Shunryu Suzuki on Living In The Dark, Empty Sky.

We should always live in the dark, empty sky.
The sky is always the sky.
Even though clouds and lightning come,
The sky is not disturbed.
Even if the flashing of enlightenment comes,
Our practice forgets all about it.
Then it is ready for another enlightenment.

Shunryu Suzuki, "Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind"

Chopra on Lenses of Perception

By itself, nothing “out there”
Has any definition without a perceiver.
When scientists claim to have deciphered
The mechanics of vision,
All they have done is found a map,
Which must not be mistaken for reality.

Everyone has seen photographs
Of what the world looks like
Through the multiple eye of a bee, spider, or fly.
Each of these insects sees through more than one lens,
And the photographs therefore present a cluster
Of eight or ten of twenty images, generally of a flower,
And we are to suppose that the insect brain
Sees the flower that way.

These composites, however, do not really capture
The actual experience of insect eyesight,
They only indicate what a human being might see
If he looked through several camera lenses
At the same time.

If all perception is personal,
Where do the “real”
Sights, sounds, smells, tastes, and textures begin?
We trust our eyes to see “real” photons
And our ears to hear “real” vibrations in the air,
But it is easy to show that
This trust rests upon a very shaky foundation.

Why don’t we all see voices,
Instead of restricting ourselves
To the same worn rut of hearing?
Many deaf people do “hear” the wind in the trees
When they see the branches swaying.
Some junction point in their minds
Converts a visual signal into an auditory one.
Many blind people can likewise “see” faces
By feeling them with their hands.

A mental junction point has taken the signals of touch
And converted them to sight.
Presumably our brains could do the same thing,
But we prefer to let habit and memory take over.
We see through our eyes and feel through our fingers
Because we have been conditioned to do so.

Chih-men's koan

What thing is not attained when painstakingly sought?

What thing comes of itself without being sought?

What thing does not break under the blow of an iron hammer

What thing closes by night and opens by day?

- Chih-men

Prajnaparamita

Subhuti asked: "Is perfect wisdom beyond thinking? 

Is it unimaginable and totally unique but nevertheless
Reaching the unreachable
And attaining the unattainable?"

The Buddha replied: "Yes, Subhuti, it is exactly so.

And why is perfect wisdom beyond thinking?

It is because all its points of reference
Cannot be thought about but can be apprehended.

One is the disappearance of the self-conscious person

Into pure presence.

Another is the knowing of the essenceless essence

Of all things in the world.

And another is luminous knowledge

None of these points can sustain ordinary thought

Because they are not objects or subjects.

They can't be imagined or touched
Or approached in any way

By any ordinary mode of consciousness,

Therefore they are beyond thinking."

- Prajnaparamita

Chopra on the New Body Paradigm

Here are some vast assumptions,
The makings of a new reality,
Yet all are grounded in the discoveries of quantum physics
And made almost a hundred years ago.
The seeds of this new paradigm were planted by
Einstein, Bohr, Heisenberg,
And the other pioneers of quantum physics,
Who realized that the accepted way
Of viewing the physical world was false.

1. The physical world, including our bodies,
Is a response of the observer.
We create our bodies as we create
The experience of our world.
2. In their essential state, our bodies are composed of
Energy and information, not solid matter.
3. The mind and body are inseparably one.
The unity that is “me” separates
Into two streams of experience.
I experience the subjective stream
As thoughts, feelings, and desires.
I experience the objective stream as my body.
At a deeper level, however, the two streams meet
At a single creative source.
It is from this source that we are meant to live.
4. The biochemistry of the body is a product of awareness.
Beliefs, thoughts and emotions
Create the chemical reactions
That uphold life in every cell.
5. Perception appears to be automatic,
But in fact it is a learned phenomenon.
The world you live in,
Including the experience of your body,
Is completely dictated by how you learned to perceive it.
If you change your perception,
You change the experience of your body and your world.
6. Impulses of intelligence create your body
In new forms every second.
What you are is the sum total of these impulses,
And by changing their patterns, you will change.
7. Although each person seems separate and independent,
All of us are connected to patterns of intelligence
That govern the whole cosmos.
Our bodies are part of a universal body,
Our minds an aspect of a universal mind.
8. Time does not exist as an absolute, but only eternity.
What we call linear time is a reflection
Of how we perceive change.
If we could perceive the changeless,
Time would cease to exist as we know it.
9. Each of us inhabits a reality lying beyond all change.
Deep inside us, unknown to the five senses,
Is an innermost core of being, a field of non-change
That creates personality, ego and body.
This being is our essential state–it is who we really are.
10. We are not victims of aging, sickness, and death.
These are part of the scenery, not the seer,
Who is immune to any form of change.

