NOT TWO!

Steven E. McDaniel

In Buddhism there are various schools of thought and methodology which teach the true nature of Reality. We can observe similar branching in Christianity and in many other spiritual and religious orders. Two distinct paths of Buddhism are Tibetan and Zen Buddhism. Both have had their lineage of conscious masters since Siddhartha the original Buddha and Awakened One, and out of these two schools many sects have evolved. The many disciplines can be likened to rivers and tributaries moving toward the sea that take the disciple of truth back to the source of oceanic love, bliss, and freedom from the suffering of the world. Zen, in particular, is an ongoing lesson in how to live in the world with the least resistance and difficulty.

While Tibetan Buddhism can offer the aspirant devotional practices with powerful symbol and metaphor, Zen can explain with blazing simplicity the essence of existence through acute awareness. They both teach the transcendence of temporal illusion into the eternal reality of the changeless. It should be acknowledged that Siddhartha said more than once that his teachings were not about attaining enlightenment but more about awakening from the illusion of mind. Through the strength of intuitive reasoning we can lift the veils of illusion to arrive at the stunning Truth. This necessary journey through illusion is why many mystics contend that one must go through hell to get to heaven only to realize that the entire trip was just a dream in order to awaken to the eternal life within. The Zen Buddhist would say that heaven and hell do not ultimately exist and that they are relative states of conceptual thought. They would assert that thought (the abstraction of experience) must be transcended for the aspirant to realize the Truth of absolute experience behind the falsehood of appearances. Many of the poets, theoretical physicists, philosophers and saints as well as the mystics have been in the business of determining the pure nature of reality by eliminating that which isn’t true in order to discover cohesive, universal principles in all things.

"Everything is, is one of the extremes, Nothing is, is the other. I teach Between
the two, the Truth Of the Independent Originations." - Buddha

The ‘transcendent rationalism’ of Zen and Tibetan Buddhist thought embraces what has come to be known as the middle way philosophy of non-dualism. This middle way (proclaimed by the famous Buddhist philosopher Nagarjuna) can be exemplified by the universal living in the eternal now between the illusion of mental opposites such as yes and no, light and dark, good and bad, etc. Because affirmation and negation only exist relative to each other, neither one has an independent reality of its own. That which is transcended is that which does not really exist. Therefore, in actuality, nothing is transcended. The revelatory being of what is real is always now whether we lift the veils or not. These two lineages contend that we create a world of phantasmagoria through our mental activity based on the data and image of sense impressions which have no true relation to reality. They teach that through attainment of quiet mind and the introspection inherent in deep contemplation, meditation, and intuitive reasoning, a cleansed perception of the transient world can be realized. But ultimately all methodology must be transcended, as well as thought and concept, in order to arrive at the absolute reality and core of existence that never changes. This motherland is the source and salvation of all so-called changing realities. It is Reality.

"We are here and it is now. Further than that, all human knowledge is moonshine." - H.L. Mencken

The journey of transcendence is really about the evolution of human understanding, much like the remarkable metamorphosis of the caterpillar into a butterfly. Ultimately, we must transcend ourselves and take a leap of faith that the wings of a loving Presence will catch us. This waking flight from even our most venerable thought is the going beyond wisdom, an essential tenet to Tibetan and Zen Buddhism. The absolute being in all is beyond the relative comparisons of mental percepts that come and go, including our own physical bodies and all forms of the created universe. Even Einstein said that the nature of light, the height of all physical phenomena, is “extraneous and independent” and is not relative to any motions of bodies moving at lesser speeds.* Reality, or Truth, is a transcendent state of being beyond all worlds, thoughts and things. Light and Love are two supreme metaphors of this transcendent experience. True unconditional love, for example, has no object or subjective motive. Much like sunlight it shines equally on thieves and saints with no discrimination. The speed of light is “constant” to all things as is unconditional love. If anything were able to travel the speed of light it would become the transparent no thing of light, at one and at rest in the timeless, infinite now. Zen Buddhism offers a way of invoking this light of the transcendent intuitive one in us all through simple instruction of awareness in practical living. Within this harmonious, selfless light we are naturally kind, compassionate and loving toward all things with equanimity as we experience the life of the eternal God within all.

