Spirit and me.

The notion that our spiritual lives are separate from our biological lives is a bit strange. Even if you don’t believe there is a spiritual world, I’ve never met anyone who argued that they didn’t have a spirit. The means of experiencing anything, spiritual or otherwise, is based in biology. 

On the other hand, you may accept that there is a spiritual reality but think that we are separated somehow from that spiritual dimension. For the spirit to be experienced, our biology is the avenue of communication since that is our means of experience. 

I personally know there is no such separation. Instead, I am persuaded of what the Dharma (and Christianity) teaches that our wholeness is the undividable conjunction of spirit and matter: that I can only exist as that partnership. If this is not so, then what part of me is compelling movement? An object can’t move. A stone just sits there and doesn’t move. We however do move and without a spiritual consciousness, we would be no better than a stone.

The point of contact, regardless of how the spirit is understood, is biological. However, and whatever we have, any experience is through a biological pathway impacting our bodies (a fantastic organism involving a multitude of biochemicals, hormones, neurotransmitters, and electricity). When we experience fear, our biochemical makeup is altered in one direction. When we experience joy, it’s changed in another order. Anger, another, and so on. The altering of our biochemical makeup affects even enlightenment, and all of these biochemical changes affect our thinking and responses to life.

The ingestion of drugs likewise alters our biochemistry and our sense of reality. What seems real given one biochemical arrangement is wholly altered when drugs are introduced. What seems familiar in a non-drug induced state is completely changed when drugs are used. And this is also true when enlightenment is experienced. What looks divided and alienated in our usual every-day way, before enlightenment, is seen as unified and compassionate after enlightenment. Our world and our self-understanding are subsequently turned upside down.

I don’t advise doing drugs because they can be addictive and ruin your life. On the other hand, there are situations where drugs are beneficial. But I do recommend the worldview and the self-understanding that arises with both certain drugs and enlightenment. One can destroy your life. The other can save your life. Besides, the latter is free of charge, and the former can bankrupt you. One can set you free, and the other can send you to jail. People die all of the time from a drug overdose, and nobody has ever died due to enlightenment.

Tracking a koan.

A story is told in the Platform Sutra of a conversation held between Daman Hongren (fifth Chinese Chan patriarch) and Dajian Huineng (sixth Chinese Chan patriarch). Huineng was an illiterate, unschooled commoner who, upon hearing the Diamond Cutter Sutra, realized enlightenment and subsequently sought out Hongren. When Huineng met the patriarch, he was assigned the lowly job of rice-pounder, where he remained for many months before proving his worth to Hongren.

The conversation between the two was thus: Hongren—“A seeker of the Path risks his life for the dharma. Should he not do so?” Then he asked, “Is the rice ready?”  Huineng—“Ready long ago, only waiting for the sieve.” 

Two questions, and a single short answer which reveals the nature of enlightenment—both sudden and gradual. Sudden, since awakening happened quickly, but fullness required the sifting of life’s sieve—The rice was ready, but the lingering, residual chaff had to be blown away by the winds of life.

The insight flowing from this conversation is enhanced through the lens of an ancient Greek word for perfection. The word is “Teleios,” which means having reached the finale—the logical culmination of maturation. Like birth, first, we come into this world, and then it takes many years of living to reach maturation.

More than forty years ago, I came to a realization of my true nature, but I also needed further shifting to fully grasp the magnitude of what had occurred. It is one thing to experience profound transformation, and it is another to allow it to flower and revolutionize your life. Besides, the initial experience was so contrary to the ordinary, that when it happens, I barely know which end was up. It took time to absorb the experience, allow it to infuse me, and to settle in.

One of the critical ingredients for me of this settling in concerned the Japanese words “mu” and “shin.” Mu is, of course, the Japanese word for “no,” and you find Mu in the koan about Jōshū’s dog: “A monk asked, ‘Does a dog have a Buddha-nature or not?’ The master said, ‘Mu (No)!’”

When I lived in a Zen monastery, this was my koan and for a long time it made no sense. In Zen, you are taught that Buddha-nature inhabits all sentient beings, one of which is a dog. So how could it be that Buddha-nature infuses everything but not a dog? But as life sifted me, it began to become a part of who I was, and ever so slowly, I understood. 

