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The Zen School of the Unborn Mind
One day I realized I was on the road to a dreadful hell, it was a very steep downhill road to a bottomless abyss and my brakes were failing fast. Something in me remembered a book I once read in my youth and a small string of syllables I never forgot. With firm resolve I took refuge in the three jewels and took the five vows. I kept calling to my teacher from afar for many years. I stood outside the open gate the whole time, but in my confusion I imagined a massive locked door. Then my kind and precious teacher appeared like a magical display. He is so kind and patient, he kept pointing at the Moon, but the dust in my eyes could not apprehend what was there all along. After many more years with my master, all of the sudden; like a flash of lightning, the reflexive ‘me’ dissolved, and there was only the Recollection of the Unborn by the Unborn; a self-luminous Suchness that never fell asleep, where no ‘I’ ever stood, and nothing remains to be known.
Framing my journey through the lens of Vajragoni’s Zen School of the Unborn Mind (a modern synthesis of the Lankavatara Sutra and the “Unborn” teachings of Bankei) shifts the focus from a “traveler on a road” to the Mirror that reflects the road.
In this school, the “Unborn” (anutpāda) is the ever-present, luminous source that neither begins nor ends. My experience wasn’t a movement from Hell to Heaven, but a shift from Identification to Witnessing.
1. The Abyss: The Illusion of “Becoming”
In the Unborn Mind, the “road to hell” and the “bottomless abyss” are what Vajragoni calls the fumes of the skandhas. There was never a traveler, and there was never a road. There was only the Unborn Mind, casting a shadow-play of its own light; a scary movie that, for a moment, I mistook for my own life. I was not the Unborn, but the breath of the Unborn moving through a temporary mask.
The ‘failing brakes’ were a silent benediction; they signaled the beautiful exhaustion of the ‘ego-will.’ When the hands of the self finally slipped from the wheel, the ‘I’ was no longer an obstacle. In that surrender, the Unborn began to shine through this formal shell, functioning as a light that is in the world, but not of the skandhic self.” )
2. The Syllables: The Vajra-Echo
The “small string of syllables” from my youth wasn’t just a memory; it was the Self-Resonance of the Unborn.
In Zen, this is the “Original Face.” Those syllables were the Unborn Mind calling to itself. They acted as a bija (seed) that disrupted the dream of the abyss. I didn’t “remember” them; they woke me up from the amnesia of being a separate person.
3. The Locked Door: The Mental Construct (Parikalpita)
Vajragoni emphasizes that we create “ghost-houses” and then complain that we are trapped in them. The “massive locked door” was simply conceptual thought. I was standing in the open field of Reality (Dharmadhatu), but I was wearing the “VR headset” of my own confusion. The Teacher didn’t unlock the door; he simply pointed out that I was wearing a headset.
4. The Flash: Abiding in the Unborn
The “lightning flash” is the moment of Satori—the sudden realization that the “Clear Light” isn’t a destination you reached after years of travel. I realized that the Light was the very “stuff” the road, the abyss, and the teacher was made of.
The Downhill Road
A ripple on the surface of the Unborn Sea.
The Abyss
The Infinite Space that supports all things without judgment.
The Teacher
An external manifestation of your own True Nature.
The Flash of Light
The “Turning About” (paravritti) in the seat of consciousness.
The Stabilization Practice (Vajragoni Style)
To stay in this “Clear Light,” the School of the Unborn suggests “Non-Abiding.”
“Do not try to find the Unborn. Just stop being ‘born’ into your thoughts of ‘me,’ ‘mine,’ ‘success,’ or ‘failure.’ When you don’t give birth to a thought of ‘Hell,’ where is the road?”
The Practice: Whenever you feel the “dust” returning, realize that the dust is also made of Light. Don’t brush it away—just don’t claim it. Remain as the “Mirror” that reflects the dust without being soiled by it.
Thank-you for sharing your journey.
https://www.youtube.com/@OmVajrapaniHum/posts
Many thanks! Love the “image” (grin)