"And I shall broadcast saying nothing." - Pablo Neruda

Reality, as most know it, is not out there according to Buddhist teaching and most schools of mystical theory. Nothing is out there but that which is within. The so-called outside is the infinite, invisible spirit inside us made visible by mind and it is ultimately void of thoughts and things. At the point of self-realization our inner, loving being melds with the same loving being in all things. The outer dream of separate matter departs as if it never existed. The observer and observed (subject and object) are transcended into a union of the one loving spirit in all. Extreme contradictions of mind are fused and superseded by the true reality and non-personal ecstasy of absolute beauty. When everything becomes nothing and nothing becomes everything the transcendence of mind is at hand. This movement beyond thinking mind allows for the pure experience of the one eternal Life we are all living. When we really understand this process of transcendent evolution, we realize that we have learned nothing in our long journey of enlightenment. Yet, we have learned a lot about nothing and that is, in the final analysis, everything. Gertrude Stein once said, “There’s no there there.” It is a great Zen statement! Ha! The seers of Buddhism implore us to see the nothingness of world illusions and mind and awaken beyond the eyes and the other senses to our imperishable existence. By doing so we will find that it was inside us and in everything, all along. We are It. Is there any better news?

"The way is in the heart." - Buddha

The invisible, immortal beauty of God is like an ocean when compared to the droplets of any world beauty. The gorgeous creations of the world are mere metaphors and disguises of God to help guide us home. Our attachments to these masks and illusions of concepts and things, perpetrated by mind and ego, comes with the terrible price of separateness and suffering. It is union and love’s freedom that we are truly longing for, which is our universal nature. Certainly, it takes an intense longing for God and love to unravel our illusions in order to arrive at the Truth. It requires an assent through the illusive nothing of the world appearances into the everything of Spirit at the root of all matter. “Nirvana ( the blissful extinction of all things ) and Samsara (all forms, things, ego) we are told, are not two different things, but one and the same thing seen from two different points of view by onlookers whose degree of sharpness of mental vision differs widely. It is when one no longer believes in the ‘I’, in the ‘person’, when one has rejected all beliefs, that the time has come to distribute gifts.” This quote is from The Secret Oral Teachings in Tibetan Buddhism Sects and rests at the heart of Zen Buddhism as well. All hell, suffering and delusion require a certain audacity of ego and thinking we are someone we are not. Only when the mind gets quiet can we see with the ineffable heart that we are the One loving being in us all. And there is nothing more beautiful and ecstatic. Nothing. Ha! Remember, the word Nirvana means extinction. The extinction of ego along with its manufactured idea of separateness is critical for understanding the transcendent nature of Truth .

Enclosed are two of the greatest treatments on the nature of reality and the wise instruction on how to be in the Spirit of God and to live in the world joyously with true equanimity. The Mind of Absolute Trust was purported to have been written by a layman who came to be the third patriarch of Zen Buddhism, Seng-ts’an. He lived in China in the latter part of the 6^{th century and there have been various stories written about his life. One of the most popular stories about Seng-ts’an is how he requested of his master to purify him of his sins. The master asked Seng-ts’an to bring him his sins and that he would purify him. Seng-ts’an looked deeply into his soul and saw nothing impure (for all is God) and he responded in glee, “I have searched for my sins but I can’t find them anywhere” to which his master (Hui-k’o) replied, “Then I have purified you.” Upon hearing this, the story goes, Seng-ts’an became awake and enlightened. If one thinks about this tale it is plain to see that sin is contrived from guilt and ultimately has no true substance that can be observed. Where is it but in the mind? It is created by the judgmental illusion of the mind much like most of our ideas contrived by the fragmented conceptions of a past and future. There is only the eternal, holistic now and this story gives great credence to the wonder of God’s grace of unconditional love forgiving us of our errors continually. The weight and very existence of the world is predicated on the self-imposed judgment each of us must transcend to see the light of love’s reality as absolute. We must become it to know it beyond all understanding. This revelation is the real catalyst for change that all of us seek. Judgments begin within us created by the comparisons of the mind and project outward into the world. Contrary to the common thinking that it requires judgment to operate in the world, in actuality, it requires love. This begins and ends with the self and the realization that the one God-self is in us all and at the root of our being. It is our true nature of unconditional, infinite love and eternal life inside all the living. What blessings!}

The Mind of Absolute Trust is a poem that although generally attributed to Seng-ts’an by most scholars, it is also very similar to a poem called Mind Inscription by Fa’jung in 625 A.D. and many believe it is a revision of that poem. The title has also been interpreted as Faith In Mind or The Inscription of the Perfected Mind. It expresses a deep Taoist influence. Over the years, David Suzuki and others have translated this famous treatise on Zen mind. The enclosed translation by Olson is a well-known literal one. It is only about half the length of the original and has been edited by Stephen Mitchell.

The Song of Mahamudra was written by the Tibetan Buddhist Tilopa who lived between 988-1069 A.D. Tilopa was the founder of Mahamudra Buddhism that many consider an advanced and accelerated form of the Tibetan school of enlightenment. It later became known as The Kagyu or Kagyupa school, also known as the "Oral Lineage" or Whispered Transmission teaching, one of four main schools of the Himalayan or Tibetan Buddhist path. The lineage utilizes The Great Seal of the Mahamudra and its main spiritual practices include:

It is through these four stages of development that the student is said to attain the perfect realization of the Mahamudra doctrine.