What I came to understand concerned variations on Mu. One of these is the obvious negation no. An alternative is nothing meaning the absence of something. And another is no-thing, (which is similar to nothing but more precise, meaning not a thing). These latter two can be combined, which rounds out the correct Buddhist understand of emptiness, which the Buddha said is form. Seen in this combined manner, emptiness becomes more than just the absence of form. It then becomes the wellspring of form (and everything else). Mu is not a phenomenal thing. Instead, it is the soil out of whch grows all things. If it was a thing, then it could not be all things.

The Heart Sutra says form is emptiness. That is a profound equation, but it rattles your brain. In a way this is the premier koan. We all think we know what form is. It’s the measurable stuff that surrounds us. We can sense it in every way. But emptiness is an entirely different kettle of fish. How can you perceive that? The truth is you can’t perceive emptiness. You can only experience it, and the reason is actually quite simple (but only when you understand—before that, it makes no sense). 

Emptiness is who we truly are. It has no discernible properties, but all form emanates from there and all form is infused with the indelible dimension of the ubiquitous power of creation. If emptiness had detectable properties, it would be limited. Buddha-Nature (your true nature) is not limited. Buddha-Nature is emptiness and it is you.

I was helped to fathom this when I learned a few things about the Chinese and the Japanese language. Every culture sees things differently, and these two languages see life in ways that are radically different from the English perspective. 

From a Western point of view, we have a heart, and we have a mind. We see these as two separate and different matters. Not so with the Chinese and the Japanese. The heart and the mind are one integrated whole, so they call it XIN (Chinese) or SHIN (Japanese), and both of these terms mean heart/mind—the integration of thinking and emotions. That was one piece of the puzzle.

The next piece concerned the seeming dichotomy between illusion and reality, and here again the cultural framing played an essential role. What we ordinarily consider real is what we can perceive, whether internally or externally. We see the objective world of form and the fabrication of thoughts and consider both real. But there is a problem here: Both our thoughts and the outside world of form are constantly changing, and both lure us into identity attachment and thus suffering. 

That part is the illusive dimension of XIN/SHIN, otherwise known as form. But The Buddha had said that form is emptiness, so in essence, he was saying that we could only perceive the manifestations but not the source of mind. In fact, this is what he had said in the Mahāyāna Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra:

“Seeing the actions of body and mouth, we say that we see the mind. The mind is not seen, but this is not false. This is seeing by outer signs.” Elsewhere he spoke of finding the fire of mind only by seeing smoke.

When we look for the mind, we find nothing—the mind can’t see itself, and this is where Zen shines because what we aim for in zazen is a cessation of form, long enough to experience the lack. Bodhidharma had said: “That which exists, exists in relationship to that which doesn’t exist.” And Rinzai’s teacher Huang Po, was particularly lucid in his teaching about the relationship between abandoning form and finding yourself. In the Chun Chou Record, he said: 

“To say that the real Dharmakāya of the Buddha resembles the Void is another way of saying that the Dharmakāya is the Void and that the Void is the Dharmakāya ...they are one and the same thing.... When all forms are abandoned, there is the Buddha ... the Void is not really void, but the realm of the real Dharma. This spiritually enlightening nature is without beginning...this great Nirvānic nature is Mind; Mind is the Buddha, and the Buddha is the Dharma.”

One of the fascinating aspects of Zen study is to begin patching together apparently disparate pieces into a seamless tapestry of meaning. When we arrange all of these pieces, a picture emerges centered on this notion of Mu and Shin and what it reveals is this equation: “Mu shin=Shin” where the first part “Mu shin” (the absence of thoughts and emotions) is joined to our true nature (Shin) which is formless/the void/true mind/the Buddha/yourself. 

Formlessness is lacking form. It is emptiness itself: “…the void is not really void, but the realm of the real Dharma. This spiritually enlightening nature is without beginning...this great Nirvānic nature is Mind; Mind is the Buddha, and the Buddha is the Dharma.” 

