Gate 50 Sense organs

The sense organs are a gate of Dharma illumination; for [with them]we practice the right way.
入是法明門、修正道故。

The kanji here for the sense organs are a Buddhist expression.  It’s not the everyday term for normal five senses of sight, sound, smell, taste and touch; this gate statement uses 入, a word for entry or entrance, to indicate sense organ.  We also find it in 六入 roku nyu, six entries; usually we say six sense gates.

Why six senses rather than the five we usually expect?  In Buddhism, mind is a sense-organ, which we’ll consider shortly.  There are other similar Buddhist terms for the sense organs.  Sometimes it’s six roots 根 or six places 処, but today we have the gateways of eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body and mind.  These are called gates because stimulation comes in from outside—and we express our thoughts and emotions back to the outside.

In the Four Noble Truths, the Buddha tells us that the origin of suffering is craving, and in the twelvefold chain of dependent origination, craving arises from sensations.  Sensations result from the six sense organs being in contact with objects.  The eye sees something, the skin touches something, and sensation arises which is either pleasant, unpleasant or neutral.  When we think of mind as a sense organ, the objects of mind are memories, images, concepts or things we can think about.  Then we start writing a story and running after some things and running away from other things.

These eighteen elements—sense organs, the things they contact, and the sensation that arises—are the foundations for the three poisons of greed, anger and ignorance.  Now we can see the entire process: the sense organ comes in contact with an object, a sensation arises, the three poisons arise, craving starts, and we have suffering.  Buddha said that to overcome craving and the suffering that results, we need wisdom.  We need to develop some insight into how the senses work and then exercise some care about how we use them.

In the first talk he gave after his awakening, the Buddha said:
Bhikkhus, these two extremes ought not to be cultivated by one gone forth from the house-life. What are the two? There is devotion to indulgence of pleasure in the objects of sensual desire, which is inferior, low, vulgar, ignoble, and leads to no good; and there is devotion to self-torment, which is painful, ignoble and leads to no good. 

This gate is taking us back to some of the most basic and important teachings in our tradition.  For example, we don’t indulge our greed by grabbing all the chocolate cake or gourmet pink lettuce, but we also don’t ignore the needs of the body by not eating properly.  The middle way is to take care of the body with reasonable, nutritious, appealing food without being caught up in the senses and going to extremes.

In fact, sensory desire is one of the five hindrances.  If we’re looking for happiness or comfort through gratifying the senses and clinging to the thoughts and ideas related to that, it’s hard to maintain focus or settle down while we’re always being pulled around by the senses.  We don’t have to ignore or suppress what our sense are doing, but we do need to pay attention to what’s happening—and what’s happening is that we’re creating suffering.  The enjoyment we get from gratifying the senses ultimately becomes suffering when those sensations go away.

There are several other important themes about the sense gates that show up throughout our tradition.  One is that the world we create using sense-data is an illusion.  Another is that sense gates and everything that goes with them both exist and don’t exist; these are teachings related to emptness.  A third is that although the sense gates lead to the three poisons and suffering, they are also instances of prajna or wisdom.

First let’s talk about the illusory world of the senses.  We’d like to think that when our senses come in contact with something, we get a pure and complete picture of that object.  Especially if it’s a neutral object and we don’t have any strong feelings about it, we think we perceive the reality of it.  However, it’s not possible for a couple of reasons.  One is that the human body is limited.  We can’t see all sides of an object at the same time.  We can’t see some colors of light or some frequencies of sound.  Okumura Roshi sometimes makes the point that humans can’t hear everything dogs can hear, so what seems quiet for us might be very noisy for dogs.

Another problem is that we immediately filter all of our sense data through our previous knowledge and experiences so we can categorize it.  That seems to be chocolate cake, which I know I like, or that seems to be a bat, and I had a bad experience once with a bat in my house, so I’m not so keen.  Our perception of something is our own perception; it’s not like someone else’s, and not like it might be in our own past or future.

Uchiyama Roshi says:  We assume that we are all living together in one commonly shared world.  However, this is not true from the perspective of the reality of our life-experience, which we learn about through letting go of our thought in zazen.  For example, when you and I look at a cup, we usually assume that we are looking at the very same cup, but this isn’t so in terms of true raw life-experience,  I am looking from my angle and with the power of my vision and you are looking from your angle and with your power of vision.  There is absolutely no way we can exchange nor understand each other’s experience.\

This is not only true for seeing; it is true of every perception and sense experience--hearing smelling, tasting and touching.  The world in which we actually live and experience life in its vivid freshness is a world that is mine alone and yours alone. (1)

It’s kind of interesting to consider that each of us is creating our own world moment by moment out of the things coming in through our sense gates.  My experience and your experience can never be exactly the same, and my experience and the true reality of all beings can never be exactly the same.  We have to use our senses to navigate the world, but we also have to see the illusion.  We can be fooled and we can make mistakes

There’s another issue with thinking that our perceptions are completely clear: the senses don’t work separately.  We don’t see something or hear something in isolation from the rest of the body’s functioning, and that influences how we experience these sensations.  Also, all the senses interact with each other and work together.

