A bridge is unnecessary

If kensho is the direct realization of our true nature which is inconceivable and supermundane, how do we go from a conceivable true nature which is mundane to the real inconceivable true nature?  Maybe explained in an easier way: how do we go from the conditioned to the unconditioned?  How is the gap bridged in other words?

This makes me think of how the gap is bridged between waves and the element of water, itself, or the vibrations of the aether that are a particular AM radio signal and the unvibrated aether?  In this context the answer is easy.  First, there is no real gap.  Second, we only have to stop the waves and stop vibrating the aether.  Water becomes just water and aether, just aether.

All attempts to conceive our true nature which is inconceivable is somewhat like trying to still water waves by patting the water.  When kensho happens in Zen, as I have mentioned a few times in previous blogs, the Zen adept has gone to their wits’end.  For a split second they simply stopped patting the water.  Their pesky thoughts fell back into ekacitta, the waveless primordial Mind.

The idea of building some kind of a bridge between the conditioned and the unconditioned, or the conceivable and the inconceivable is not where the Buddha is coming from.  To the horror of some Buddhists, Buddhism is monistic or as the Lankavatara Sutra puts it, Mind-only.  Difference is illusion or māyā, which has also the power to enchant by which we forget the primordial Mind.  Lost in māyā we fall into the world of samsara from which there is no apparent escape.  The escape is subtle—not easily understood by those ensnared in illusion.

Comments

[mathesis]

The escape is subtle but amazingly simple once you have seen it and are on the road escaping.

[Mr.nobodh]

This reminds me of the Taoist distinction between the gate of sameness (nirvana, mind-only, equanimity) and the gate of difference (samsara, form, appearance); it is mentioned how both are two different perceptions of the same thing, one from the perspective of Essence which sees the changeless and the other from the perspective of function which sees change. When essence identified solely with function, it operates through function and thus experiences difference through discrimination of function; when essence identified with essence, it functions through essence and experiences sameness/equanimity;

In other words, samsara and nirvana are two gates of experiencing reality or mind; one through a multitude of discriminated forms, the other through equanimity of mind, resulting in all being perceived without discrimination; but these are both experiences, manifestations of Mind which is unmanifested; the essence, the origin never changes, as it is unmanifested wisdom; what changes is the reality perceived.

This is why there is no duality between them, they are the same radiance of mind perceived differently.

If only people saw that the conditioned is difference, discrimination, samsara; the unconditioned is sameness, equanimity, nirvana; and they both emanate as manifestations of Mind (wisdom) which is intrinsically void in nature and thus unmanifested; thus we have gate of ignorance and gate of awareness, regarding Mind and the nature of Mind (inconceivable wisdom)