And that is who we are. Now the curious thing about my own awakening is what was taking place within me while immersing myself in Mu practice. Yes, I had been given the Jōshū’s dog koan, and yes, I was following the prescribed method, but there was a much deeper internal koan occurring that had been haunting me for many, many years, and there didn’t seem to be any way to either get rid of it or make rational sense of it. That koan was the mind-bender: who am I? So while I was immersing myself in dogs, this deeper koan was down there underneath. It didn’t seem to be even slightly related to dogs or Mu but what happened was that the answer to my who am I? question, emerged as the solution to the Mu koan because the answer to one is the answer to the other.

I had been struggling for years, believing all the time that I was a worthless excuse for humanity, and in my moment of awakening, I realized that I was already Teleios (complete). I knew, at the most fundamental level of me, I was perfect, had always been perfect, and would never stop being perfect, and ever so slowly, the winds of life began to blow away the chaff of the terrible part of me.

A Bird in hand.

Here or There?

Permeate. Interpenetrate. Assimilation: all mean essentially the same thing—To infuse one thing completely into another thing, so the distinction between the two no longer exists. 

Mix the color red with the color blue and purple results. Now there is no more red or blue. Combine liquid water with extreme cold and ice results. Now there is the result of interpenetration. Mix spirit with matter, and what do you get? A sentient being with no more boundary lines between matter and spirit. Now mix two or more sentient beings, and what do you get? Chaos. 

Red is different from blue, and they don’t fight. Water and cold are different, and they don’t fight. Spirit and matter are different, and they do fight. Isn’t that odd? How can it be explained?  The problem is consciousness and perception. Red, blue, water, and cold are not conscious, but suddenly, there is fighting over differences when you add consciousness. And the reason is simple: Consciousness produces the capacity to perceive, and what a sentient being perceives are differences. 

Nobody can perceive a spirit, just what a spirit produces—sentient matter. There are both benefits and consequences of being human. We are a mixture of matter and spirit. We are sentient beings. We perceive only differences. We don’t perceive our true spiritual nature because it can’t be perceived through our ordinary senses. We would rather have what we imagine is a couple of birds in the bush instead of the one in our hands. The one in our hands is no longer either spirit or matter. Now it is simply One whole sentient being: the infusion of Spirit and non-spirit. We are the Middle Way.

The Bumping Game

There are no formulas, no prescription, nor a set of rules, which stand alone as sufficient to ensure fulfillment or realize our potential. The hope of all humankind is the same—to find our way, to make sense of our existence, discover the means whereby we can make a difference, reach the end of our days and say with honesty, “I did my best.” To simply eat food, grow fat, and move toward the end without examining our own life, as it is lived, rather than the way we think it might have been, is an utter waste. In such a case, we have ignored the ever-present voice that calls to us: “Who are you, and why are you here?”

None of us can live a life of abstraction or fantasy, even though what we imagine our reality to be is nothing more than an illusion we mistake for substance. Yet it is also the only reality we’ll ever have. Most all of us mistake this life of conditions as the sum total—all that exists. Others more fortunate understand life as the conditional and the unconditional. And a rare few go further and see these two as united, beyond our rational capacities. Such people enjoy peace, which passes all understanding because they have experienced no separation between one dimension and another.

Their lives are the lives of others as well as their own. They experience the ever-changing joy and agony of their fellow humans. In their bones, they know the true meaning of compassion and wisdom not as matters of an isolated individual who has constructed a philosophy or theory, which they propose as a one-size-fits-all recommendation. Instead, their knowing gets patched together one moment at a time. They flow like water rather than fixed like a stone.

We come into this world with no answers, not even aware of the questions. Then we begin. We move. We bump into life, and it bumps into us. We fall down. We get up. We’re hungry, and we seek food. Thirsty, we seek water. We are besieged by moving objects as if we were cueballs on a pool table. We remember and think to ourselves, “How can I avoid that?” or “How can I repeat that?”. We project, we plan, and the bumping continues. “That didn’t work. Try a different approach.” Then we try that different approach, and it too fails, or it succeeds for a time only to fail again—the cycle repeats. We learn, adjust, and adapt, or we become crusty, stodgy, and stuck.

