Mind: a mirror or nothing?

I've been thinking about this awareness watching awareness thing, the subject of a previous post. Of course, I've been thinking with my mind. And mind is at the root of the whole thing.

So I'm pondering what pondering is about, in much the same fashion as Michael Langford says that awareness needs to watch awareness in order to become aware of what awareness is.

Pretty damn confusing. But seemingly important.

Because the debate over whether consciousness (and hence reality, since a reality with no one aware of it is non-existent for us) is one'ish or two'ish is central to religion, spirituality, philosophy -- any attempt to discern the meaning Of It All.

Tucson and The Elephant have been having an interesting conversation in the recent comments on this post.

I don't claim to understand it's intricacies (heck, they may not either, for all I know). Yet much of the debate appears to be reflected in a classic Zen interchange. I've seen various descriptions and translations of it.

This is the version in Albert Low's "Hakuin on Kensho."

Zen masters frequently use the metaphor of the mirror. A famous example is the interchange involving Hui-neng (Jap.:Eno). The fifth patriarch wanted to pass on the patriarchate. In order to determine who should be chosen, he asked his monks to write a short poem to indicate their level of attainment. The head monk wrote:

The body is a Bodhi tree,
The mind a mirror bright.
Wipe it carefully day by day
And let no dust alight.

Hui-neng realized that the head monk had not seen into his true nature, and he wrote instead:

In Bodhi there is no tree,
Nor a mirror bright,
From the beginning not a thing is,
Where can the dust alight?

...In Zen, the metaphor of a mirror is used to point out that, just as reflections do not have any being in themselves and are dependent upon the mirror for their being, our experiences have no being in themselves and are dependent upon knowing for their being.

This is like saying that form is emptiness. Zen insists upon no substratum, no underlying or Supreme Being. The doctrine of prajna, an aroused mind that abides nowhere, affirms this, as does Buddha's doctrine of anicca, the doctrine of no-thingness.

For Zen, the mirror is knowing, which, although it is not constant, nevertheless constantly and at each instant recreates itself. Knowing is its own being; being is itself knowing. For the Taoist, the mirror is the substratum that makes reflections possible, hence the need for a clean and tranquil mirror. Hui-neng put his fist through this substratum.

Well, I don't understand this discussion all that well either. I get the basic debate here -- is mind/awareness a mirror or nothing? The distinction between Taoism and Zen seems sort of extraneous, a dig at a competing philosophy that doesn't mesh with how I understand Taoism.

In a post earlier this year ("Big waves, small waves: no difference?") I quoted another version of the Hui-neng story. It concluded that the no mirror stance also was the foundation of Taoism. That is:

"The world is always held without effort. The moment there is effort, the world is beyond holding."

So I come back to the notion that awareness watching awareness or mind cleansing the mirror of mind makes reality overly complex.

All this effort to achieve a state that supposedly we already are. I'm decidedly lazy. Thus I'm attracted to "just let go and be" philosophies.

Yet these also seem most likely to be in touch with the nature of being. Be...being. Got to be some sort of connection here.

Comments

[the elephant]

I am not sure the excerpt by Albert Low really reflects our exchange since neither Tucson nor I would acquiesce to the first poem:
The body is a Bodhi tree,
The mind a mirror bright.
Wipe it carefully day by day
And let no dust alight.

Regarding Hui-neng's poem, I would like to emphasize two aspects of it:

IN BODHI there is no tree,
Nor a mirror bright,
From the beginning not a thing is,
Where can the DUST alight?