Okumura Roshi says: Usually we think we see things in the same way that a mirror reflects an image of an object.  We think the object is reflected in our eyes and that our eyes see the object.  Yet “seeing color and hearing sounds with body and mind” means that our lives and our bodies do not function in such a disjointed way.  It is really true that we see things not only with our eyes and year things not only with our ears.  The whole body and mind are involved in the activities of seeing objects, hearing sounds, smelling fragrances, tasting flavors and feeling sensations.

When having a meal, for example, all our senses are engaged.  We see the food’s color and shape with the eyes, smell and taste the food, and even hear the sound of our biting and chewing.  When we swallow, we experience satisfaction in feeling the food move down the throat until it settles in the stomach.  We may think of how delicious the food is and experience gratitude for those who prepared the meal, and we may think appreciatively of the immeasurable work that was involved in growing, harvesting and transporting the food.  These experiences of the meal are not simply discrete products of individual sense organs and their separate objects; we experience a meal engaging the entire body and mind. (2)  

We’ve got all of these sensations coming at us through the sense gates all the time, and we don’t usually stop to sort out what’s going on.  We just experience with the whole body and mind and plunge fully into this moment—and no wonder it’s so easy to cling to a sense of a fixed self and assume we have an independant separate self-nature.  When we look in the mirror, we see our unique faces with all the sense organs, and of course all that exists; no one would argue that point.  Then along comes the Heart Sutra, which says there is no eye, ear, nose, tongue, body or mind, and also no objects of those senses (sight, sound, smell, taste, touch, object of mind), and also no sense-consciousnesses that arise when each sense organ makes contact with an object.  Yet we’ve just considered that these eighteen elements are the basis for the three poisons and all our craving and suffering.  What’s going on?

The teaching here is that these things have no independent, permanent existence: in other words, they’re empty.  We can identify physical sense organs, our sensations are real, and the objects we experience are real, but these don’t form the entirety of reality.  They’re partial, they’re influenced and distorted, and they change all the time.  

Not only that, who is it that thinks he or she owns these sense organs and the impressions that come from them?  We can really see five skandhas clinging to five skandhas here and now unreliable that dynamic is.  There’s a collection of aggregates called “I” that’s collecting distorted sense data, mixing it with various thoughts and memories and writing a story about the nature of reality.   Hmmmmm.  There are so many ways to go off the rails here.

We need to develop the wisdom to see what’s really going on so we can be skillful in these conditions.  Okumura Roshi has this to say:
Our picture of the world is our reality, but we should understand that it is distorted.  This is the meaning of emptiness.  Our mind is emptiness.  Our sense organs are emptiness.  Things outside us are also emptiness.  Everything is just an illusion.  The fact that we live with illusion is our reality.  When we really understand this and see how illusion is caused, we can see reality through the illusion.  Whatever we see, whatever we grasp with our sense organs and consciousness is illuson.  When we see this we are released from attachment to our limited view, to what we have , to what we think we own.  We may not become completely free, but we become less restricted by our limitations. (3) 

Again, we’re not saying that our senses and sensations aren’t real; they just don’t have existence that’s separate from anything else, and because they’re connected to each other and influenced by other elements around them, they can’t tell us the whole story.  

There are a couple of parts of the Sandokai that can provide some helpful illustrations.  The Sandokai is a poem written by Shitou Xichian in 8th century China.  In English the title is The Merging of Difference and Sameness, and in Japan we chant this poem every other day during morning service.  Sandokai is a poem about holding both individuality and distinctions and also the larger view of nonduality.  In a couple of places, it makes reference to the individual sense gates as real and functioning and yet also as not really independent or separate from each other or their objects or the entire network.

At one point it says, “Each sense and every field interact and yet do not.”  Each sense organ makes contact with objects and sensation arises, but also this never happens, because the sense organ and the object are not separate.  I have ears and I can hear music, and out of that a pleasant sensation arises, but also, there is no separate “I” with something to be distinguished as ears that are distinct from music, and no pleasant sensation that’s separate from the complete functioning of this moment.