Chopra on The Defense of Self-image and The Loss of Energy

Over the years you have built an idealized self-image
That you defend as “me.” In this image are packed
All the things you want to see as true about yourself;
Banished from it are all the shameful, guilty,
And fear-provoking aspects
That would threaten your self-confidence.

But the very aspects you try to push away return
As the most insistent, demanding voices in your head.
The act of banishment creates the chaos
Of your internal dialogue,
And thus your ideal erodes
Even while you are doing everything
To look good and feel good about yourself.

To really feel good about yourself,
Renounce your self-image.
Immediately you will find yourself being more open,
Undefended, and relaxed.

Much time is spent in self-help trying to turn
A bad self-image into a good one.
As reasonable as that sounds,
All self-images have the same pitfall:
They keep reminding you of who you were,
Not who you are.
The whole idea of I, me, and mine
Was erected on memories,
And these memories are not really you.
If you release yourself from your self-image,
You will be free to choose as if for the first time.

Self-image keeps reality away,
Particularly at the emotional level.
Many people don’t want to admit
What they are actually feeling.
Their self-image dictates that being angry, for example,
Or showing anxiety is not permissible.
Such feelings don’t accord with
The “kind of person I want to be.”

Certain emotions feel too dangerous to be part of
Your ideal image of yourself,
So you adopt a disguise that excludes those feelings.
Deep-seated rage and fear belong in this category,
But sadly so does immense joy, ecstasy,
Or freewheeling spontaneity.

You stop being ruled by self-image when:
You feel what you feel,
You are no longer offended by things,
You stop appraising how a situation makes you look,
You don’t exclude people you feel superior or inferior to,
You quit worrying about what others think about you,
You no longer obsess over money, status, and possessions,
And you no longer feel the urge to defend your opinions.

The Pearl of Great Price - I Ching

Remain silent, and you sink into a realm of shadows;
Speak, and you fall into a deep pit.
Try, and youre as far away as sky from earth;
Give up, and youll never attain.
Enormous waves go on and on,
Foaming breakers flood the skies.
Who has the bright pearl that calms the oceans?               

Deepak Chopra on The Gap Between Thoughts

Finding the silent gap that flashes
In between our thoughts
Seems relatively easy, but because it flashes by,
A tiny gap is not a doorway.
The quantum body is not separate from us–it is us–
Yet we are not experiencing it right now.
Sitting here, we are thinking, reading, talking,
Breathing, digesting, and so on,
All of which happens above the line.

Here is an analogy that brings the quantum mechanical
Body into focus: take a bar magnet and place a piece
Of paper over it. Next, sprinkle iron filings on the paper
And jostle it slightly.

What will emerge is a pattern of curving lines,
One inside the other,
That arch from the magnet’s north to south pole
And back again.
The overall design you have made represents a map
Of the magnetic line of force
That otherwise would be invisible, except that
The iron particles automatically align themselves
To bring out the image.

In this analogy, we see all mind-body activity
Above the paper and the hidden field of intelligence below.
The iron filings moving around are mind-body activity,
Automatically aligning with the magnetic field,
Which is intelligence.

The field is completely invisible and unknowable
Until it shows its hand
By moving some bits of matter around.
The piece of paper is the quantum mechanical body,
A thin screen that shows exactly
What patterns of intelligence are being manifested
At the moment.

There is more to this simple comparison
Than you might at first suppose.
It is really the hidden field that is generating
These lifelike appearances.
Here you have a picture of how the body-mind
Actually relates to the field of intelligence.
The two remain separated, but the division is invisible
And has no thickness whatever.
It is just a gap.

The only way one knows
That the quantum level even exists
Is that images and patterns keep cropping up everywhere
In the body.