The last sentence does not deny the actuality of the dust (which represent any relative beings, or dharmas in some stands of Buddhism). My intervention was simply to highlight the fact that Tucson's narratives immediately become elusively non-nonsensical and naive as soon as someone inquires about the 'dust' (why are we striving for unity or something, the reality of suffering, the experience of resistances, etc.). In ways, he masks the 'operational' or 'functional' poverty of his views by launching into 'nondual evocations' coming from his 'guts' or 'arising spontaneously' (what a load of crap!), which often just denied the dust (very convenient); sidetracking from my intent: I have red a load of crap--which some contradict Tucson's own views--whose authors pretended that what they said or wrote arose 'spontaneously' or 'from nowhere'; that kind of pretension is no sign of anything. His narratives evokes fake ambivalences (Tucson writes: "the apparent paradox of what inconceivably we are.") while missing the real ambiguity of reality (and part of that ambiguity is that Reality, or All, is One; I never said otherwise; like Hui-neng wrote "IN BODHI there is no tree"). That was the simple point I tried to make.

Here is an observation: I might be wrong or right, I don't know. My observation is that his problem to relate his perspective to the 'dust' in the most basic way is probably why somehow my latest intervention led Tucson to once again immediately use his traditional ploys: he accused me of intervening because I am irritated, perturbed, frustrated, defensive, etc. I guess I am full of dust :); and he also, on a large scale, attributed to my person claims, views and perspectives that I have consistently denied in the past. Basically he engaged his exchange with an imaginary interlocutor.

He does that invariably every time I wish to engage a discussion with him--whatever is the subject, nature and form of my intervention--our exchanges in the archives are evidence A,B,C, etc... your Honor. I think the unconditional and invariable nature of his reactions reveals quite a bit about the level of discourse he wish to have and perhaps evidently reinforces my latest point (and if he does not want to have a discussion then why does he reply?).

[albert]

Intellectual acuity and insightful rumination can never, ever reveal the mystery of the Supreme Being. This is all the churning of water and kicking up dust. It is useless and the only thing that is fed is one's impoverished ego which is desperate even for a crumb of recognition. Hopefully, eventually these minds will exhaust themselves so that the real desire and yearning can manifest its splendor. Then, something will be done to mollify one's sordid condition. Intellect is a monster that devours the innermost essence of surat...our real and true nature that has one desire only: to return to its source.

[Brian]

The Elephant, thanks for pointing out the emphasized words. I hadn't thought about the fact that DUST is still around, no matter whether a mirror exists. Makes me feel better about my untidy mind.

Albert, who here (including me) disagrees with what you said? This is, almost entirely, a gathering of churchless after all -- not people who believe in wordy religious dogma.

I've mentioned this before in regard to similar comments: people who criticize those who write about spiritual/mystical issues do so in writing (as you did) using their "intellectual acuity and insightful rumination" (your words) to compose their comment.

It seems that you're being as dogmatic in your own way as a fundamentalist. You believe that you know how our "real and true nature" is to be revealed. But you don't describe it, though your use of the word "surat" (soul) implies that you are a Sant Mat devotee.

So I gather any guru who wrote or spoke about his realizations is similarly deluded? That their talking and writing about mysticism was a sign of their "impoverished ego desperate even for a crumb of recognition"?

How do you communicate without using your mind or intellect? Apparently you did so, managing to use the Internet and your computer just with your soul. Please share how this is done. I'm curious.

[tucson]

The Elephant and I have a great time misunderstanding each other which probably will continue. However, I am not inclined to much further debate. Take it or leave it:

The dust IS the mirror bright. I can only be as all beings and only exist as all appearances. I am only experienced as whatever is known, thought, seen, heard or felt. Every concept is a concept of what i am and all that seems to be is my being because I am not any 'thing'. Whatever is phenomenally appearing, that which perceives it cannot be perceived, and since only I perceive, how coulod I perceive that which is perceiving? What I am is what i perceive including dust in the mirror mind whcih can never be seen as such.

Regarding death: Since i am the conceiver of time, when could I have been born? Since I conceive the space in which all things are, where could i live? If I conceive life, birth and death, how can I die since I who conceive it can't be conceived?

What I am is the being of all being, yet it is my objects that live. Your living is my living because transcending all that appears I am present as all things. I am immanent and yet unfindable because I am no 'thing'.

But I am that.