Category Archives: A Mystical Odyssey through the Sagathakam

The Passage to Spiritual-Sovereignty

  1. In self-realisation itself there are no time [-limits]; it goes beyond all the realms belonging to the various stages; transcending the measure of thought, it establishes itself as the result [of discipline in the realm] of no-appearance.

Self-realization: another dominant term that lies at the very heart of the Lanka—indeed, as Suzuki writes, its principle-thesis. This is also the principle reason why Bodhidharma handed over his copy of the Lanka to Huike, signifying the all-importance of awakening that inner-perception, the process wherein Mind awakens to the truth of ITs inner recesses and thus comes to the realization that all that is seen is seen of the Mind Itself. Suzuki develops this further within the context of the Lanka itself: read more

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

The Astounding Eighth Stage

  1. Mind (citta*) is the Alayavijnana, Manas is that which has reflection as its characteristic nature, it apprehends the various sense-fields, for which reason it is called a Vijnana.

Citta: citta principally means Mind. However, Suzuki breaks this down even more specifically and it is warranted that we note this: read more

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

Wall Paintings

  1. The Gandharva’s air-castle, Maya, a hair-circle, and a fata morgana, they’re non-entities yet they appear as if they were entities; the nature of an objective existence is thus to be regarded.

Yet another reinforcement of the Lanka’s favorite metaphors of illusionary reality. My favorite are the Gandharvas. They have quite the allegorical background: read more

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

Mind Conventions

  1. [Cleary]: Illusion is not nonexistent; its existence is spoken of because it is of the same nature of things; unreal, like a flash of lightning, they are therefore noted as analogous to illusion.

You have to realize that for a Lankavatarian who adheres to the teachings of the Lanka, the visible-objective world, while a product of illusion, is not non-existent. It is what Tozen once described as a “concrete intellectual synthesis highly visible and touchable”. One can be assured of this if a Zen-Master were to suddenly slap you so hard that your teeth begin to rattle inside that noggin of yours! This concreteness though is still the stuff of Maya—synthesized matter. Breaking this matter down using a quantum-lens, it is a bundle of molecules swimming in a vast cosmic pool filled with particles of hyle. An advanced one, a Yogin who possesses exceptional siddhis powers can break-through the seeming solidness of the wall and can even become invisible at will, or even walk right through that apparently solid wall!  Such a one is known as a Master [over] illusion—because once that wall is thoroughly broken down to that last hyle-particle, deceptive concrete existence is smothered with nothingness. read more

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

Seeds

  1. Things known as defiled or as pure are like hair-nets [that is, wrongly perceived by the dim-eyed]; they [really] have nothing to do with such notions as birth, abiding, and disappearance, or as eternity and non-eternity.

Hair-nets (keśoṇḍukam): a sling or knot of hair, such is the nature of the hair-net—in actuality little knots all tied together to form one whole. It’s a visual-distortion, such do the dim-witted perceive the apparent conceptions of birth, ect; all these phenomenal notions unravel (like knots of hair) in time betraying their impermanent nature. read more

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

A Matter of the Philosophers

  1. As long as those philosophers who get confused in their reasonings and who are unable to go beyond the realm of words, distinguish the discriminating from the discriminated – so long they do not see [the truth] of suchness.

A recurring motif throughout the Lanka concerns the Philosophers. Who are they? Are they members of a particular branch of philosophy, or are they part of a larger spectrum? Suzuki in one of his footnotes to his Studies in the Lanka asserts they are as follows: read more

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

Homelessness

65 & 66 [Cleary]: By proofs, paradigms of logic, and by proposition and reason, in terms of a dream, a castle in the air, a mirage, the moon and sun, I use such examples to say an origin is not objective. The imagined world is called a dream, confusion, or illusion, in the sense of being empty. read more

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

Ghosts in the Machine

  1. So the flood of the Alayavijnana is always stirred by the winds of objectivity (vishaya), and goes on dancing with the various Vijnana-waves.

Familiar phraseology of the dancing waves of the Vijnanas, stirred into motion through both objective (vishaya) and subjective instigators. The Alaya-receptacle itself is usually dormant, but it houses a million-fold [images] that are ready to spring into action at the least suggestion, in effect once again “haunting” its host. Memories, fears and phobias, sexual fantasies, times of love and betrayal, familiar moments in time that are always there but rarely relivable yet still sting with their indelible impressions on the psyche—all these are housed in that store-house consciousness and return again and again, like recurring Ghosts in the skhandhic machinery. How best to exorcise these old demons that forever linger on through entrenched habit-energy since time immemorial? Unborn Mind Zen is one such spiritual modality that provides the remedy. Disengage the Alaya by awakening its dominant twin—the Tathagata-garbha—that houses the Immaculate-Seed of the Bodhichild, a mystical child of Light that has no former associations nor obtuse attachments and thus can never be affected or haunted by the onslaught of its defiled-twin and harbinger of so much misery. Thus, having been graced with the full import of this Self-realization of Noble-Wisdom, this child of matured-garbha can enter into limitless deep-samadhis for the sake of its own spiritual development as well as leading others to drink from the deep and nurturing spring of the Unborn: read more

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

False Imagination


Andrew Gable

  1. What is known as multiplicity-seeds multiply in the mind (citta); in what is revealed, the ignorant imagine birth and are delighted with dualism.

Thought is derived from a multiplicity of seeds in the mind tinged with associative functions in the Alaya-receptacle. The ignorant-minded perceive birth smothered with dualistic ramifications. Perhaps the best simile for the dualistic mind-show is a character found in Edmond Spencer’s (c. 1552–1599), The Faerie Queene—Duessa. Duessa is the opposite of Una, who represents primordial unity: read more

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

As the Revulsion Turns

  1. The world is no more than thought-construction and there rages an ocean of views as regards ego and things (dharma); when the world is clearly perceived as such and there takes place a revulsion [in the mind] this [one] is my child who is devoted to the truth of perfect knowledge.

I remember writing way back during our Complete Lanka and Discussion (found in our library) forum that Suzuki had chosen a really horrible word (revulsion) for what we Lankavatarians know as the Great Turn-About, or the complete inner-oscillation within consciousness to remain prior to phenomena via the Recollective Resolve, or returning to the very vivifying Primordial-Source Itself. This Turn-About is also known as paravriti and is mentioned frequently in the Lanka. My favorite instance occurs in Chapter One wherein the Lord of Lanka suddenly experiences this and all it spiritually entails: read more

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