Watching the ocean waves or just watching the ripples on a small pond we are witnessing the inexpressible, non-separateness of the substance or element of water and its mode which are the waves. There is no knife than can separate substance from its modes (i.e., modification of the substance). With the cessation of the mode or the wave, the substance is with itself. With the arising of the substance it becomes modal.
Likewise, something seemingly arises in front of our mind’s eye which appears always different from us. However, we cannot detect our self in what arises. even though, paradoxically, we sense what faces us always to be connected with us. Our self escapes us.
From our human standpoint, surprisingly, we are substance and its mode except that we don’t see it that way. We only see the modal portion of our existence which is what the Buddha says is impermanent, suffering, and insubstantial. Perhaps it is like seeing waves without water, if you can imagine that, or our everyday thoughts consisting of a substance we cannot detect.
The task that Buddhism puts before us, and more so Zen Buddhism, is to discover our true nature which is substantive, which we might call ‘a-modal’ (Zen masters like Bankei will call the amodal the Unborn Mind). But are we up to the task? The answer we don’t want to hear is, “No we are not up to the task.” We are unwilling to accept the fact that the modal is a dependent arising of the substance. In this regard it is empty of substance. Only the substance is actual, nothing else is. To realize this substance, which we are but don’t realize it yet, the modal must drop away. When the substance stands in its own right free we are liberated. We are beyond the mode of birth and death.
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