…This is because all of one’s karmic seeds are really Buddhas within the ‘single taste’ of Shakyamuni’s Third Turning of the Dharma Wheel…
Perhaps you’ve seen this simple, inspiring video on Instagram. An older man of color, his dreadlocks gathered at the nape, reveals how God taught him the word ‘detach’ and then how this led to his freedom from a threatening world, finding his true self, and other wonderful things. While I couldn’t identify him or his faith, I think, generally speaking, it’s Abrahamic. The takeaway from his words were twofold: First, since what we think isn’t really real, one’s enemies need not be feared. Two, learning to detach was now “my central message.” This last one indicated to me he might be a preacher or prophet. That things aren’t really real grabbed my attention as a Buddhist. This is something I have been particularly guilty of posting articles discussing illusory nature of realty, and here was someone else, of another faith, espousing a philosophically Idealist view similar to one in the three philosophical Buddhist schools generally know as Mind Only.
I also thought, when we pronounce that things aren’t real from a virtual reality platform, it is kind of redundant.To the extent that, often when we post, it seems we’re just talking to ourselves until someone posts a ‘like,’ or comments. Then we imagine, again, we’ve actually been ‘heard’ in our virtual conversation. Now that we’ve gotten use to having conversations through internet chats and not in ‘person’ we’ve forgotten it’s not quite natural as five of the six senses—mind being the sixth—are left out. This sixth sense, related to the element of space, is an aggregating sense, the consciousness of which is the experiencing of the other five senses after they’ve taken an object; creating a ‘field’ of sense organ, its consciousness, and the object of apprehension. This, in tandem with a defiled seventh consciousness—the defiled personal unconscious—are all simultaneously arisen out of an eighth all-appropriating storehouse consciousness called the Alyavijnana.
Most of what we do is motivated by our identification with the above mentioned sixth consciousness—a sense-aggregating ego—we think of as ‘ourself.’ As it constantly craves reification and assurance, sometimes during extreme dissatisfaction or pain breaks in that identification occur and while experiencing separation or disaffection from ego-consciousness we may even renounce it, along with its production of a conventional reality. At this time of renunciation, we become self-aware and are open to other so-called ‘realities,’ and this side of one that is ‘ultimate,’ there are many: augmented, extended, fully immersive, inter subjective, objective, subjective, mixed, and virtual. While these sense-based stimulations produce various experiences of ‘reality,’ and relative insights or truths about this or that reality’s nature, these so-called truths are only clever conceits, all equally delusive in relation to an ‘ultimate’ reality arrived at through the Buddhas’ unconceited, unselfcentered, sarva yoga of Great Compassion.
What seemed to be missing in the internet prophet’s revelatory post was a detailed approach, or discipline, for how he achieved a detached state. This prompted me to start writing in his comment box on a proven Buddhist method for attaining the same truth—and more. As this quickly became too lengthy for Instagram, I continued to make it more detailed and thus suitable for my readers of Post Vajrayana in Kampuchea.
So here it is: One reliable method of ‘detaching’ is to envision the external world as entirely a projection of your own mind. This to the extent that everything you see—like, for instance, people getting on and off a bus, with seated passengers inside akin to thoughts formerly ‘inside your head’—is happening within and without you, by virtue of your new, all encompassing mind.
For those who need a logical transition to this state, that is to say a cognitive, reflective one, then keep in mind there are traditionally two philosophical issue at hand here: the substantive versus the phenomenal, and the realist versus the idealist view of reality. The first concerns the inherent existence of any ‘self,’ relating here to an ‘inner’ reality, be it relative or absolute. The second concerns the nature of an external ‘outer’ reality, also whether relative or absolute. Brahmanism/Hinduism believes in the substantive reality of an Absolute; Buddhism examines phenomena and finds while it can be provisionally substantive for those disciples less developed in the lower schools, in truth it is Śūnyatā, translated as emptiness, vacuity, and sometimes voidness, or nothingness which is an Indian philosophical concept.
Shankacharya, perhaps the most famous Indian philosopher known to the West straddles the line and was thought to really be a Buddhist whenever he came close to espousing his illusory or ‘maya’ nature of phenomena. This is seen today in the Shaivist nondual tantra and of course the Advaita Vedanta School of Hinduism. But the great Indian philosopher also believed above a relative emptiness, or maya, there was the existence of an Absolute Brahman.
As far as realist versus the idealist view of reality, the lower vehicle of Theravada embraces the realist and the Mahayana in its two philosophical school of Yogācāra and Madhyamika generally embraces the idealist. However, the highest iteration of Madhyamika, the Prāsaṅgika, is certainly not idealist. It believes all phenomena is born of a consciousness that co-arises with them. This is the called the ‘thoroughly dependent’ according to Buddha’s doctrine of Interdependent Origination in the sutras. Also, the common egoistic view of ordinary experience is fixated upon a self, imputed on the basis of six sense aggregates. But since these aggregates in themselves are unsubstantiated—as not a single dharma is findable within them— there is certainly no aggregating self to be considered. When the nature of reality is logically argued, any suggestion of a substantive self is thoroughly scrubbed, the conclusion of which is an assertion of resolute negativity, having no positive implications whatsoever. This, I believe, is equivalent to the Buddha’s pronouncement of the “thoroughly established”—the meditation of the Bodhisattvas upon the ‘Ultimate of a single taste’—found in his third turning of the Dharma Wheel.