The rulebook didn’t come along with our birth, and even if it did, there could never be a book that worked very long in this bumping, changing world. Clearly, there are no answers so long as we stay transfixed and wedded to the movement. The clue should be evident: The problem is seeing without clarity. The solution is seeing clearly. But it isn’t the ordinary seeing that matters. The ordinary way is the problem. The ordinary way leads us into further problems of bumping and getting bumped. 

It is what we don’t see that matters, not what we do. What we don’t see has no movement. We see movement, we respond and try to either get out of the way or gravitate toward a moving target.

Why do we care? What compels us toward one moving target and away from another? Why not stand still and let others do their own the bumping and getting bumped? It’s worth looking into and what we discover upon examination is that we either crave what attracts us (trying to retain it) or resist what we find repugnant. But why? What part of us needs, desires, and tries to avoid? Are we experiencing anxiety, fear, and incompletion? Is that what this is all about? Yes, it is. It’s seeing what’s here, and the presumption of insecurity and incompletion that drives the bumping and getting bumped.

So seeing what moves is the problem. Seeing what doesn’t is the solution: Seeing both the seen, the unseen, and understanding which part of us is experiencing the perception of problems where none exist. And once we understand that great matter, then it is time for the rest: Seeing the one doing the seeing—The unseen seer; the one always doing the seeing, the one who doesn’t move, allows movement and engages in the bumping game. Why? To tire of getting bumped and bumping so that we can discover the bumper.

The Science of Everything—Nothing

The famous Heart of Perfect Wisdom Sutra makes an astonishing statement: Form is emptiness. Emptiness is form. To the ordinary way of understanding, the statement makes no sense. From that perspective, a form is a detectable object. We can perceive such forms. 

On the other hand, something that is empty is not detectable, so we say that emptiness is void of perceptible objects. That’s our ordinary way of understanding reality, and we refer to that arrangement as mutual discretion, which Aristotle expressed as the Principle of Non-contradiction. The “PNC” says that two matters that are different can’t be in the same place simultaneously, so when we consider the form is emptiness arrangement, we immediately reject the statement. Why? Simple: One is detectable, and the other is not—different, so not the same. Yet there is that perplexing statement, which is supposed to be the height of wisdom. In fact, the sutra says this is the highest wisdom:(perfect wisdom). So what’s so wise about such a curious statement?

If the statement were true, we would be forced to come to terms with how both Aristotle’s and the Buddha’s statements could be the same, even though they appear as polar opposites. Perhaps this emptiness is not really the sort of emptiness we imagine. Probably this nothing is really everything in disguise. How we express thoughts is dependent upon language. Words have a particular meaning. Words are conceptual, but there are no words or concepts to adequately express Śūnyatā (emptiness) because it is beyond words. Words change from one language to another, but the wellspring of all language forms is the human mind, and the mind is not only the source but also the form. 

In one sense, the mind is truly empty, and in another sense, it is everything. For 2,500 years, Buddhists have accepted this puzzling wisdom. They have used it to achieve an enlightened understanding of our world, even while the rest of humanity proceeded down the path of mutual discretion.

Bodhidharma said that the void (emptiness) is the true Buddha, and the Buddha is our primordial mind; that there is no Buddha beyond the mind; no mind that is not a Buddha. Looked at in this way, we can begin to fathom the wisdom. The true Buddha has no defining characteristics, nor does our mind. A mind with defining attributes is not our true mind, and a Buddha with defining attributes is not the true Buddha. Such a mind and such a Buddha would be fake—surrogates for the real thing.

Until very recently, this entire matter stayed as an esoteric spiritual truth. That is no longer the case. What Buddhism has been claiming is now being established by cutting edge theoretical physics. World-renowned physicist Lawrence M. Krauss has now captivated the scientific world with his revolutionary thoughts that confirm what the Buddha said 2,500 years ago: Everything is Nothing. These two paths—The path of the spirit and the path of physics have now converged. Where this leads from a scientific perspective has yet to be determined. But where it leads from a spiritual perspective is realizing that everything is united in emptiness, which is an everything/nothing. We are all one with everything. Watch the video.

