Category Archives: A Mystical Odyssey through the Sagathakam

A further look at the Vijñānas

Posted on January 4, 2019 by Vajragoni

The Sagathakam posits numerous statements concerning the Vijñānas, as does the Lanka as a whole. Doing a search here at Unborn Mind Zen you will discover a rich source of connotations concerning the vijnanic system. This blog offers a further observation through the lens of hermeneutics. Florin Giripescu Sutton in his monumental work, Existence and Enlightenment in the Lankavatara Sutra, makes reference to a paper by Edward Hamlin entitled, Discourse in the Laṅkāvatāra-Sūtra, Journal of Indian Philosophy 11 (1983): 267-313. For a good treatment of Sutton’s work as well as a great technical breakdown of the Vijñānas, see The Complete Lanka and Discussion, available in our Unborn Mind Library. But for now the focus is on Hamlin’s paper with his hermeneutical treatment of the vijñānas. He begins by elucidating: read more

Posted in A Mystical Odyssey through the Sagathakam | Tagged Alaya vijnana, Edward Hamlin, Manas, manovijñāna, Vijñānas | Leave a comment

Prajñā

Posted on January 1, 2019 by Vajragoni

Image by Lori Gardi

As long as there is something attained, there is so much error rising; when the Mind itself is thoroughly understood, error neither rises nor ceases.

The perennial problem often with zen-adepts is that some form of objective needs to be met—something to strive after and thus something attainable. Mystically this is very faulty reasoning because there really is no-thing out there to be attained, it’s a form of objective fallacy. The great Hui Hai once put this to rest by proclaiming, knowing that there is nothing attainable or achievable is the Self-Realization of the Dharmakaya of the Buddhadharma. Furthermore, Anuttarasamyaksambodhi is thus a Self-Perfection that is beyond both the attainable/ [Un]attainable. read more

Posted in A Mystical Odyssey through the Sagathakam | Tagged Bodhiprajñā, Heart Sutra, Hui Hai, Prajñā, prajnaparamita, Tozen | Leave a comment

Why Birth, Why Death?

Posted on December 28, 2018 by Vajragoni

Having now covered a healthy dose of this series on the Sagathakam, you may have observed that many of these gathas (verses) are repetitious in nature. It’s as if the Sagathakam is one long spiritual exercise for students of the Lanka and that elements of its composition was not composed by just one scribe, but several. Since the Sagathakam basically covers the most prominent themes found within the Lanka, these different scribes composed many variations based on the same themes. In this fashion, the diligent and astute adept would be sure to memorize what was essential to the integrity of the Lanka as a whole. read more

Posted in A Mystical Odyssey through the Sagathakam | Tagged Birth, Death, deathlessness, imagelessness, Parinishpanna | 1 Comment

Nāgāhvaya

Posted on December 27, 2018 by Vajragoni

159-161. (Cleary]: With five fives plus five, and nine flaws, covered with nails, teeth, and hair, one is born, quivering. Like a maggot when newborn, the human being is as if awakened from sleep; form becomes visible by means of the eye, development proceeds from performance. With a combination of the palate, lips, and oral cavity, conceived by mental construction, human speech issues like that of a parrot, by false imagination. read more

Posted in A Mystical Odyssey through the Sagathakam | Tagged Mahayana, Nāgāhvaya, Tathāgatabhadra | Leave a comment

I Can See Clearly Now

Posted on December 26, 2018 by Vajragoni

Imagining by this imagination, self-substance is conceived to rise by the conditions of origination (pratyayabhava); an external world is recognized in distortion, there is [in fact] no such external world, but just the Mind.

Pratyayabhava: from the root pratyaya:

paccaya (Pāli, condition; Skt., pratyaya). A condition, or that on which something depends. The *Abhidharma arrived at a comprehensive list of 24 kinds of conditions. These are described in the *Paṭṭhāna, the last book of the *Theravāda Abhidharma. The analysis is thought to encompass all conceivable relationships between phenomena, whether mental or physical. (Oxford Dictionary of Buddhism) read more

Posted in A Mystical Odyssey through the Sagathakam | Tagged Clear Light, Garbhāvakrānti sutra, ghee, pratyaya, Pratyayabhava | Leave a comment

Turning-back Home

Posted on December 24, 2018 by Vajragoni

[Cleary]: The appearance of objects to humans is thought; thought expresses what is imagined. There is no object; it is only thought; without imagination, one is freed.