The Treatise of The Golden Lion, by Fazang

The renowned Buddhist ideologue Fazang (Fa-tsang) (643–712 CE) stands as one of the foremost figures of the golden age of Chinese Buddhism. During his life he lectured tirelessly on the Flower Garland Sutra, the Buddha’s first sermon upon attaining enlightenment. Nearly incomprehensible, The Flower Garland Sutra is invested with a profundity and wisdom unparalleled in the Buddha’s subsequent works. Fazang, condensing the entire abstract doctrine of this sutra into ten parts, brilliantly demonstrated it through the metaphor of a golden lion. The lion represents the cosmos, parts of the lion the various phenomena of the universe, while the gold represented emptiness. The lion had a mane, teeth, claws and eyes: parts that seemed distinct and unrelated. And yet the essential substance of the entire lion was the same–gold. Within each hair, paradoxically, there are infinite lions. The differences are all superficial. Such is the nature of the integrated, interconnected Flower Garland universe. 

The Treatise of  The Golden Lion

1. To understand the principle of dependent-arising.
2. To distinguish form and Emptiness.
3. To summarize the three characters.
4. To reveal the non-existence of forms.
5. To explain the truth of the unborn.
6. To discuss the five doctrines.
7. To master the ten mysteries.
8. To embrace the six forms.
9. To achieve the perfect Wisdom of Bodhi.
10. To enter into Nirvāna.

1. To understand the principle of dependent-arising. This is to say that gold has no inherent nature of its own (i.e., no Svabhāva). It is owing to the artistry of the skillful craftsman that the form of the lion arises. This arising is the result solely of the cause-conditioning; therefore it is called the arising through dependent-arising.

2. To distinguish form and Emptiness. This means that the form of the lion is unreal; what is real is the gold. Because the lion is not existent, and the body of the gold is not non-existent, they are called form/Emptiness. Furthermore, Emptiness does not have any mark of its own; it is through forms that Emptiness is revealed. This fact that Emptiness does not impede the illusory existence of forms is called form/Emptiness.

3. To summarize the three characters. Because of men's delusory perceptions, the lion seems to exist in a concrete manner; this is called the character of universal imagination (parikalpita). The manifestation of the lion appears to be existing, this is called the character of dependency on others (paratantra). The nature of gold never changes, this is called the character of perfect reality (parinispanna).

 

4. To reveal the non-existence of forms. This is to say that when the gold completely takes in the lion, there is no form of lion to be found. This is called the non-existence of forms.

5. To explain the truth of the unborn. This means that at the very moment when we see the lion come into existence, it is actually the gold that comes into existence. There is nothing apart from the gold. Although the lion may come into and go out of existence, the substance of gold, in fact, never increases or decreases. This is called the truth of the unborn.

6. To discuss the five doctrines. The first: although the lion is a dharma produced through dependent-arising, it undergoes generation and destruction in each and every moment. Since nothing in the phenomenal world endures, no form of the lion can ever be found. This is called the teaching for the ignorant Śrāvakas (Hīnayāna).The second: all things, being the product of dependent-arising, are devoid of Selfhood (Svabhāva), and in the final analysis, are nothing but Emptiness. This is called the preliminary teaching of Mahāyāna.

The third: although all things are Emptiness through and through, this does not impede the vivid appearance of the Māyā/becoming. All that which is of dependent-arising is fictitiously existent and therefore it is truly void. This co-existence of both being and non-being is called the final teaching of Mahāyāna.

The fourth: inasmuch as these two characters that of Emptiness and that of form mutually annul each other, they are both abolished. Here, no imaginings or false presuppositions exist; neither the concept of Emptiness nor the idea of existence retains any influence. This is the sphere in which the ideas of both being and non-being vanish. It is a realm that names and speech cannot reach. Here the mind rests without any attachment. This is called the instantaneous teaching of Mahāyāna.

The fifth: when all false feelings and wrong ideas are eliminated, and the true substance is revealed, everything becomes merged into one great mass. Great functions then arise in abundance, and whatever arises is absolutely true. The myriad manifestations, despite their variety, interpenetrate without confusion or disarray. The all is the one, for both are empty in substance. The one is the all, for cause and effect clearly manifest themselves without fail. In their power and functions the one and the all embrace each other. They spread out and roll up in utter freedom. This is called the Round Doctrine of the One Vehicle.

7. Mastering the ten mysteries. The first: the gold and the lion are simultaneously established, all-perfect and complete. This is called the principle of simultaneous completeness.

The second: if the eyes of the lion take in the complete lion, then the all the whole lion is the eyes. If the ears take in the complete lion, then the all is the ears. If all the organs simultaneously take in the whole lion and all are complete in their possession, then each and every organ is "mixed" (involving others) as well as "pure" being itself. This is called the principle of full possession of the purity and mixture by the various storehouses.

