosmos. We don’t have a separate self, we are never really born, and we never really die. We are interconnected with all life, and we are always in transformation.

Can you see how you are continued in your parents, in your brothers and sisters, in your teachers and friends? Can you see the continuation body of your parents and loved ones? We don’t need to get old or die in order to see our continuation body. We don’t need to wait for the complete disintegration of this body in order to begin to see our continuation body, just as a cloud doesn’t need to have been entirely transformed into rain in order to see her continuation body. Can you see your rain, your river, your ocean?

Each one of us should train ourselves to see our continuation body in the present moment. If we can see our continuation body while we’re still alive, we’ll know how to cultivate it to ensure a beautiful continuation in the future. This is the true joy of living. Then, when the time comes for the dissolution of our physical body, we will be able to release it easily.

- Thich Nhat Hanh, in ”The Art of Living”.