Close in conjunction with the motto of a Lankavatarian: What the mind focuses on determines its reality. The Dhammapada also declares, Mind precedes all mental states. Mind is their chief; they are all mind-wrought. If with an impure mind a person speaks or acts suffering follows him like the wheel that follows the foot of the ox. With an impure-mind (harbinger of thoughts and creator of all images) it all boils down to the stuff that dreams are made of vs. Mind-only “preceding” all mental aberrations, henceforth no-thing perceivable or conceivable. Ergo, minus the image-maker liberation is won! read more

Posted in A Mystical Odyssey through the Sagathakam | Tagged antidote to ignorance, Dhammapada, Nirabhasagocara, turning-back | Leave a comment

Namen

Posted on December 23, 2018 by Vajragoni

The constructing of appearances (nimitta) created by delusion is the characteristic mark of Paratantra (dependence) knowledge; the giving of names to those appearances [regarding them as real individual existences] is characteristic of the imagination.
When the constructing of appearances and names, which come from the union of conditions and realities, no more takes place, we have the characteristic mark of perfected knowledge (parinishpanna).

This is in reference to the five-dharmas: name, appearance, discrimination, right knowledge, and suchness. False-imagination gives rise to discrimination, declaring such ideations as child, soap, etcetera, thus given a name-appellation. What follows is an appearance that is declared after the naming. In short it’s all an exercise in control—once something is named, one has the power over it. Much like during exorcisms when the priest-exorcist demands the demon give its name, after which it can be dispelled. Ultimately, though, the Lanka teaches that by “Right-Knowledge”, “when names and appearances are seen as unobtainable owing to their mutual conditioning, there is no more rising of the Vijnanas, for nothing comes to annihilation, nothing abides everlastingly.” Afterwards, what remains is quiescent-suchness. The Lanka encapsulates all this as such: read more

Posted in A Mystical Odyssey through the Sagathakam | Tagged Amitabha, Buddhas of Maturity, Buddhas of Transformation, Dharmata Buddha, five-dharmas, Nirmanakaya, Sambhogakaya, Secret Meaning, Svābhāvika-kāya, vaipakika | Leave a comment

Minus the Creator God

Posted on December 21, 2018 by Vajragoni

[Cleary]: Imagination, what is imagined, and imagination’s action, bondage, what is bound, and being bound—these six are reasons for liberation.

The number 6 is most prominent in Buddhism, witness the six paramitas, the six realms of impermanence, and even six kinds of temperament (lustful, hateful, ignorant, discursive, devout, and intellectual). The Lanka here then strips down the faculty of imagination in five modes: the faculty itself, what images it produces, the resulting [action], the result being bondage, and hereafter what is declared bound. Liberation here points towards shutting the faculty down. read more

Posted in A Mystical Odyssey through the Sagathakam | Tagged Creator God, ego-soul, Tozen | Leave a comment

A Phantom Elephant

Posted on December 20, 2018 by Vajragoni

If such errors were granted, it would not be possible to talk about the non-existence of self-substance; as the nature of reality is erroneously understood, there is something perceived where there is really no self-substance; all is indeed non-existent.

When the Lanka uses the term substance, it does not denote the stuff that makes up the apparent base of the material world. It has more significant value as an esoteric-metaphor reflecting the unconditioned Mind. The real-stuff of the Mind-set is an imageless substance. This is why Huang Po once warned not to utilize the Mind-set to conceptualize, in essence being encased in formal-ideations, but rather to stay perpetually-present to the Substance of the One and Undivided Unborn Buddha Mind. As the Zennist eloquently writes: read more

Posted in A Mystical Odyssey through the Sagathakam | Tagged Devadatta, Discernment, elephant, non-discriminating discrimination, Queen Māyā, substance, Zennist | Leave a comment

The self-nature of all things

Posted on December 19, 2018 by Vajragoni

Painting by Michael Newhall

(Chapter II, v.10) Hearing his words the Buddha, the best knower of the world, looking over the whole assembly, spoke to the son of the Sugata thus:
(Chapter II, v. 174) The Sankha and the Vaiseshika philosophers teach birth from a being or from a non-being; all that are proclaimed by them are inexplicables.

Sankha: Samkhya or Sankhya (Sanskrit: सांख्य, IAST: sāṃkhya) is one of the six āstika schools of Hindu philosophy. It is most related to the Yoga school of Hinduism, and it was influential on other schools of Indian philosophy. … Samkhya is strongly dualist. (Wiki) read more

Posted in A Mystical Odyssey through the Sagathakam | Tagged four kinds of explanation, sāṃkhya, Self Nature, Vaisheshika | Leave a comment