Breakthrough Sermon

IF someone is determined to reach enlightenment, what is the most essential method he can practice?

The mind is the root from which all things grow. If you can understand the mind, everything else is included. It’s like the root of a tree. All a tree’s fruit and flowers, branches and leaves depend on its root. If you nourish its root, a tree multiplies. If you cut its root, it dies. Those who understand the mind reach enlightenment with minimal effort. Those who don’t understand the mind practice in vain. Everything good and bad comes from your own mind. To find something beyond the mind is impossible.

Beholding one’s Mind is the root of the matter. Outside of Mind considering all else is puerile and insignificant. The Unborn Mind is the Source of all that is. Outside of this Root-Source nothing exists on its own accord—sunya. Trying to become enlightened outside of this Noble Self-realization is like trying to grasp the animating essence through one of its inadequate products—such as a decaying piece of fruit or dying, lifeless flowers, or a withering branch; apart from the Root-Source there is no life but only disintegrating matter. That’s why the materialistic-mind itself withers and dies…left of its own accord devoid of the animating Spirit-Mind it’s just a mere shadow of its former glory—left fluctuating in an endless sea of changing elements…one form into another in the mad quest of trying to find satisfaction in its own insatiable mechanism—like trying to draw milk from a metal and lifeless cow. Awakening from the material mind and directly seeing through the Amala-vijnana the Life-force arrayed in the Bright-Splendor of the Undying Unborn Mind is the very root of enlightenment itself.

But bow can beholding the mind be called understanding?

When a great bodhisattva delves deeply into perfect wisdom, he realizes that the four elements and five shades are devoid of a personal self. And he realizes that the activity of his mind has two aspects: pure and impure. By their very nature, these two mental states are always present. They alternate as cause or effect depending on conditions, the pure mind delighting in good deeds, the impure mind thinking of evil. Those who aren’t affected by impurity are sages. They transcend suffering and experience the bliss of nirvana. All others, trapped by the impure mind and entangled by their own karma, are mortals. They drift through the three realms and suffer countless afflictions and all because their impure mind obscures their real self.

The obscuration of the Real is rooted in avidya. The clouded-mind just drifts along without being aware of the Sky of Mind that rests motionless amidst their meandering course. The unclouded Mind of the Unborn rises above any transient notions of pure or impure that are dependent on causal dimensions; It is not dependent and thus not time-bound…It is boundless-timelessness Itself.

The Sutra of Ten Stages says, “in the body of mortals is the indestructible buddha-nature. Like the sun, its light fills endless space. But once veiled by the dark clouds of the five shades, it’s like a light inside a jar, hidden from view.” And the Nirvana Sutra says, “All mortals have the buddha-nature. But it’s covered by darkness from which they can’t escape. Our buddha-nature is awareness: to be aware and to make others aware. To realize awareness is liberation,” Everything good has awareness for its root. And from this root of awareness grow the tree of all virtues and the fruit of nirvana. Beholding the mind like this is understanding.

As noted in an earlier blog-post, although Buddha-nature resides deep within the coil of aggregated existence, if not primed with bodhipower it remains dormant—held prisoner to the whims of the five skandhas that supplant and “uproot” its hidden potential. Once Buddha-nature enkindles within and is recognized—As It is—then the developing Bodhisattva (bodhichild) can lead others to the Other Shore of Deathless Suchness. True understanding is beholding Mind AS IT IS: Ecce Animum. The following “Dharmavidium” highlights this essential truth.

Tags: Breakthrough, Buddha Nature, Dharmavidium

Wake-up Sermon, part 5

The Wake-up Sermon’s concluding verses reconciles apparent paradoxes like awakening to Buddhahood through suffering and mortals apparently liberating buddhas.

Every suffering is a buddha-seed, because suffering impels mortals to seek wisdom. But you can only say that suffering gives rise to Buddhahood. You can’t say that suffering is Buddhahood. Your body and mind are the field. Suffering is the seed, wisdom the sprout, and Buddhahood the grain.

