Chances are a fish doesn’t know anything about water. Although the fish is mainly water (and so are we) and lives in a watery world the fish has not awakened to primordial wateriness. We humans are almost in the same predicament as our biological relative, the humble fish. We live in the great ocean of the One Mind (ekacitta) and actually don’t know anything about it or perhaps better said, we only know half of it, viz., the samsaric side. Helping us to begin to unravel this problem the treatise, The Awakening of Faith is useful.
“The revelation of the true meaning of the principle of Mahayana can be achieved by unfolding the doctrine that the principle of One Mind has two aspects. One is the aspect of Mind in terms of the Absolute (tathata or Suchness), and the other is the aspect of Mind in terms of phenomena (samsara or birth and death). Each of these two aspects embraces all states of existence. Why, because these two aspects are mutually inclusive” (trans. Hakeda, p. 38).
We humans, who are like the fish, are merely phenomenalizations Mind; even our most profound thoughts and experiences are Mind-phenomenalizations. This being the case, we remain, nevertheless, purblind to Mind, itself, that is, Mind as Suchness or the absolute substance (this is analogous to the water of which the fish knows nothing). As a practical illustration of this, we can easily perceive the phenomenal—but we have major issues with the utterly invisible, non-sensory Suchness. Many, I would say, do not accept even its possibility. Even some Buddhist scholars and clergy go so far (and stupidly so in my opinion) to suggest by various one-sided arguments that the Buddha denied any kind of substance (svabhâva) which would be putting him into the camp of phenomenalism.
Another way of looking at the ocean-like One Mind is that we can think of it as the Tathagata-matrix (garbha). It is at once the absolute Mind, that is, Mind as Suchness, and Mind as samsara which makes up the totality of our human world. However, unless we have had a glimpse into this matrix, being able to see the Mind of Suchness, directly, we are forever doomed to live in the world of samsara with no chance to awaken from its powerful seductiveness and escape.
This all brings us to the most important part of Buddhism: that we should have, in the course of our studies, a direct glimpse or gnosis into Suchness, itself; a connection which is so direct that it permanently removes any question or doubt as to its complete authority.
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