Nonduality
Salon (/ \)
issue number two -
October, 2000
Nonduality Salon Magazine
(X)
MAHAYANAVIMSAKA
OF NAGARJUNA:
ADORATION TO THE THREE TREASURES
commentary
by Sandeep Chatterjee
1.
I make my obeisance to the Buddha who is wise, free from
all attachment, and whose powers are beyond conception,
and who has kindly taught the truth which cannot be
expressed by words.
Commentary: A painting of the sky, even if the
painter is Learnado da Vinci, is never THE sky. It is
"about" the sky, a version. And all versions
are bound, limited, "dead". And yet it is only
the conceptual, phenomenal context that communication
(with words or otherwise) is possible, ergo, the
communication itself is conceptual, no matter who the
communicator is.
2
In the transcendental truth there is no origination
(utpada), and in fact, there is no destruction (nirodha).
Commentary: Nothing has ever happened, existentially
speaking.
In a dream, there is orgination, there is destruction,
there is movement, there is change, there is becoming and
there is unbecoming. There is chaos and out of chaos,
stars are born, black holes formed.
There are World Wars, there are holocausts, there is
shame of the vanquished, there is pride of the victor,
there are Mother Theresas and the pride of charity.
All nuances of the dream.
Wake up in the morning sipping a cup of tea, the issues
of the dream, the great ethos and pathos, are they of any
import? Did
they really occur?
The Buddha is like the sky (which has neither origination
nor cessation), and the beings are like him, and
therefore they are of the same nature.
Commentary: That from which the dream manifested can
neither originate or cease. From a conceptual, phenomenal
context any reference to that, any attempt to depict
that, can only be a painting of the sky, hence
conceptual.
And yet the "wave" as an symbol of the illusory
phenomenal world, when you pick up a wave in your hand,
all you get is water. The illusory mirage is nothing but
the sun's rays.
This illusory phenomenal world is not different or apart
to that
which manifests it. It is an objective expression of what
can be called as pure subjectivity. Potentiality
actualizing it's potentiality. They are not two and are
thus of the same nature,
same essence.
3.
There is no birth either on this or the other side (of
the world).
Commentary: When nothing has ever happened, what
birth, what death.
A compound thing (samskrta) originates from its
conditions.
Commentary: A dance. The dance is a dance, because a
dancer is dancing. The dancer is a dancer becuase a dance
has come to be. Where is the separation between the two?
Potentiality actualizing it's innate potentiality, not as
something separate to it, but itself appears to itself,
without any change to itself.
Therefore it is sunya by its nature.
Commentary: The term "sunya" has been much
mis-understood to mean "dead nothingness" Since
nothing has ever happened, a conceptual terminology used
is sunyatta, but a sunyatta of total potentiality.
This fact comes into the range of knowledge of an
omniscient one.
Commentary: In a conceptual entity, the apperception
of the true identity may "occur". Not as an act
of will, but through pure non-volitionality on part of
the conceptual entity.
4.
All things by nature are regarded as reflections.
Commentary: As appearances in Consciousness.
They are pure and naturally quiescent, devoid of any
duality, equal, and remain always and in all
circumstances in the same way (tathata).
Commentary: Tathata means "Isness".
There is an "isness" in all things, to all
objects within a dream. An object in a dream cannot
follow any other alloted role except it's
"isness". Like wise the conceptual entity which
has assumed on itself the mantle of being a subject to
all the object he/she observes, is itself an object which
can do nothing but follow it's "isness".
A conceptual entity, a biological computer that we are,
has no
volition but to follow the program of it's isness.
So if shame is arising at this moment, if great profound
thoughts of non-duality are arising at this moment, or
you are busy cutting the throat of an innocent bystander,
the conceptual entity is just following it's
"isness".
The conSequences of the enactment of the
"isness", faced by that conceptual entity is
also entirely as per the "isness" of what it is
to be.
5.
In fact, worldings attribute atman to what is not atman,
Commentary: Atman or soul, is just the ego's
attempts to perpetuate itself. Seeing the temporal nature
of the current identity, the body-mind complex, it
latches on to a more permanent option, Atman , which it
expects to last few lifetimes.,<s>
and in the same way they imagine happiness, misery,
indifference, passions and liberation.
Commentary: The need to be, by the conceptual
entity, thereby establishing that it is something apart
from a mere cognized object, is just the
"me-entity" or "personal doership" in
operation. With this "entitification", the
pandora Box of happiness (which immediately gives birth
to what misery is supposed to be), indifference (which
immediately gives birth to what passion is supposed to
be), liberation (which immediately gives birth to what
bondage is supposed to be), the Pandora Box is open.
And thus the "me-entity" suffers or is happy,
for it sees that sometimes the actions which it believes
it is taking, gets it what it hoped to get in the first
place (and hence it is happy) and sometimes it doesn't
(and hence it suffers).
The "me-entity" further realises that there is
no guarantee as to which of it's actions will produce
what and that the Life it knows is totally uncertain,
death may occur for no reason or rhyme.
And thus is born the sense of "insecurity"
which in turn drives
it's seeking of solace, consolations or icons of security
like Meditation, the Holy Bible/Gita/Koran, or a Guru, or
in today's times, Web based Lists which discusses/debates
such spiritual matters.
It seeks to dis-identify with the body because it sees
the temporal fraility and looks for more permanent
solutions, like
identifying with the Holy Spirit, Consciousness, God,
whatever. Anything which can assuage the insecurity.
And the joke is that when and if the recognition takes
place, occurs, there is no recognizer left, to affirm,
confirm or validate.
That is why statements like the I am the Holy Spirit,
Consciousness, etc are oxymoron statements.