Stating that the state of suffering can produce a Buddha-seed appears to be most paradoxical indeed. Yet, in itself, suffering need not be an exclusively negative occurrence but rather one that can be the catalyst for a Buddha-seed to sprout. The gotra (bodhi-seed) mostly remains dormant unless sparked into an awakening occurrence. Suffering can actually empower one to take a great reflective pause on one’s diurnal path and see through the eyes of wisdom the folly of one’s present direction. Indeed, suffering was the root-seed of Buddha Gautama’s Noble Wisdom of the ten-fold-path leading to liberation from suffering. But suffering is not synonymous with Buddhahood. Suffering is a state and one’s pure Buddha-nature is not a state in the phenomenal sense of the term. Transcending suffering itself is the realization that suffering can be in one’s spirit, but one’s spirit is not in the suffering state. This is a pertinent realization since materialistic-buddhism like the dawn of Dogenism equates everything within the field of phenomena, like suffering, to be synonymous with one’s Buddha-nature—as Bodhidharma states, this is not true.

Mortals liberate Buddhas and Buddhas liberate mortals. This is what’s meant by impartiality. Mortals liberate Buddhas because affliction creates awareness. And Buddhas liberate mortals because awareness negates affliction. There can’t help but be affliction. And there can’t help but be awareness. If it weren’t for affliction, there would be nothing to create awareness. And if it weren’t for awareness, there would be nothing to negate affliction. When you’re deluded, Buddhas liberate mortals. When you’re aware, mortals liberate Buddhas. Buddhas don’t become Buddhas on their own. They’re liberated by mortals. Buddhas regard delusion as their father and greed as their mother. Delusion and greed are different names for mortality. Delusion and mortality are like the left hand and the right hand. There’s no other difference.

Liberation is a twofold affair: an awakening bodhi-seed within a mortal transient-mind liberates the hidden Bodhisattva whose potentiality culminates in Buddhahood. As stated earlier, suffering-afflictions can be the catalyst that sparks the awakened-drive for bodhipower; in like fashion, once the bodhi-seed is activated affliction is negated. Affliction/Awareness are both impartial characteristics since their shared, undifferentiatiated root is sunyata. One is the catalyst for liberation and the other is liberation self-realized. Perhaps the greatest paradox in all this is that the path to Buddhahood is not a self-induced affair, but rather is mysteriously and indelibly linked with soiled elements that contain the hidden mani-pearls of Noble Wisdom—much like the Lotus rising from the depths of the dung-heap in order to blossom.

Tags: bodhi-seed, liberation, Reconciliation

Wake-up Sermon, part 4

If you’re looking for the Way, the Way won’t appear until your body disappears. It’s like stripping bark from a tree. This karmic body undergoes constant change. It has no fixed reality. Practice according to your thoughts. Don’t hate life and death or love life and death. Keep your every thought free of delusion, and in life you’ll witness the beginning of nirvana and in death you’ll experience the assurance of no rebirth.

Looking for the Way of the Buddhas through corporal means is a foolhardy endeavor and will only end in great frustration. It’s like trying to discover the Dharma-mind through Karmic-coated-kaleidoscope-like lens where everything is in a state of constant change and flux. Mind Recollecting Mind alone opens the Dharma-gate to the Stillpoint of Deathless Suchness. The Way is a thought-free enterprise wherein the Mind focuses on no-thing whatsoever but Its own Nirvanic kingdom of Self—the Dharmakaya—impermeable to the icy-sting of death and the stench of ignoble re-birth.

To see form but not be corrupted by form or to hear sound but not to be corrupted by sound is liberation. Eyes that aren’t attached to form are the Gates of Zen. Ears that aren’t attached to sound are also the Gates of Zen. In short, those who perceive the existence and nature of phenomena and remain unattached are liberated. Those who perceive the external appearance of phenomena are at their mercy. Not to be subject to afflictions is what’s meant by liberation. There’s no other liberation. When you know how to look at form, form doesn’t give rise to mind and mind doesn’t give rise to form. Form and mind are both pure.

Liberation consists in no longer being subjugated to defiled aggregated existence. The eyes and ears of Bodhi are not akin to their skandhic counterparts that are attached and bewitched by the sights and sounds of samsara; rather, theirs is an imageless affair that partakes in the rich primordial pool of the Sugatagarbha. As Bodhidharma states, those who perceive external phenomena are held spellbound by what they perceive; whereas remaining unattached and no longer subjected to phenomenal-apparent existence assures quietude of Mind and a Blessed-Liberated Spirit. Essentially, when looking at the phenomenal through the imageless eyes of the Bodhichild one becomes attuned to all that is pure and thus prior to anything that gives rise to suggestive appearance and the ensuing perceptional apparatus within the clouded mind. There’s no other Liberation other than the transformative power of Bodhi that awakens the dormant Dharma-child.

