All of us understand that a shadow lags behind the actions of our body. We also understand that the body is not an emanation of the shadow! But do we understand that the body is a shadow, also? Do we understand that it lags behind the Suchness (tathata) that animates it? Apparently, not many of us understand. We treat the body as primary—not as a shadow which lags behind.
We are so disposed by wrong habit to imagine that our body is first and all else which appears to arise from it, is secondary or the same, it is epiphenomena. While this may seem to be the case, it is not as it appears. Our body is actually a dependent arising which is dependent upon an animating spirit. But try as we might to apperceive this spirit or Suchness, we can’t. We can’t, because the apperceiver is also a dependent arising! Put another way, the apperceiver is a shadow. And here we come to the difficulty of awakening (sambodhi) or even having an initial awakening (bodhcittotpada).
In a way, Suchness has to deduce itself from out of itself. This can only be accomplished by understanding the difference between pluralized Suchness as bodies, and singular Suchness by making the mind one pointed which is a bodiless state. When our body moves, being only a shadow, it is moved by the bodiless being—not the bodied person (satkaya). From the perspective of the body, this is starkly nothing for us. This perhaps accounts for why it seems easy to deny spirit because in terms of the body, spirit or Suchness is nothing (like a body). This is also a mystery, because this knowledge is only known to a very few who have mystically been in the presence of Suchness; who can distinguish singular Suchness from its aggregation, or body (mass might be a more apt term at this point).
Great sages have, to some degree, made contact with Suchness so that their bodily existence is shadow-like and secondary. In this state, the sage has merged, to some extent, with Suchness so that, more and more, the body is perceived as a colorful shadow lagging behind the animative power of Suchness.
For the ordinary persons this amounts to gibberish or nonsense. This is because they are in a total state of ignorance, believing that the dependently originated body is primary. So to speak, they have been looking at shadows for so long they have lost sight of the animative side which is Suchness.
Their condition is so extreme that in many cultures the sage is scorned being often treated as a parasite who sits around doing nothing. Yet, it is the ordinary people who are to be scorned because they have altogether forsaken Suchness which makes their very life possible. By such a denial, they worship the dying instead of the undying. And in their daily lives they pursue the bodily instead of the disembodied. By their actions they strengthen the world of the dying eventually reaching nihilism. By comparison, the sage strengthens life and the undying. The sage brings light into the world which dissipates the shadow.
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