Edge of Certainty: Dilemmas on the Buddhist Path

Rating:
Summary: the Dilema of Trying to Relax
Review: Fenner's book was one I'd been wanting to read a long time. First, he very clearly outlines the major schools and approaches of dharma in general, and specifically their orthodox/unorthodox stance. Most long term practicioners might well enjoy this lucid if brief survey, although it will be paricularly useful to newer students. Well written in some ways that struck me as quite fresh.

Anyway, I was geared up for the Final Showdown in the last chapter; Who's Cuisine Reigns Supreme? This boils down to the question: is enlightenment reached through sustained, gradual effort? Or, since enlightenment is an ultimate, unconditioned state, (not 'caused' in any way), would it not follow that nothing can be done since it is already and always the case? Here, effort only masks this Truth that cannot be masked since it is the mask as well.....Utimate irony.

This boils down to the great dilema; Striving only creates more striving; thinking more thinking; yet do we really think that we can reach realization without effort? How did those who realize that there is nothing that needs to be done, or can be done, reach that realization? The master Longchenpa, in one cited text, goes to great lengths to mock the notion of any path's usefulness, then elsewhere in the same text speaks of the neccessity of path! Likewise, dzogchen takes the same disparaging approach, yet is the last stage of a gradual path requiring great effort and gusto. I love it.

Well, of course that's the Edge of Certainty, and a razor's edge it is. The book is koan like in the sense that it's devotion to truth means it won't settle or dwell anywhere, but everywhere and nowhere. Frustrating to the brain, intriguing to the heart!