Illumination

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HOMMAGE A HUI HAI

 

In the first dialogue of his treatise Hui hai asserts what amounts to

the whole truth in one sentence.

 

He says, "Illumination means the realization that Illumination is not

something to be attained."

 

Illumination is not some thing - for it is not an object; nor is it 'not

to be attained' because we possess it already, as has inaccurately been

stated - but because it is this-which-we-are.

 

As 'that' for which we are searching, it is illusory, for it is in fact

this 'we' who are searching. This 'we' who are searching, cannot be found

either, for we cannot find this-which-we-are-by-searching.

 

The realization which 'means' illumination, as Hui Hai put it, is the

result of discovering that the Seeker, who is the sought, is nowhere to be

found. Why is he not to be found? Because there is no such object as a

seeker, nor anywhere for him to be. There is no object as such at all,

never was, and never will be.

 

Hui Hai says it several times, in several ways: here he says it in

answer to the first question posed, and in twelve simple words.

 

There is neither illumination nor absence of illumination, neither

bondage nor liberation from bondage.

 

There is no one to be bound or freed. There is only one mind, which is

not such at all as object and which, therefore, having no subject could

never incur any objective effect or condition of any kind whatever.

 

It is my phenomenal object, identified as 'me', which thinks itself

'bound' and seeks to be 'freed', but it has never been bound and it will

never be freed: as soon as 'I' no longer refer to 'it' (subject to its

object) there is no longer any 'bondage' nor any 'freedom', for such notions

can no longer obtain.