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To: soc.religion.eastern From: tyagi nagasiva Subject: Void, Ego/Buddha (various quotes) (9309.egobudh.var) Date: 49930926 Quoting: Evans-Wentz, Blofeld From _The Tibetan Book of the Great Liberation_, Edited and Introduced by W.Y. Evans-Wentz, Published by Oxford University Press, 1954: "I. Reality According to the Mahayana "... "In common with all Schools of the Oriental Occult Sciences, the Mahayana postulates that the One Supra-Mundane Mind, or the Universal All-Pervading Consciousness, transcendent over appearances and over every dualisitc concept born of the finite or mundane aspect of mind, alone is real. Viewed as the Voidness (known in Sanskrit as the *Shunyata*), it is the Unbecome, the Unborn, the Unmade, the Unformed, the predicateless Primordial Essence, the abstract Cosmic Source whence all concrete or manifested things come and into which they vanish in latency. Being without form, quality, or phenomenal existence, it is the Formless, the Qualityless, the Non-Exis- tent. As such, it is the Imperishable, the Transcendent Fullness of the Emptiness, the Dissolver of Space and of Time and of *sangsaric* (or mundane) mind, the Brahman of the *Rishis*, the Dreamer of *Maya*, the Weaver of the Web of Appearances, the Outbreather and the Inbreather of infinite universes through the endlessness of Duration. "Plotinus, the Platonic inheritor of this ancient oriental teaching, has concisely summarized it: 'The First Principle, being One, is transcendent over measure or number.... The Supreme Principle must be essentially unitary, and simple, while essences [derived therefrom] form a multitude.' [Note: Plotinus, Ennead V, Book V, II; Book IX, 14...] The Great *Guru*, Padma-Sambhava,... sets forth the same doctrine from the Mahayanic point of view: 'The whole *Sangsara* [or the phenomenal Universe of appearances] and *Nirvana* [the Unmanifested, or noumenal state], as an inseparable unity, are one's mind [in its natural, or unmodified primordial state of the Voidness].' In like manner, the Buddha Himself teaches that *Nirvana* is a state of transcendence over 'that which is become, born, made, and formed.' Accordingly, *Nirvana* is the annihilation of appearances, the indrawing of the Web of the *Sangsara*, the blowing out of the flame of bodily sensuousness, the Awakening from the Dream of *Maya*, the unveiling of Reality. "The Buddha, and, after Him, Nagarjuna, who compiled the _Prajna-Paramita_, the chief Mahayana treatise on Transcendental Wisdom, aimed to avoid in their teachings the extreme of superstition on the one hand and of nihilism on the other; and so their method is that of the Middle Path, which, under Nagarjuna, became known as the Madhyamika. Prior to Nagarjuna, Buddhist metaphysicians were divided into two schools of extremists, one school teaching of a real existence, the other of an illusory existence. Nagarjuna showed that nothing can be said to exist or not to exist, for so long as the mind conceives in terms of dualism it is still under the *sangsaric* bondage, and fettered by the false desire for either personal immortality or annihilation. Reality, or the Absolute, or Being *per se*, is transcendent over both existence and non-existence, and over all other dualistic concepts. According to Nagarjuna, it is the Primordial Voidness, beyond mental conception, or definition in terms of human experience. "The Madhyamika maintains that the World is to be renounced not as the Theravada teaches, because of its pain and sorrow, but because it is as non-real as are dreams; it, being merely one of the many dream-states comprising the *Sangsara*, is wholly unsatisfying. Many should strive to awaken from all the dream-states of the *Sangsara* into the State of True Awakening, *Nirvana*, beyond the range of all glamorous illusions and hypnotic mirages of the *Sangsara*; and thus become, as is the Buddha, a Fully-Awakened One. "This Doctrine of the Voidness is the essential doctrine of the Mahayana; it represents in Northern Buddhism what the *Anatma (or Non-Soul) Doctrine does in Southern Buddhism. Accordingly, as our treatise implies, no existing thing or being has other than an illusory existence, nor has it separate or individualized existence apart from all other beings. "As set forth in the _Avatamsaka Sutra_, attributed to Nagarjuna, the essentiality, the true essence, behind all *sangsaric* things or beings is likened to a dust-free mirror, which is the basis of all