The question then that arises is why does this me-entity
come to be in the first place. First of all, it does not
come to be, it appears to be in operation, like a mirage.
It appears to be, so that a "me and 'you"
appears to come to be and Life , which is only a complex
of multitude relationships between a "me" and
"you", Life comes to be. Without the "me
and the 'you, the duality of this me/you, Life cannot be
as we know it.
For this dialogue which is part of Life, there has to be
a "Sandeep" and another who is not-Sandeep and
then the game of dialogue can merrily carry on.
Whereas the truth is that it is really Consciousness
dialoguing
this particular EMail based conversation with
Consciousness.
6
- 7. Birth in the six realms of existence in the world,
highest happiness in the heaven, great pain in the
hell,--these do not come within the perview of truth
(i.e. cannot be accepted as true); nor do the notions
that unmeritorious actions lead to the extreme misery,
old age, disease, and death, and meritorious actions
surely bring about good results.
Commentary: Good actions, bad actions, doing,
not-doing, believing, not believing, all issues of the
dream. Waking up, sip the cup of tea.
It is owing to false notions that beings are consumed by
fire of passions even as a forest is burnt by forest
conflagration and fall into the hells, etc.
Commentary:A conceptual entity, a dreamed
character, has the false notion that he or she IS, to
feel shame, or that it was my Dad's doing so what the
hell, and hence is subject to Heaven and Hell, both
states being part of the dream.
As illusion prevails so do beings make their appearance.
The world is illusory and it exists only on account of
its cause and conditions.
Commentary: The world (cognized) exists because
an illusory cognizer is around to cognize it. If nobody
heard, did the tree fall in the forest goes a famous Zen
kaon.
8.
As a painter is frightened by the terrible figure of a
Yaksa which he himself has drawn, so is a fool frightened
in the world (by his own false notions).
Commentary: The cognized and the cognizer are
both illusions, hence can there be any cognition whether
of fear or joy?
9.
Even as a fool going himself to a quagmire is drowned
therein, so are beings drowned in the quagmire of false
notions and are unable to come out thereof.
Commentary: So long there is a seeking for
liberation, a doing towards seeking, the seeker
fundamentally pre-supposes that he or she is bound. The
seeking and the pre-supposition are two sides of the same
coin. Can't have one without the other. Like a shadow.
And thus all seeking is trying to stamp out your own
shadow.
10.
The feeling of misery is experienced by imagining a thing
where in fact it has no existence. Beings are tortured by
the poison of false notions regarding the object and its
knowledge.
Commentary: Objects in a dream, with it great
ethos and pathos. waking up in the morning sip your cup
of tea.
11.
Seeing these helpless beings with a compassionate heart
one should perform the practices of the highest knowledge
(bodhicarya) for the benefit of them.
Commentary: That is why speech takes place by
the ones who know, knowing that any speech is a
corruption, falsity.
12.
Having acquired requisites thereby and getting
unsurpassable bodhi one should become a Buddha, the
friend of the world, being freed fron the bondage of
false notions.
Commentary: Phenomena is just the objective
expression of that which IS. Knowing it is a illusion,
fully participate in it, if that is what comes up, fully
withdraw, when that comes up and vice-versa. No
rejection, no acceptance.
13.
He who realizes the transcendental truth knowing the
pratityasamutpada (or the manifestation of entities
depending on their causes and conditions), knows the
world to be sunya and devoid of beginning, middle or end.
Commentary: Nothing ever happened.
14.
The samsara and nirvana are mere appearances; the truth
is stainless, changeless, and quiescent from the
beginning and illumined.
Commentary: Nothing ever happened, yet that
which-is, IS.
15.
The object of knowledge in dream is not seen when one
awakes.
Commentary: Because the one who wakes up, does
not consider himself/herself to be merely another object.
Thus the sleep-dream is understood, but not this waking
dream.
Similarly the world disappears to him who is awakened
from the darkness of ignorance.
Commentary: In deep sleep, all your profanities
and all your profoundities, all your relationships and
all your ethos and pathos, all are no more, as
temporarily you the "me-entity" are no more.
The creation of illusion is nothing but illusion. When
everything is compoond there is nothing which can be
regarded as a real thing. Such is the nature of all
things
Commentary: Nothing has ever happened.
Happenings are ony with the conceptual context of space
and time, which themseves are conceptual constructs.
16.
One having origination (jati) does not originate himself.
Origination is a false conception of the people. Such
conceptions and (conceived) beings, these two are not
reasonable.
Commentary: When nothing has happened, there is
no origination, there is no cessation.
17.
All this is nothing but mind (citta) and exists just like
an illusion. Hence originate good and evil actions and
from them good and evil birth.
Commentary: Good, Bad, Evil, all dynamics of the
dream, within a dream
18.
When the wheel of the mind is suppressed, all things are
suppressed. Therefore all things are devoid of atman
(independent nature), and consequently they are pure.
Commentary: No conceptual entity has volition.
19. It is due to thinking the things which have
no independent nature as eternal, atman, and pleasant
that this ocean of existence (bhava) appears to one who
is enveloped by the darkness of attachment and ignorance.
Commentary: To a "me-entity", with a
sense of personal doership, hence having the issue to
become something , enlightened or a buffoon, for this
"me-entity" it subject to the rise and crash of
the "wave".
20. Who can reach the other side of thc great
ocean of samsara which is full of water of false notions
without getting into the great vehicle (i.e., Mahayana) ?
Commentary: Without apperception of the truth,
all doing is round and round the mulberry bush.
How can these false notions arise in a man who
thoroughly knows this world which has originated from
ignorance?
Commentary: Once the apperception
"occurs", where is the "me-entity"
left to have any notions, right or wrong?
Sandeep's
web page is at www.nonduality.com/sandeep.htm
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