Non-aryans (anaryan) (those who have never beheld the animative principle) make the Five Aggregates the referent. Put into a more practical context, non-aryans make the human body together with its senses the referent. Such a referent is always changing; never the same. Whatever mood a person is in, that becomes the referent. When a Zen master speaks of pure Mind, the referent for the non-aryan is not pure Mind but, instead, their bodily being (satkaya) and, particularly, how they feel or think of themselves.
Thinking about this, when discussing pure Mind how is it possible to get people to give up using the referent of the human body which is fickled? Without question, anyone new to Buddhism always uses their physical body for the ultimate referent. They have never gone through—let us say—a conversion of referents. As a result, they have no faith or confidence in the nature of the Buddha Mind and eventually give up the practice of Buddhism. In a way, they are using the teaching of the Buddha for goals he never intended. They believe Buddhism is supposed to satisfy their particular needs; make them happy or relieve them of their anger and depression. However, without a radical change in the referent nothing is really going to change.
To convert from using the referent of the human body (satkaya) to that of pure Mind is the crux of authentic training. We have to keep in mind that the bodily referent includes language, ideas, and even experiences, all of which have to be set aside. Even for those who believe in God, God has to be jettisoned who is little more than an empty metaphor.
What starts to become apparent, if we decide to make ourselves available for such a conversion, is that it will probably come as the result of some great crisis; something almost akin to an NDE (near-death experience) which, incidentally, Dr. Kenneth Ring explores in his book, Heading Toward Omega. This, I hasten to add, is more or less what happens in satori or kensho which is a radical conversion of the old referent to the new one (Christians would understand this has a change from the old covenant to the new covenant or testament). This new referent comes under the special Buddhist term, samyagdrishti or right view, which is a radical shift of view (drishti) that is aligned (samyak) to pure Mind.
As we might expect, not everyone is enthusiastic to take up such a journey of conversion. It is much easier to follow our ever changing body. This referent suits most people who are content to wallow in the non-aryan. But this is exactly why the world is always in a state of upheaval because the referent is constantly changing and conflicting with other such referents. The Buddha, because he saw the pure Mind “medium” from which the world was composed, found the true way to end suffering by converting from the bodily referent to the referent of pure Mind.
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