phenomena, the basis itself being permanent, or non-transitory, and real, the phenomena being evanescent and unreal. And, just as the mirror reflects images, so the True Essence embraces all phenomena; and all things and beings exist in and by it. It is this True Essence which comes to fruition in the Buddhas; and is everywhere present throughout the manifested cosmos, which is born of it, and eternally present. Far and wide throughout the spaces and space the Buddha Essence is present and perpetually manifested.... "In its totality, the Universal Essence is the One Mind, manifested through the multitudinous myriads of minds throughout all states of *sangsaric* existence. It is called 'The Essence of the Buddhas', 'The Great Symbol', 'The Seed', 'The Potentiality of Truth', 'The All- Foundation'. As our text teaches, it is the Source of all bliss of *Nirvana* and of all sorrow of *Sangsara*. Mind in its microcosmic aspect is variously described by the unenlightened, some calling it the ego, or soul. "Complete realization of the essential and undifferentiated oneness of the *Sangsara* and *Nirvana*, which, according to the Mahayana, are the Ultimate Duality, leads to that Deliverance of the Mind taught by the Enlightened One as being the aim and end of the *Dharma*, as it is of all systems of *yoga* and of all Schools of Buddhism and of Hinduism." Pages 1-4. __________________________________________________________________ Above I think that Evans-Wentz does a tremendous job of elaborating some of the subtleties of the identity of Nirvana and Samsara, by which we can come to infer the identity of ego and Buddha. Yet I understand that my argument is still unconvincing, so perhaps, rather than simply point to innumerable mystical utterances in which this principle is expressed quite clearly ('As above, so below', for example), I can simply quote my latest reading source in which I found relevant material.... I was re-reading _Taoist Mysteries and Magic_, by John Blofeld, Shambhala, 1973, one of my most favorite books in the world, and came across this: "As to the word 'Tao' itself, it is a term of great antiquity long used by different philosophers in as many senses as the word 'God' is employed by different schools or religion. Literally meaning 'way' or 'path', it was later used by the Confucians to mean the divinely ordained path of rectitude; by the Buddhists as an equivalent of *Fa* (Dharma, Doctrine of the Buddha); and by the Taoists to mean a combination of the undifferentiated unity from which the universe evolved; the supreme creative and sustaining power which nourishes the myriad creatures; the way in which nature operates; and the course which men should follow in order to rise above worldly life and achieve harmony with the Ultimate. It is what Christian mystics all the Godhead and what Buddhist sages mean by *Sunyata*, that mysterious void in which all things have their being." Pages 22-3. ________________________________________________________________ Together with the following I hope to make my point more clearly: "Whether union with the Ultimate is regarded as an *attainment* or as a *realization* of a union never interrupted from the first (this latter being the view of most schools of Mahayana Buddhism, including Zen and Vajrayana), the character of the mystical experience is, of course, one and the same. The Taoists, rightly conceiving that, since names are by their nature limiting, the Illimitable must be nameless, chose the provisional name of Tao which, since its primary meaning is Way, carries with it the subtle implication, so familiar to Mahayana Buddhists, that the goal and the path to it are in essence one. Moreover, all mystics are agreed that whatever name they use for the Ultimate - Tao, Godhead, *Sunyata*, etc. - can at best be a makeshift, since nothing can be predicted of a state beyond time and space that transcends all dualities. Even to say that It exists or does not exist is to belittle It, since each of those terms excludes its opposite and is therefore finite. The nature of the goal can be known only to those exalted beings who have realized it for themselves." Ibid, pages 31-2. ____________________________________________________________ If Nirvana = Samsara in the Void, and the we simply come to *realize* the unity of all dual concepts, then how can ego NOT be identical, undifferentiated, from Buddha? tyagi nagasiva Tyagi@HouseofkAoS.Abyss.com
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