Mind

“He’s lost his mind.” “She changed her mind.” “I can’t make up

my mind.” We use the term “mind” in such an off-handed way that it’s rare to look at the concept closely, but it is impossible to be a serious student of Zen without considering how it is understood. So today I want to devote some attention to a thorough look at the “mind” from a Zen perspective.

We fail to consider that this conclusion results from a collaboration between the object and a process in our brain. In Buddhism, this collaboration has a designation called the Five Skāndhas—“Skāndhas” is a Sanskrit word which means aggregate or heap, and the five are (1) form, (2) sensation, (3) perceptions, (4) mental formations and (5) consciousness. None of these singularly is adequate to produce the conclusion of “rock.” And this is true for all objects, whether internal or external. This collaboration amongst these Skāndhas fabricates the illusion of solidity, and this illusion is the basis of “mind.” Consequently, Buddhism says that forms (objects) are “empty,” meaning that a form has no substantial existence, and if there are no forms to see, then a mind is not produced since “mind” is the result of this collaboration.

Because of the incredible advances made in neurological detection, it is now possible to validate what Buddhism has been saying for centuries. When we examine the brain with today's neurological tools, we can see that this Skāndhas view of fabrication is correct. Given this, it now makes sense that there is no substantial, independent objective anything, including the mental formation of a self (otherwise known as a “self-image”). Since everything is impermanent and in flux, when any one of these Skāndhas changes (which is all of the time), our “mind” reflects these changes. Thus the expressions above: (“He’s lost his mind.” “She changed her mind.” “I can’t make up my mind.” ) take on an entirely different meaning. In fact, the notion of a “mind” sitting between our ears is simply a convenient way of referring to our thoughts, which are in constant motion.

So the next step along this exploration is how this understanding affects the practice of Zen meditation. When we sit, we “see” mental formations and sense feelings wafting across our consciousness. When these formations cease, our mind goes away as well, and this cessation reveals MIND (which has no dimension or distinguishing characteristics)—the ground from which everything arises. 

The capacity of seeing must entail separation and life. An object, such as a mental image, may have separation but not life. Only a subject has life, but it too must have separation for seeing to occur (or hearing, smelling, tasting, touching, and thinking).

If it were possible for one person to completely merge with another person, there would be no sense of self and other—Only unity. At the manifestation level, there is what appears as duality—me vs. other, this vs. that, a thought vs. a thinker, etc. This level of reality (the level of manifestation) is the ordinary level where we notice ourselves versus our world. But this level is only possible if there is a separate level of unity, the ground from which manifestations arise. 

Because we only notice forms/objects, our subjective nature (Buddha-Nature) is never seen, yet this source ground is who we truly are. Through the process of Zen meditation, we couple this understanding together with our practice to experience both the illusions (e.g., images) and the ground from which they arise. This noticing, separated from what is noticed, allows the emergence of our true nature.

Nagarjuna—the founder of the Madhyamaka school of Mahayana Buddhism, referred to these two levels as “two truths” (Partial/conventional truths and sublime truths) and said that we learn about the sublime truths (which set us free) by way of the conventional/partial truths. In other words, we are forced to use the mental formations (which admittedly are empty) produced by the Skāndhas to fathom sublime reality. And until that happens, we are trapped in the illusion that what we experience is the totality of our existence.

The Heart of Zen

One of the most revered teachings in Zen comes from The Heart Sutra, and the central teaching of this Sutra is that Form is Emptiness; Emptiness is Form. In our ordinary way of understanding, one thing is not the same as something else. 

We see matters as independent and mutually discrete. Form, of course, has defining characteristics. Since form can be perceived, we can define it. But emptiness has no defining characteristics, and like air, it can’t be perceived. So how is it possible that form (which can be perceived) be the same thing as emptiness (which can’t)? Perhaps there is a better set of questions: Is it possible to be conscious of anything—any form, without the capacity of consciousness itself? And the obvious answer is “no.” By itself, consciousness has no form or defining characteristics. But is it possible for consciousness completely independent? Can consciousness be excised or isolated from the form of our bodies? Is consciousness independent and mutually discrete? Or is consciousness; instead, the source, and form the manifestation? 