Okumura Roshi says: [The sense organs of the body and mind and their objects] are independent and yet work together to create the world.  When we sit in this space, the space and my sitting become one.  When I cook in the kitchen, this body, my self, the ingredients the water, the fire, the untensils, and the space called the kitchen become one being working together.  When we play baseball, the whole universe becomes the world of playing baseball,  Our activity and the universe become one,  It all works together.  If we become angry, this whole world becomes the world of anger.  Everything around us makes us crazy and angry.  When we have a competitive mind, this entire world becomes the world of competition,  Our body and mind work together with the environment to create one world,  In this sense our mind is very important.  A change in our mind could change the whole world.  Our practice is important because it is not just the practice of our mind; it influences the whole universe. (4)  

If I’m working in my shop, seeing and smelling the wood, hearing the lathe going around and the chisel cutting shavings, and feeling the tools in my hand, I can identify each of these things as distinct from each other.  However, I can also see that they’re not separate from the entirety of the scene of what’s going on in the shop, and nowhere is there a separate me.  Early Buddhists said this is why there’s no permanent essence, atman or soul outside of the relationship between sense organs and objects; our lives consist only of these 18 elements.  Then the Heart Sutra came along to say even these things don’t exist as we usually think of them.  Finally, Dogen said they exist but are actually empty (impermanent and with no independent existence), and because of that, the sense gates are actually instances of wisdom or prajna.

That seems puzzling because we’ve just been hearing about how we can be led astray by the illusions of the sense organs and what arises from them.  How do we become able to see the senses as prajna, and how does all this relate to our practice of zazen?

Clearly, this isn’t a practice of the intellect, because even though we know some things about physiology, there’s still plenty we don’t know about what the brain does with the stuff that comes in through the sense gates, and how five skandhas cling to five skandhas and create a self out of that attachment.

Uchiyama Roshi says, Who is seeing?  How can we see?  It’s truly a mystery!  Scientists may explain the function of retinal cells, optic nerves and so forth, but no matter how much explanation is given, we cannot understand the most crucial point.  Eyes are eyes, and things are things, but how does the consciousness of seeing arise?  This is really mysterious and beyond our comprehensive thought.  The root of this wondrous phenomenon can only be called “life.”   Even if we put all the various parts of the human body together, such as head, chest of legs, and connect them, we still cannot create a human being.  Only if life functions there is there a human being.  The ground of such wondrous life is rooted in is prajna paramita.  

Dogen’s advice is that to hear the teaching of Buddha through everything we encounter every day.  In other words, to perceive objects clearly through prajna we have to free our sense gates from defilement by the three poisons.

Okumura Roshi says:  Even though we see things we don’t normally see them as the Dharma.  How can we get this true Dharma eye?  How can we really see the Dharma?  That is the point of our practice.  In the Soto Zen tradition we do monastic practice to transform our eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body and mind.  The foundation of monastic practice is zazen, and all the activities in daily monastic life are the manifestation of zazen practice: chanting sutras, listening to Dharma talks, eating with oryoki, cooking, cleaning, even resting and sleeping.  Doing all these activities with awakening mind, being mindful and attentive--this is the way we transform our six sense organs into the true Dharma eye, ear, nose, tongue, body and mind. (5)  

He goes on to say that most of us in the West don’t live in a training temple, and we need to find some other way to live with this same spirit.  We have to find other ways to experience what Dogen describes: seeing clearly and knowing that there is no separation between senses and their objects.  Of course, we can do this through all the activities of our practice lives: zazen, work, study and ritual.  We don’t have to be in a special temple or take on some particular status as practitioners.  As long as we’re taking in stimulation through the sense gates and working with it skillfully, we’re doing that practice.

When it comes to our zazen, of course our bodies and minds are fully functioning while we’re sitting.  We’re not turning anything off or suppressing anything that’s happening.  That means our senses are working: we’re smelling the incense, hearing the bell, feeling our cushions under us, and because we’re human we’re taking all those sensations in and creating a world.  Uchiyama Roshi called the appearance of the world as we perceive it through our senses the scenery of our zazen.  We’re aware of that scenery, but we’re not clinging to it or resting in it.  It’s coming and going like the clouds in the sky, and we’re not making anything out of it.

Okumura Roshi did a translation of Keizan Zenji’s Zazen Yojinki, covering things we should be careful about regarding zazen.  Keizan describes how we let go of everything during zazen and drop off body and mind:
Zazen is far beyond the form  of sitting or lying down. Free from considerations of good and evil, zazen transcends distinctions between ordinary people and sages, it goes far eyond judgements of deluded or enlightened. Zazen includes no boundary between sentient beings and buddha. Therefore put aside all affairs, and let go of all associations. Do nothing at all. The six senses produce nothing.

