The Diamond Sutra

Buddhism is something most new-age college students only pretend to pay lip service to when they want to pretend to be ‘spiritual’, yet desire to stay away from the problematic histories of most major religions. Follow this Bwog Staff Writer as she investigates the Diamond Sutra, one of the most revered sutras in Mahayana Buddhism.

Prior to this event, my knowledge of Buddhism came mainly from recaps of the main ideas in the context of Chinese history. Even from this, the idea of non-attachment as a source of wisdom and faith was fascinating to me. I was excited to explore further, especially as the event touted itself as an antidote to this turbulent election season.

They talked of the principle of non-attachment as a challenge to the major themes of division and prejudice that have been following us throughout our perusing of Mr. Trump’s Twitter feed.

The event ended up being meaningful for two primary reasons. Firstly, it was alarmingly intimate. Imagine this setting: the basement of St. Paul’s, a dimly lit choir room with alarmingly beautiful stained glass windows for a basement room.

In the center of the quite small room was a semicircle of chairs, and discussion leader Professor Malik Walker sat to one side, making conversation with each of us and asking about our majors.

We chatted pleasantly over dinner about the previous day’s ‘Victims, Victims Everywhere’ event with Christina Hoff Simmons. He was adamant that he wanted to feel as if he was ‘among family’, a feeling that was definitely created by the casual atmosphere and regrettably sparse attendance. It was a beautiful moment in time, and this added to the idea that we were there to talk about: non-attachment.

This idea involves focusing on the here and now, disregarding future and pass and attempting to grasp the moment as if grasping at water from the stream of a bottle. It was a peculiarly comfortable tone given that Walker is a bodhisattva in the Mahayana way of Buddhist belief, which I had only encountered in Chinese Buddhist sculpture as the enlightened guide, who shows mortals the Way.

Despite the intimacy of the arrangement, we were not gathered to talk about personal attachment, but rather attachment within our society, at the macroscopic level. This is the second reason why the event was so meaningful; it tied in exactly to the sentiments of its audience at that moment. Looking at a macroscopic level, Walker talked about how our larger situation felt like a tornado of different tensions, creating an almost apocalyptic atmosphere. Trump, situations in countries overseas, Hillary wanting to arm the Kurds, it all feels hopeless. In this situation, it feels to us all as if we are born into a world we cannot choose. This, explained Walker, is dharma, the world that we are attached to whether or not we would like to be.

In the Diamond Sutra, unlike my initial expectations, the Buddha does not discuss non-attachment. In fact, the goal seems not to be to detach, reject or escape the realities of our dharma, but rather to deconstruct our initial thoughts about the world around us. The Diamond Sutra is called by its full name, ‘the Diamond That Cuts’, considering the cutting of our preconceptions. Walker stressed throughout the discussion that this deconstruction of preconceptions did not mean total non-attachment, but rather centered on the process of the ‘dharma combat’, namely, a discussion where people wrestle with the underlying principles, but ultimately do not come to a solution.

This in essence was the entire take home of the situation: in the Diamond Sutra, no solution to escaping dharma is given. However, the journey itself is the end. In the words of the Sutra we must not allow ‘the mind to depend on things that are evoked by the sensible world’ but must instead rely on our own thoughts. To shaken Columbia students, this in itself may provide some comfort when considering the seemingly apocalyptic situation the nation seems to be in currently. It also highlights that the decision to come to a place where open discussion is held and our peers encourage this sort of ‘dharma combat’, is perhaps the right one in the current context.

The Diamond Sutra via Huffington Post