Implicit in manifestation is a source, and the source has no meaning unless there is a manifestation. There is a temptation to see source and manifestation as separate matters just as there is a temptation to see emptiness as separate from form. We play with word and concept forms and become enamored with distinctions, but emptiness remains when these are no longer present. 

 When we meditate, we see psychic forms wafting across the screen of our consciousness. Obviously, to see these forms, there is a seer. But when these psychic forms go away, there is no seeing going on, or is there? Perhaps the form being seen is emptiness. If that is the case, then Form is Emptiness. Consciousness is empty, yet it is full—the well-spring of all.

Buddhism's Two Realms

As Buddhism becomes known in the West, an unfortunate development has occurred due to our preoccupation with science. Objectivity is the cornerstone of science since it begins and ends with the ability to measure phenomena. Anything beyond that constraint has no scientific validity and is consequently seen of no value. There is much of value about Buddhism from that limited perspective, just as there is much value in the study of anatomy, but neither anatomy nor phenomenal Buddhism has very much to say about the sublime source of both, and neither could exist without it.

Centuries ago, Nagarjuna established his “Two Truth Doctrine.” He stated that we live within two realms—The phenomenal realm of measurable convention and the noumenal realm. And he said that without intuiting the sublime, we remain in bondage. Advance the clock to the current time and what has begun to emerge is an attempt to create a quasi-science based on just the measurable realm, leaving the essential core behind. The result is form with no emptiness, a sort of paint-by-the-numbers Buddhism to be administered by unenlightened therapists schooled and knowledgeable of the conventional realm but completely lacking acknowledge of the sublime side.

There is little argument that rational logic helps construct a vast web of contemporary usefulness, but none of this solves the spirit's crisis so prevalent today. A solution for that will always take us to the sublime. “When knowledge and views are established, knowing is the root of ignorance. When knowledge and views do not exist, seeing itself is nirvana.” (Chan Master Shangfang Yu-an)

Balance

Probably everyone who has ever lived has been taught what appears to be so—that life and death are separate. This seems to be the beginning and the end of the matter.

Throughout life, we experience half of things and go unaware of the other half. We experience good vs. evil, up vs. down, left vs. right, form vs. emptiness, samsara vs. nirvana: Anything and everything seems to be one thing as opposed to another. It is always the “versus” rather than the unified integration of opposites. This implicit teaching (either formal or not) is a reflection of what appears before our eyes. How could opposites be present together? 

 In the Śūrańgama Sūtra, The Buddha shares a vision with Ananda. He takes a scarf, and, grasping opposite ends, he ties a knot. He repeatedly repeats the knot tying until he has all six knots tied one on top of the other. What began as a single unified piece of cloth with two opposites ends is now knotted together. He then asks Ananda: “How should I untie these knots? Should I grasp only one end or the other and pull?” 

Ananda answers correctly, “No. The knots must be untied one at a time by grasping both halves of each knot and pulling.” This simple illustration reveals a profound truth. The six knots represent our six sensory faculties (e.g., eyes, ears, nose, tongue, touch, mind). Each of these six is programmed to function in a particular fashion, and this function comprises the aggregate of delusion. Eyes naturally respond to objects of form. Ears naturally respond to objects of sound, so on and so forth. Each of our sensory faculties responds to particular objects. Because of this, we are pulled astray, firmly convinced that life is nothing more than the aggregation of objects. 

The Buddha tells Ananda, “Until your six faculties merge and become interchangeable, you will never be able to put an end to your deluded mental acts.” How are we to understand this? At the source—the well-spring from which all arises, there is only unity. Here all six faculties merge and become as one. There are neither subjects nor objects. At this place of integration, which is the place of natural enlightenment, there are no “versus.” 