Tilopa’s early spiritual experiences include a famous story of how a female tantric Buddha helped guide him to be a scholar and a monk. This Dakini told him that his real parents were not the physical ones he had always known but, rather, that they were the “primordial wisdom and universal voidness” spirits. The frequent visits by the Dakini Buddha guided him quickly toward enlightenment by urging him to practice in secret, act spontaneously, discard his monk’s robes and administer to the people and live amongst them. For years, Tilopa traveled India and studied with various, renowned saints and seers. One night a spiritual realization led Tilopa to transmit what came to be the entire Mahamudra in which he subsequently began to wander the country teaching its method to help others attain spiritual knowledge and liberation from the fetters of the world. The heart of the doctrine is The Six Words of Advice from the Tibetan translation. It is summarized in the following:

Tilopa’s most famous statement is “The problem is not enjoyment; the problem is attachment.” Hence, Nirvana and ecstasy with God is attained through complete non-attachment to all things including thought. The works of Tilopa were recorded by Naropa who was his most advanced disciple. Naropa transmitted the teachings to Marpa, the famous translator who traveled from Tibet to India in order to receive direct instruction and who subsequently returned to Tibet and spread the lessons of the Dharma. The renowned, cave dwelling, Tibetan mystic Milarepa was Marpa’s closest student. The enclosed translation is from the Kagyu Centre of South East Asia, a direct lineage of Milarepa’s descendant tradition.

I would like to end this abbreviated essay on Zen and Tibetan Buddhism with a great little story and perfect example of Zen mind. It goes something like this:

A beleaguered man shows up at the door of a hermitage deep in the forest.   The door- keeper opens the door and asks the man what he wants.  The man, half out of his desperate mind asks if the Zen master of the house can help him with words of advice to get him through his life with more understanding.  The doorkeeper asks that the man wait at the door while he goes to beckon insight from the master. He then runs diligently to the main hall and bows at the feet of the Zen master who is staring into the light of the window.  "Master" the door keeper says, “There is man at our door who is asking for your words of inspiration to help guide him.  What should I tell him?"  The Zen master smiles and speaks intently with compassion, "Tell him that he lacks nothing." 

The Mind of Absolute Trust

By Seng-ts’an

The great way isn't difficult for those who are unattached to their preferences.

Let go of longing and aversion, and everything will be perfectly clear.

When you cling to a hairbreadth of distinction, heaven and earth are set apart.

If you want to realize the truth, don't be for or against.

The struggle between good and evil is the primal disease of the mind.

Not grasping the deeper meaning, you just trouble your mind’s serenity.

As vast as infinite space, it is perfect and lacks nothing.

But because you select and reject, you can't perceive its true nature.

Don't get entangled in the world; don't lose yourself in emptiness.

Be at peace in the oneness of things, and all errors will disappear by themselves.

If you don't live the Tao, you fall into assertion or denial.

Asserting that the world is real, you are blind to its deeper reality;

denying that the world is real, you are blind to the selflessness of all things.

The more you think about these matters, the farther you are from the truth.

Step aside from all thinking, and there is nowhere you can't go.

Returning to the root, you find the meaning;

chasing appearances, you lose their source.

At the moment of profound insight, you transcend both appearance and emptiness.

Don't keep searching for the truth; just let go of your opinions.

For the mind in harmony with the Tao, all selfishness disappears.

With not even a trace of self-doubt, you can trust the universe completely.

All at once you are free, with nothing left to hold on to.

All is empty, brilliant, perfect in its own being.

In the world of things as they are, there is no self, no non-self.

If you want to describe its essence, the best you can say is "Not-two."

In this "Not-two" nothing is separate, and nothing in the world is excluded.

The enlightened of all times and places have entered into this truth.

In it there is no gain or loss; one instant is ten thousand years.

There is no here, no there; infinity is right before your eyes.

The tiny is as large as the vast when objective boundaries have vanished;

the vast is as small as the tiny when you don't have external limits.

Being is an aspect of non-being; non-being is no different from being.

Until you understand this truth, you won't see anything clearly.

One is all; all are one. When you realize this, what reason for holiness or wisdom?

The mind of absolute trust is beyond all thought, all striving,

is perfectly at peace, for in it there is no yesterday, no today, no tomorrow.

The Song of Mahamudra

by Tilopa

* (Ed. Note: you are invited to request my previous paper on the nature of Light which has been recently updated)