The third: the gold and the lion both establish and include each other in harmony. There is no obstruction between one and many. In this complete mutual inclusion, the Li (noumenon) and the Shih (phenomena), the one and the many, remain in their own positions. This is called the mutual inclusion and differentiation of one and many.

The fourth: all the parts of the lion, down to the tip of each and every hair, take in the whole lion in so far as they are all gold. Each and every one of them permeates the eyes of the lion. The eyes are the ears, the ears are the nose, the nose is the tongue, the tongue is the body. They all exist in total freedom without obstruction or impediment. This is called the mutual identity of all dharmas in freedom.

The fifth: if we look at the lion as a lion, there is only lion and no gold. This is the disclosure of the lion but the concealment of the gold. If we look at the gold as gold, there is only gold and no lion. This is the disclosure of the gold but the concealment of the lion. If we look at both simultaneously, they are both manifest or hidden. Being hidden they are secret, being manifest they are revealed. This is called the simultaneous establishment of disclosure and concealment in secrecy.

The sixth: the gold and the lion may be manifest or hidden, one or many, pure or mixed, powerful or powerless. The one is the other. The principal and the companion interchange their radiance. Both Li and Shih simultaneously come into view. Being mutually compatible, they do not impede one another's existence. This is true even in the case of the minute and the subtle aspects and is called the peaceful co-existence.. of the minute and the subtle.

The seventh: in each of the lion's eyes, in its ears, limbs, and so forth, down to each and every single hair, there is a golden-lion. All the lions embraced by each and every hair simultaneously and instantaneously enter into one single hair. Thus in each and every hair there are an infinite number of lions. Furthermore, each and every hair containing infinite lions returns again to a single hair. The progression is infinite, like the jewels of Celestial Lord lndra's Net; a realm-embracing-realm ad infinitum is thus established, and it is called the realm of lndra's Net.

The eighth: the lion is spoken of in order to indicate men's ignorance; the gold is spoken of in order to reveal the true nature. By jointly discussing Li and Shih, the Ālaya Consciousness is described so that a correct understanding of the doctrine may be reached. This is called the creation of understanding by revealing the Dharma through facts.

The ninth: the lion is a transient and conditioned thing (samskrta dharma); it arises and fades away at every moment, and each moment can be divided into past, present, and future. Each of these three periods again contains three sections of past, present, and future; therefore, altogether there are three-times-three units, thus forming the nine ages; grouping them together we have a total gate to the Dharma-truth. Although there are nine ages, each is different from the other, and yet their existences are established because of one another. They are harmoniously merged without the slightest obstruction in one identical eternal moment. This is called the different formation of separated dharmas in ten ages.

The tenth: the gold and the lion may be manifest or hidden, one or many, but they are both devoid of a Self-being (Svabhāva). They manifest in various forms in accordance with the turning and transforming of the Mind. Whether we speak of them as Li or Shih, there is the Mind by which they are formed and exist. This is called the universal accomplishment through the projection of Mind-Only.

8. To embrace the Six Forms. The lion represents the character of wholeness, and the five organs, being various and different, represent diversity. The fact that they are all of one dependent-arising represents the character of universality. The eyes, ears, and so on remain in their own places and do not interfere with one another; this represents the character of particularity. The combination and convergence of the various organs makes up the lion; this represents the character of formation. The fact that each organ remains at its own position represents the character of disintegration.

9. To achieve the perfect Wisdom of Bodhi. "Bodhi," in the Chinese language, means the Way (Tao) or Enlightenment. This is to say that when we look at the lion, we see at once that all conditioned things, without going through the process of disintegration, are from the beginning in a state of quiescent non-existence. By being free from both clinging and detachment, one can follow this path into the ocean of omniscience (sarvajña); therefore it is called the Way. To comprehend the fact that from the very no-beginning all illusions are in reality non-existent is called Enlightenment.

10. To enter into Nirvāna. When we look at the lion and the gold, the marks of both are exhausted. At this point, the passion-desires no longer arise even though beauty and ugliness are displayed before one's eyes. The mind is tranquil like the sea; all disturbing and delusory thoughts are extinguished, and there are no compulsions. One emerges from bondage and is free from all hindrances. The source of all suffering is forever cut off, and this is called entering into Nirvāna.