The whole, naturally, is likened to the absolute but not the things that arise from within it which are its illusory phenomenalizations. On the other hand, the substance or essence of these illusory phenomenalizations from which they are composed (saṃskṛta), is absolute. We can also think of the absolute as pure Mind or spirit.
During intense meditation we are aware of our thoughts (manas) but never the actual content which is the absolute. We are unable to supersede our mini-world of personal thoughts with their unending displays. No matter our efforts, we always come to a limit, or the same, we have come to Zen master Mumon’s barrier 關 that we cannot pass through which, by the way, is what all koans represent — answer one you get ‘em all.
The content mentioned earlier is what the serious meditator is fixed upon; endeavoring to intuit it. The meditator already knows the nothingness of thought; that it is something stirred up so that it is nothing again and again — never the actual content which is concealed by the stirring.
The stirred content is also the othering of the actual content that appears real but is only an illusion of the real. Said again, the meditator already knows the nothingness of their thoughts even as both imagination and mental images. Thought or the process of thinking is stirred content become other to its unstirred self that is not remembered (smṛti) by us.
What is lacking for the meditator is they have not left the boundary of the altered or stirred content. They are still facing Mumon’s barrier unable to make heads or tails of it. Koans bring out this frustrating fact to consciousness. One never is quite sure they fully understand, and never will until they see/remember the essence or content face-to-face.
Comments