A dojo is a collection of karma — human actions and accumulated mental habits— that we label as a dojo. Since a dojo is made only of actions, it follows that if you want to create a good dojo – or a good family or a good company or a good country – we need to do what’s right.  Our lives are made of actions. Answering the question of what to do and what to avoid is essential.

 

In the Abhidharma, an ancient collection of Buddhist doctrine, there is a description of the cosmos. It is fundamental to an understanding of Indian Buddhism, but it is generally ignored by contemporary Buddhists. Abhidharma cosmology seems to be a relic of pre-scientific, ignorant times. It seems to be mistaken, a flaw, irrelevant. It is regarded as the Asian facsimile of Ptolemy or the Flat Earth Society. Something you might study if you were interested in the history of science, but not a place to look for truth. This misses the point. As an analog of our inner geography, it’s as precise as an atomic clock.

 

The Abhidharma describes a vast ocean from which four continents arise. These four continents are arranged around the base of a huge central mountain, Mount Meru. Humans live on one of the continents, the continent called “Endurance.” If a person were to travel in any direction away from Mount Meru, he would eventually encounter a range of iron mountains. It would be impossible to walk around the mountain range, because the range is a circle completely surrounding Mount Meru. If, with great effort and determination, the person climbed up and over the iron mountain range, he could

keep going for a while, but before too long, he would encounter another ring of mountains. Struggle on? There’s another and another, seven of them, until, if he chose to persevere despite the difficulty, he would arrive at the nothing, at the edge of the world.

 

So let’s say our traveler has discovered that heading away from the center of the world, no matter how far he goes, will yield only exhaustion. If this person, seeing the futility of his earlier efforts was still inclined to travel, he could only head inward, toward the central axis of the world.

 

There, he could go up or down. Going up a mountain takes effort, more effort than staying in place. And going up the central mountain takes more energy than climbing the rings of iron mountain ranges, because it is much taller. But this ascent is worth the work. There, through the clouds, are the heavens. Thirty-three of them, each one more joyous and more glorious than the last, populated by gods and angels and other heavenly beings. And up beyond them are the Buddha realms, paradises completely beyond suffering.

 

What if the traveler, instead of ascending, heads downward? Going down is easy. It takes passivity, or stupidity, not energy or intelligence. If we expend our life energy in thrall of our impulses, or in hot pursuit of poisonous things, we descend further and faster.

 

On the surface of the world, the human and animal realms mingle. Down below Mount Meru, on the central axis of the world, are the lower realms. Below, if we descend, we come first to the realm of the hungry ghosts. They spend their lives there desperate for food and drink. They are in constant agony, searching everywhere, but they rarely find anything that will satisfy them. If they do they find something to eat or drink, they suffer more, because their mouths are too small to sip, and their throats are too small to swallow. Sometimes, when they find water to quench their thirst, it burns their lips like fire. Sometimes they see what looks like a fresh, cool stream, but as they approach, it transforms into a river of blood and pus. 

 

Further down, below Mount Meru are the hells. Eight hot hells, eight cold hells. The suffering of beings in hell starts as horrific, and should they descend to the lower hells, gets unimaginably worse.

 

The scriptural descriptions of these realms are elaborate. Nevertheless, an overall theme is implicit: mere expenditure of energy is not enough to have a good life. In fact, by moving away from the central axis, we expend our lives fruitlessly. This represents a path of relentless accumulation. It leads nowhere. No matter how much wealth, fame, information, worldly power one accumulates, where does it lead? Sought for its own sake, what does it come to?

 

This cosmological metaphor captures accurately the futility of the attempt to master the universe through the accumulation of scriptural knowledge, scientific knowledge, pleasurable sense experiences, philosophy, etc. All these worldly goals hold out the

promise of happiness, providing us with temporary satisfactions, but leaving us, in the end, without a lasting source of happiness. We exhaust ourselves, exhaust our lives, and never achieve our aim. Our goals recede endlessly, while new ones appear, again and again as the next ring of iron mountains, far in the distance.

 

This represents the mental habit of always wanting, and so, always wanting more. It describes the futility of seeking happiness out there, somewhere where it will never be found, no matter how intrepid our search.

 

What will actually make a difference in the quality of our lives is the moral valence of our action. If we behave virtuously, we ascend. If we behave non-virtuously, we descend. Whether you are a banker, teacher, car collector, supermodel or mail carrier, you have a choice every moment as to whether your mental condition and your actions are virtuous, non-virtuous or neutral. You can waste your life, condemn yourself to suffer, or free yourself from suffering forever.

 

You do not have to apprehend the subtleties of Zen stories to gain this view or to walk this path. Anyone, in any religion, in any walk of life, can do it.

Whether or not you take these specific cosmological descriptions to represent actual locations in space and time is not the point here.  The metaphor, as a guideline for action here and now, is accurate. Whether you are an artist, a scientist, teacher, a parent or anything else, the implication of this teaching is not to suggest that you abandon your pursuit. But rather, to be sure that you are motivated by a desire to put an end to suffering for all beings, and that you work as hard and skillfully as you can to realize that motivation.

 

According to this cosmology, what determines your ascent or descent are your actions and mental habits, i.e., your karma. Birth in some of the heavens, for example, is the result of habitually experiencing the pleasure of certain meditative mental states in this life. Birth in others is the result of profound and continual kindness. Other, higher heavens are the destination for individuals who dedicate their lives to achieving the deepest states of peace and understanding.

 

A future as a hungry ghost is the natural and unavoidable outcome of greed, hoarding, constantly wanting, and depriving others of what they need while you have plenty. Eons in the hells are the destiny of those who killed and committed other terrible crimes, who did so repeatedly, thought of it as good, and wanted to do it some more.

 

It is possible to study the means by which karma works—how all the things we do, say and think plant seeds in our minds, and how these seeds germinate and have their effects on us later. But even without understanding the intricate mechanics of karma, we can get useful guidance from this cosmological description of what is good to do and what is harmful. If we take it to heart, we can live a worthy life.