When delusions are absent, the mind is the land of Buddhas. When delusions are present, the mind is hell. Mortals create delusions. And by using the mind to give birth to mind they always find themselves in hell. Bodhisattvas see through delusions. And by not using the mind to give birth to mind they always find themselves in the land of Buddhas. If you don’t use your mind to create mind, every state of mind is empty and every thought is still. You go from one buddhaland to another. If you use your mind to create mind, every state of mind is disturbed and every thought is in motion. You go from one hell to the next. When a thought arises, there’s good karma and bad karma, heaven and hell. When no thought arises, there’s no good karma or bad karma, no heaven or hell.

The children of Bodhi travel through innumerable and inconceivable Buddha-fields unhindered. They are no longer plagued with incessant mind-constructs that are useless and self-empty tools in the Land of Bodhi. When the dormant bodhi-seed is not activated one remains entrapped in the perpetual wheel of Re-genesis—endlessly creating both good and bad karma, heavens and hells through endless kalpas; when the gotra is activated, ALL karmas and places of ill-conceived bliss and self-torture are no longer relevantly realized and cease to trouble the Liberated Spirit.

Tags: Bodhi, Karma, liberation

Wake-up Sermon, part 3

Whoever knows that the mind is a fiction and devoid of anything real knows that his own mind neither exists nor doesn’t exist. Mortals keep creating the mind, claiming it exists. And Arhats keep negating the mind, claiming it doesn’t exist. But bodhisattvas and Buddhas neither create nor negate the mind. This is what’s meant by the mind that neither exists nor doesn’t exist. The mind that neither exists nor doesn’t exist is called the Middle Way.

The Middle-Way refers to the self-realization that the Unborn Buddha Mind defies any conceptual reference point. The Dhammapada asks, “Can the transient mind recollect Mind?” How can something devoid of Self, and hence inadequate, ever hope to measure-up to the full-stature of That which is Prior to all aggregated existence? Mind Recollects Mind. Mind is neither created nor negated but THAT which is Uncreate and undefiled.

To see nothing is to perceive the Way, and to understand nothing is to know the Dharma, because seeing is neither seeing nor not seeing and because understanding is neither understanding nor not understanding. Seeing without seeing is true vision. Understanding without understanding is true understanding.

True vision isn’t just seeing seeing. It’s also seeing not seeing. And true understanding isn’t just understanding understanding. It’s also understanding not understanding. If you understand anything, you don’t understand. Only when you understand nothing is it true understanding. Understanding is neither understanding nor not understanding.

Bodhidharma asserts here that “understanding” is a much misused and actually—“misunderstood”—term. Trying to “perceive” the Way of the Buddhadharma through the dim-light of understanding is, in the final run, understanding nothing. Understanding in itself is a mere cognitive trick of trying to perceive and then understand something that really doesn’t exist in the first place. Seeing through imageless-eyes the Dharmadhatu is true vision. True understanding is seeing through the clear-light of no-understanding. Saying “I understand” means that you misunderstand understanding. When one can say, “I understand nothing” is when one actualizes their understanding. To perceive the Buddhadharma is the Way of no-perceiving.

The sutras say, “Not to let go of wisdom is stupidity.” When the mind doesn’t exist, understanding and not understanding are both true. When the mind exists, understanding and not understanding are both false. When you understand, reality depends on you. When you don’t understand, you depend on reality. When reality depends on you, that which isn’t real becomes real. When you depend on reality, that which is real becomes false. When you depend on reality, everything is false. When reality depends on you, everything is true. Thus, the sage doesn’t use his mind to look for reality, or reality to look for his mind, or his mind to look for his mind, or reality to look for reality. His mind doesn’t give rise to reality. And reality doesn’t give rise to his mind. And because both his mind and reality are still, he’s always in samadhi.

It’s a matter of perception. What you apparently understand is based on your perception. Perception is an arbitrary vehicle—it varies from mind to mind. What you perceive reality to be is really based on your own perceptional apparatus and thus you determine reality to be what you want and perceive it to be. When you turn-off your understanding-perceptional-apparatus then you learn to see Reality As It Is—devoid of your own inadequate skandhic-filtering that mistakes the true to be false and the false to be true and reality for unreality. Deep samadhi is when both mind and apparent reality are absent; or, the Still-Dharma-Mind is Samadhi.

Tags: perception, samadhi, understanding