To be aflame with silence, with joy, is wisdom. It is not
through logic but through love. It is not through words but through a wordless
state called meditation or a state of no-mind, satori, Samadhi.
Only no-mind can be without any duality, because it is
empty. The no-mind is choicelessness. The no-mind is pure awareness. It is just
the empty sky.
In the East we call this state meditation: no belief, no
thought, no desire, no prejudice, no conditioning -- in fact, no mind at all. A
state of no-mind is meditation. When you can look without any mind interfering,
distorting, interpreting, then you see the truth. The truth is already all
around; just you have to put your mind aside.
One of the names of Buddha is TATHAGATA -- one who lives in
suchness, one who has become free from all the distractions of the mind. And
the miracle is that the mind consists only of distraction, so once you are free
of all distractions there is no mind left. In the present there is no mind. In
the present there is only consciousness, awareness, watchfulness.
Awareness means to listen to me unfocused -- alert of
course, not fallen asleep, but alert to these birds, their chirping, alert to
the wind that passes through the trees, alert to everything that is happening.
Concentration excludes much, includes little. Awareness excludes nothing,
includes all. Awareness is a state of no-mind. You are, yet you are not
focused. You are just a mirror reflecting all, echoing all; see the beauty of
it and the silence and the stillness.
Mind dissolves only when you don't choose. And when there is
no mind, you are for the first time in your crystal clarity, for the first time
in your original freshness. For the first time your real face is encountered.
Mind is not there -- the divider. Now existence appears as one. Mind has
dropped; the barrier between you and existence is no more. Now you can look at
existence with no mind. This is how a sage is born. With the mind -- the world.
With no mind -- freedom, MOKSHA, KAIVALYA, NIRVANA. Cessation of the mind is cessation
of the world.
When there is no thought. no desire, no ambition, in that
state of no-mind truth descends in you -- or ascends in you. As far as the
dimension of truth is concerned both are the same, because in the world of the
innermost subjectivity height and depth mean the same. It is one dimension: the
vertical dimension. Mind moves horizontally, no-mind exists vertically. The
moment the mind ceases to function -- that's what meditation is all about:
cessation of the mind, total cessation of the mind -- your consciousness
becomes vertical; depth and height are yours.
You can call it tathata, suchness. 'Suchness' is a Buddhist
way of expressing that there is something in you which always remains in its
intrinsic nature, never changing. It always remains in its selfsame essence,
eternally so. That is your real nature. That which changes is not you, that is
mind. That which does not change in you is Buddha-mind. You can call it
no-mind, you can call it Samadhi, satori. It depends upon you; you can give it
whatsoever name you want.
By thinking you cannot decide. It is not a question of
deciding as a logical conclusion, it is a question of choiceless awareness. You
need a mind without thoughts. In other words, you need a no-mind, just a pure
silence, so you can see directly into things. And out of that clarity will come
the choice on its own; you are not choosing. You will act just as a Buddha
acts. Your action will have beauty, your action will have truth, your action
will have the fragrance of the divine. There is no need for you to choose.
Drop all beliefs, all disbeliefs. Let the mind become less
cluttered. Remove all unnecessary luggage, become more unburdened. The more
unburdened you are, the closer to truth. When you are absolutely unburdened,
empty, when you are just there, with no idea surrounding you, truth happens.
That is what Zen people call satori. It happens in a state of no-mind.
Image: Buddha in the Jungle Highlands by Trey Ratcliff at Flickr.com
