living reality

[Guest guest]

Do not engage in the search for reality through concepts, but to be in

the world of living reality.

 

Japanese Zen master Dogen said, "All phenomena are mind, mind is all.

Mind contains rivers, mountains, moon and sun." In Zen experience

there is no longer an object of knowledge.

 

Nagarjuna's Treatise of Great Understanding (Mahaprajnaparamita Sastra

i.e. commentaries) says:

 

"All phenomena can be understood to be in two categories: mind and

matter. On the conceptual level, we distinguish mind and matter, but

on the level of awakening, all is mind. Object and mind are both

marvelous. Mind is matter, matter is mind. Matter doesn't exist

outside of mind. Mind doesn't exist outside of matter. Each is in

the other. This is called the nonduality of mind and matter."

 

When we discriminate between subject and object, we're removed from

Zen and its guiding principle of nonduality.

 

An awakened person lives in the material world the same as everyone

else. When she sees a rose, she knows that it's a rose, like everyone

else. But she is neither conditioned nor imprisoned by concepts.

Concepts now become marvelous skillful means in her possession. An

awakened person looks, listens, and distinguishes things, all the

while being perfectly aware of the presence that is the perfect and

non-discriminative nature of everything. She sees deeply the nature

of interbeing.

 

As long as our activity is based on conceptual discrimination, it's

not free. The free person sees all, because he knows that there is

nothing to be seen. She perceives all, not being deceived by

concepts. When she looks at things, she sees their true nature. When

she perceives things, she penetrates their nature of interbeing. Thus

while living in the world she possesses the secret of the arising and

manifestation of phenomena. This is the only way to arrive at

awakening. Free of errors caused by concepts, she lives in peace and

freedom, even in the world of karma. Using skillful means, she

realizes her calling of awakening in this conditioned world, without

thinking whether the world is conditioned or unconditioned.

 

Excerpted from ZEN KEYS by Thich Nhat Hanh.