Discrimination arises from this place just as seeds grow from the earth, but there are everything and nothing in the earth itself. Due to the false conclusions necessitated by the six knots of perception that the five, seemingly discrete, aggregates arise. Form seems like a discrete matter. Perception seems like a discrete matter; cognition, mental formations, and consciousness likewise—all five have the appearance of mutual discretion. But this is a delusion. Form is not separate and opposed to emptiness. Contact and separation are the defining characteristics of the aggregate of sense-perception. 

What is recorded in memory (or not) is the defining attributes of cognition. And entering into the state of deep clarity and being stored in that clarity constitutes the aggregate of consciousness. Because objects appear before us, we accept them as the components which constitute our lives. We accept what appears and are unaware of what is the substrate of appearances. Both manifestation and source are happening continuously, yet we see only the manifestations, and in ignorance, conclude “versus.” In truth, manifestation and source are a single, unified scarf with knots. Life is death. These, and everything else, are interdependently joined together. Moment by moment, we breathe in life and exhale death. Our biology is continuously being regenerated, but it happens so that we are unaware until years later we look in the mirror and see a person we don’t recognize! Who is that old person? And where did the young one go? The rhythm of life/death is continuous and interdependent. And at heart, the real person is ageless and timeless and watches in amazement.

Discrimination

Discrimination is understood as both an aspect of reality and something we should avoid. On the one hand, we are taught to be discriminating—to choose wisely one thing and not another. On the other hand, we are aware that to discriminate unwisely—against one group of people in favor of others—is a form of undesirable bias. The obvious key to these opposite perspectives is discernment guided by wisdom.

One of the premier Mahayana Sutras—The one Bodhidharma considered as foundational—is the Lankavatara. The surprising teaching of this sutra is that there is no such thing as discrimination within the framework of genuine Nobel Wisdom (Ultimate Reality)—these are presented as polar opposites. This teaching clearly states that discrimination (of any kind) is a manifestation of ignorance; of misinterpreting what we perceive as real and not understanding that perception occurs in the mind. The Buddha said that it is like seeing one’s own image in a mirror and taking the image as real, or seeing the moon reflected on the surface of the water and taking it to be the actual moon. To see in this way is dualistic whereas to see truly is a matter of Oneness revealed within inmost consciousness.
However, short of this unity, our fashion is to grasp the illusions and become attached, forever discriminating and thus never attaining tranquility. “By tranquility is meant Oneness, and Oneness gives birth to the highest Samadhi which is gained by entering into the realm of Noble Wisdom that is realizable only within one’s inmost consciousness.”

“Not realizing that the perceived world is only something seen of the mind itself, the ‘ignorant and simple-minded’ cling to the infinite vastness of external objects as this vs. that, imagining that they have a self-nature of their own, and fall into habit-energies based on false imagining. The result of this ignorance is minds which ‘burn with the fires of greed, anger, and folly,’  (e.g., the nature of an ego) finding delight in a world of multitudinous forms, their thoughts obsessed with ideas of birth, growth and destruction, not well understanding what is meant by existence and non-existence, and being impressed by erroneous discriminations and speculations since beginningless time, fall into the habit of grasping this and that and thereby becoming attached to them.”

When, by virtue of our discriminating minds, we are attracted, we cling. And when we are repulsed we resist. In our mind the world is ordered by objects which we like and don’t like; actions which we endorse and those we repudiate; thoughts which we desire and bring us joy and others we wish to avoid. We see the external, objective manifestations (forms) and go completely unaware of the unseen emptiness which undergirds all forms. Because of this, our nature is to cling to objective symbols of reality—names, signs, and ideas; as our mind moves along these channels, feeding on multiplicities of objects and fall into the notion of an ego-soul and what belongs to it; making discriminations of good and bad among appearances and cling to the agreeable. As we thus cling, we oppose the truth of our ignorance and therefore are trapped in karma born of greed, anger, and folly. The accumulation of karma then goes on and we become imprisoned in a cocoon of discrimination and are unable to free ourselves from the rounds of birth and death.

The beginning chapter concludes in this way... “In this world whose nature is like a dream, there is a place for praise and blame, but in the ultimate Reality of Dharmakaya which is far beyond the senses and the discriminating mind, what is there to praise?”