As a formal meditation on Mind Only, first perform the four Vajrayana preliminaries (taking refuge in the Guru and Triple Gem, meditating the Four Immeasurable Prayer, generating Bodhicitta, and Vajrasattva purification—as this is what I do everyday). Then imagine everything from your eyes out—with no thought-filled, busy mind behind them—is the new way you now look at everything. This new perception, a mindfulness of everything in one’s visual field, corrects one’s usual bifurcated, subject-object vision. Everything that was seemingly ‘outside’ before, has now replaced anything imagined to be in or on your mind ‘inside,’ including mentation itself.
This, practice done in short bursts of strong focus, is according to the Yogacara or citta-mātra (mind-only) School of Buddhist Philosophy, and will gradually align one’s experience with their tenets: such as “[one’s] sole existence [is] of consciousness (cittamatra, vijñaptimatra); [and when seen as such reveals] the mental, illusory, unreal character of the empirical world; [familiarizes one with] the eight consciousness structure of mind; the subconscious (alayavijñana) and the subliminal impressions (vasanas) both of which have an important function in the theory of cognition; the three natures or forms of being (sabhava) [which literally ‘perfumes’ the mind or seeds it with karmic imprints influencing the present and future behavior.]; the two truths or levels of reality; the tathagatagarbha or Buddha-Nature which exists in all living beings; the Absolute; the Pure Mind (amalavijñana). Further, “for Buddhism, mind is only the series, succession or current of vijñanas (conscious states), cognition acts, representations, ideas, volitions, etc. These vijñanas, etc., constitute the mind; outside of these vijñanas, etc., there is nothing else; the mind is a whole, an abstract mental creation, which has no existence different and separate from its components. It is the same with humanity: it is not an entity different and separate from the human beings which constitute it.” (hal.science)
On the way to this single taste, there is both focus and expansion. If you’re feeling closed-in, expand. If you’re feeling spaced-out, then focus. Awareness will focus and expand in its own rhythm as people, places, and things arise before you. So just relax and do nothing. This is key. Do absolutely nothing. As everything you see is you and ‘yours,’ there’s nothing to defend, so delight in all phenomena as blissful, energetic forms, gradually allowing the plurality of their many characteristics to coalesce into simple shapes and colors, until the appearance of all the qualities congeal into a single taste.
Understand the reality of the disciple is an imaginary one compared to that of the knowledge-holder (vidyadhara). Lord Buddha has taught that all phenomena are dependently arisen and so states in the sutras they are thoroughly dependent. Lord Vasubandu clarified in his ‘The Three Natures’ teaching that all things are of imaginary nature, dependent nature, and completely realized nature. This third, or highest nature, is Buddhas nature. With the knowledge and realization of this, all phenomena is recognized as illusory, un-impeded, spontaneous and immanently transformative. With this effortless arising, all physicality and mentation is immobilized, and one feels an utterly blissful, clear, and hard ‘permanence.’ Out of that shines the ground luminosity of a deathless mind. With repeated, diligent familiarization, this vision becomes increasingly more stable, remaining longer each time.
Initially however, as this new vision may seem to arise and then quickly slip away, just enjoy the slow, sensuous reentry back into the realm of the five sense spheres. Recall they are illusory, and know you can return to the taste of ineffable bliss, emptiness, and the clear nature of the completely realized (‘thoroughly established’) arisen out of the mind-only state, by detaching or isolating your self awareness once again.
While practicing Mind Only, thoughts and feelings about one’s conduct, negative deeds are not abandoned or suppressed in or out of one’s meditation. Rather, they’re embraced and reappropriated within the Bodhisattvas’ higher purpose as Bodhicitta and therefore not ‘ordinary,’ as is their nature in the Alayavijnana, one’s all appropriating, highest consciousness. The advantage of not abandoning or suppressing the thoughts and behaviors that give rise to so-called negative deeds or sins—residing as imprints or seeds in one’s all appropriating consciousness—is having access to that extraordinary consciousness by and into which the suffering behaviors of one’s ordinary consciousness are integrated and purified. This is because all of one’s karmic seeds are really Buddhas within the ‘single taste’ of Shakyamuni’s Third Turning of the Dharma Wheel. For as long as one’s awareness resides in this nature of an unborn, transcendent reality, devoid of the eight worldly dharmas, the three existential marks, and is free of imputed dependently arisen phenomena, that is essence-less—not arising, abiding, or ceasing—then bliss becomes one’s body, clarity one’s voice, and supreme nonduality one’s mind by simply doing nothing as the mind’s ground luminosity arises on its own.
After each formal meditation session—as such—dedicate the merit of that session to both the eventual Enlightenment of yourself and ‘others.’ Think of one’s family members first, gradually strengthening your Bodhisattva resolve until you can wish it for your enemies as well. Between experiences of genuine ‘detachment,’ rejoice in having accomplished this higher power—an uncommon siddhi—and learn to teach its gentle, natural path to others by studying the words of the Buddha, especially as taught in his third turning of the Dharma Wheel, found in the Samdhinirmocana Sūtra.
May it be so!
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