Another translation says “The six sense are inactive.”  In other words, we’re not fabricating stuff out of what’s coming in through the sense gates.  We’re making no distinctions between one thing and another because we’re letting go of thought and simply letting the universe function through us.

There’s another famous image for this: the stone woman and the wooden man.  These two come from the Hokyo Zammai or Song of the Precious Mirror Samadhi, a 9th century Chinese poem by Dongshan Liangjie.  This is another one we chant every other morning in Japan.  The line says: the wooden man starts to sing; the stone woman gets up dancing.  In the context of the poem, these are two insentient beings preaching the dharma, which can only be understood by buddhas because the stone woman would be dancing without movement and the wooden man would be singing without sound.  It’s also making the point that in the broad view there is no distinction between sentient and non-sentient beings.  These two beings are simply and completely carrying out their function as wood and stone with nothing extra, just as the bodhisattva simply and completely carries out his or her vows with nothing extra.  Again, the universe functions through all of these beings.

Dogen, as is his way, picks up on this image and gives it a different context.  He gave a dharma hall discourse in which he said:
For nine years Bodhidharma bestowed a single utterance. Until now, people in various regions have mistakenly taken it up. Do you want to demonstrate it without mistakes? Eihei will again demonstrate it for the sake of all of you. The Iron Ring mountains surround Mount Sumeru at the center.  This is just exactly right. Thus it is demonstrated completely. However, is it possible to demonstrate it unmistakably? After a pause Dogen said: The jade woman recalls her dream of the triple world. The wooden man sits, cutting off functioning of the six senses.  Dogen descended from his seat. (6)
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What does all this mean?  For nine years Bodhidharma bestowed a single utterance.  Tradition says that Bodhidharma sat zazen for nine years in a cave without saying anything.  Dogen says he communicated only one thing: thusness.  Until now, people in various regions have mistakenly taken it up.  No one has really understood what Bodhidharma was doing.  Do you want to demonstrate it without mistakes? Eihei will again demonstrate it for the sake of all of you.  Dogen’s going to show us how it’s done.  The Iron Ring mountains surround Mount Sumeru at the center.  This is just exactly right. Thus it is demonstrated completely.  This is a description of mountains in Indian Buddhist cosmology.  Dogen is just describing reality as it is.  However, is it possible to demonstrate it unmistakably? After a pause Dogen said: The jade woman recalls her dream of the triple world. The wooden man sits, cutting off functioning of the six senses.  Dogen descended from his seat.  The jade woman or stone woman is right in the midst of thusness or nirvana or awakening and is also right in the middle of the illusory world of samsara.  The wooden man is sitting zazen right in the middle of thusness or awakening, completely alive and functioning and doing exactly what Keizan described later in the Zazen Yojinki: not fabricating anything out of the sense gates.

We live in the world of the senses and we also go beyond the world of the senses.  The sense gates are an opportunity to study and investigate the world and our own moment-by-moment experience.  The challenge is not to get caught by our senses and lose sight of what we’re doing.

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Notes

1) ​Uchiyama, K. (2005). Opening the Hand of Thought: Foundations of Zen Buddhist Practice. Ukraine: Wisdom Publications, p. 128.
​2) Okumura, S. (2010). Realizing Genjokoan: The Key to Dogen's Shobogenzo. United Kingdom: Wisdom Publications, p. 67.
​3) Okumura, S. (2012). Living by Vow: A Practical Introduction to Eight Essential Zen Chants and Texts. United Kingdom: Wisdom Publications, p. 133
​4) Ibid., p. 235.
5) Okumura, S. (2018). The Mountains and Waters Sutra: A Practitioner's Guide to Dogen's "Sansuikyo". United States: Wisdom Publications, p. 13.
6) Dogen, E. (2010). Dogen's Extensive Record: A Translation of the Eihei Koroku. United States: Wisdom Publications, p. 206.

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Questions for reflection and discussion

• Describe a time that you were fooled by your senses.  How might that experience help you to understand teachings about how we create our own worlds from the sensations that come in through our sense gates?
• How do you find yourself filtering your sense impressions through your existing worldview, expectations or knowledge?  How might that contribute to a distorted view of reality that leads to suffering?
• Okumura Roshi says that even though we see things, we don’t normally see them as the dharma.  How do you see your practice supporting your cultivation of clear seeing?
• What's your experience of the six senses functioning normally and yet producing nothing?