Hi John,
John G Packer:
From what I understand, this is the buddha saying how the world looks like from the perspective of the buddha's nature, pure consciousness, or whatever you call it, seeing the reality as it is, without any concepts filtering it.
Oh, my, what a web we weave when first we are tricked into being deceived.
First, let's become clear about what this book,
101 Zen Stories,
is before discussing any philosophy or whatever that it is alluding to.
I have a translation of this book in the Paul Reps publication
Zen Flesh, Zen Bones, A Collection of Zen and Pre-Zen Writings. In the preface we find the following:
"
101 Zen Stories was first published in 1939 by Ryder and Company, London, and David McKay Company, Philadelphia. These stories recount actual experiences of Chinese and Japanese Zen teachers over a period of more than five centuries."
Further on is stated: "These stories were transcribed into English from a book called
Shaseki-shu (Collection of Stone and Sand), written late in the thirteenth century by the Japanese Zen teacher Muju (the "non-dweller") and from anecdotes of Zen monks
taken from various books published in Japan around the turn of the present century [1900]."
Therefore, we are NOT looking at anything that can be authenticated as having derived from the earliest talks given by Gotama that are known to exist (the Pali Canon). The source of these stories are from Zen teachers and monks.
The point being: consider the source.
John G Packer:
But I'm not sure what he said about "Nirvana as a nightmare of daytime." I would guess what he means is that since nirvana is no-self and making all one's achievements useless, people are afraid of it.
Now that you are aware that what you have quoted is essentially from the mind of Zen practitioners and based upon their own impressions of
their practice and not upon anything that can be authenticated as having come from the mouth of Gotama, we may proceed with caution. Also, consider how accurately (or inaccurately) some interpreters might translate various thoughts being attributed to the Buddha, and you begin to see the trouble that can develop when attempting to accept that some passage either was or
was not directly attributable to anything that Gotama may have taught or stated.
With that as a background, then, your interpretation of what was meant by the passage you brought up is as good as anyone else's is, considering that you now know the actual source of the quotation. In other words, in order to ascertain the intended meaning, one would have to speak to the Zen practitioner who originated the story in the first place.
To my knowledge, I've not come across any passage in the Pali Canon (and I've read three and one tenth of the four main Nikayas, along with three of the volumes from the fifth collection — the
Khuddaka Nikaya) that could even remotely be translated to resemble the passage: "Nirvana as a nightmare of daytime," much less the whole of the passage translated and (falsely, to my thinking) attributed to Gotama. Therefore, I would not trouble my mind with attempting to figure out what in the world this might possibly mean.
Then, too, you have to consider the prime premise of Zen, which is to trick the mind into "no-thought," thus achieving, to the Zen way of looking at things, the equivalent of the early Buddhist ideal of Nibbana/Nirvana. What you then need to consider is: whether this Zen ideal of achievement is
all there is to what Gotama had to teach? Or is there more. . . unplumbed depths of riches toward which Gotama pointed that assist one in arriving at a depth of understanding deserving of an Awakened One.
In peace,
Ian