The Psychic-Nerve Centres (Skt. Chakra).—The sushumna- nadi forms the great highway for the passage of the psychic forces of the human body. These forces are concentrated in centres, or chakra, like dynamos, ranged along the szsheumna- nadi and interconnected by it, wherein are stored the vital- force or vital-fluid upon which all psycho-physical processes ultimately depend. Of these, six are of fundamental impor- tance. The first is known as the Root-support (A/i#ladhara) of the sushumnda-nddi, situated in the perineum; and in the Miladharaé is the secret Fountain of Vital-Force, presided over by the Goddess Kundalini. Next above, lies the second chakra, or lotus, called the Svadhishthana, which is the centre of the sex-organs. The navel nerve-centre is above, and called in Sanskrit Waut-pira-chakra. The next is the heart nerve-centre, the Azdhata-chakra. In the throat is located the fifth, called the Vishuddha-chakra. In the Ajua-chakra, which is the sixth, situated between the eyebrows, as depicted by the ‘third eye’ on images of the Buddha and of Hindu deities, the three chief psychic nerves (adi), seushumnd, ida, and pingald, come together and then separate. Above all, in the causal region of psychic man, as the sun of the body, sending its rays downwards over the human-body cosmos, is the Supreme or Seventh Chakra, the thousand-petalled lotus (or chakra) called Sahasrara Padma; through it the sushumnawadi has its exit, the Aperture of Brahma (Skt. Brahkma- vandhra) referred to in our text, through which the conscious- ness-principle normally goes out from the body at death.
The initial aim of the practitioner of Yoga is to awaken what in the Yantras is called the Serpent Power, personified as the Goddess Kundalini. It is in the Wiladhara-chakra, at the base of the spinal column, containing the root of the sushaummna- zadi, that this mighty occult power lies coiled, like a serpent asleep. Once the Serpent Power is aroused into activity, it is made to penetrate, one by one, the psychic-nerve centres, until, rising like mercury in a magic tube, it reaches the thousand-petalled lotus in the brain-centre. Spreading out in a fountain-like crest, it falls thence as a shower of heavenly ambrosia to feed all parts of the psychic body. Thus becom- TANTRICISM 217 ing filled with supreme spiritual power, the yogi experiences Illumination.
Mandalas.—Of the Psychic-Centres, or Chakra, the Bardo Thodol is concerned chiefly with three: (1) the Heart-centre (Anahata-chakra); (2) the Throat-centre (Vishuddha-chakra); and (3) the Brain-centre (Sakasrara Padma). Of these, two are of chief importance: the Brain-centre, sometimes called the Northern Centre, and the Heart-centre, or Southern Centre. These two constitute the two poles of the human organism. They are said to be the first centres to form in the embryo, and the terrestrial praua, derived from the central srauic reservoir in the sun of our planetary system, is said to direct their formation.
Related to these three principal chakra, there are three chief mandalas or mystic groupings of deities divided into fourteen subsidiary mandalas corresponding to the first Fourteen (7 +7) Days of the Bardo as described in our text.
The first of these three chief sandalas contains 42 deities, distributed in six subordinate mandalas corresponding to the first Six Days of the Chonyzd Bardo; and they emanate from the Heart-centre. The second mandala contains Io principal deities, which dawn on the Seventh Day; and these emanate from the Throat-centre. The third mandala contains 58 principal deities, distributed in seven subordinate maudalas, corresponding to the last Seven Days of the Chényid Bardo, and emanating from the Brain-centre. The first 42 and the last 58 comprise the Great Mandala of the 100 superior deities, the 42 being called peaceful and the 58 wrathful deities. The other 10 deities, related to the Throat-centre, which dawn intermediately between the 42 of the Heart- centre and the 58 of the Brain-centre, are classed with the 42 peaceful deities. Thus, when united in the Greater Mandala of the whole of the Chényid Bardo, there are IIo principal deities.
It will be observed, too, that there is definite orientation in all the mandalas.
The Five Dhyani Buddhas with their skakécs' are the chief The Sanskrit term Shakéz (literally ‘{ Divine] Power’) refers to the female, 3069: Ff 218 TIBETAN BOOK OF THE DEAD: ADDENDA deities dawning on the first Five Days. On the First Day, Vairochana and his shaktz alone dawn. Then on each of the four succeeding days, along with one of the remaining four of the Dhyani Buddhas and the skakt, there dawn two Bodhisattvas and their shakéis. Then, on the Sixth Day, all of these deities, dawning in one mandala, are joined by 16 additional deities: 8 Door-keepers, the 6 Buddhas of the Six Lokas, and the Adi-Buddha and shakiz; and all these deities together compose the 42 deities of the Heart-centre. Then, after the dawning of the 10 Knowledge-Holding Deities (called, in the Obeisances, p. 85, the Lotus Deities) of the Throat-centre, on the intervening Seventh Day, there dawn during the remaining Seven Days the 58 deities of the Brain- centre, as follows: on each of the first five days, or from the Eighth to the Twelfth Day, one of the Herukas with his shakiz, in all ro deities; on the Thirteenth Day, the 8 Kerima and the 8 Htamenma; on the Fourteenth Day, 4 Door-keepers and the 28 animal-headed Deities. Behind the symbolism of deities and zzandalas and psychic-centres there lies the rational explanation, namely, that each deity, as it dawns from its appropriate psychic-centre, represents the coming into after- death karmic activity of some corresponding impulse or or negative, phase of that divine force or power concentrated in or personified by the consort of a god, the god representing the positive phase; the Tantric worshipper of Shakti (Power), or divine universal forces, personified as a Mother-Goddess, being called a shakta. The Tantrics—like the ancient Egyptians—exalt right knowledge of the reproductive processes, as no doubt it should be exalted, to the Jevel of a religious science; and in this science, as illustrated in the Bardo Thédol, the union of the male and female principles of nature, in what is called in Tibetan the yab (Skt. deva) -yum (Skt. shaktz) attitude, symbolizes completeness, or at-one-ment, Power, symbolized by the male (ab, or deva), and Wisdom, symbolized by the female (yuuz, or shakti), are said, esoterically, to be ever in union.
It is much to be regretted that actual abuse of Tantric doctrine, due either to wilful perversion or, as is commonly the case, to misunderstanding, resulting in practices (like those of certain decadent sects or individuals in India) improperly called Tantric, by non-initiates in America and in Europe, in some instances under the aegis of organized societies, has brought upon Tantricism undeserved odium. Such unfortunate outcome of lack of guidance under properly trained gurits tends to justify the high initiate of Oriental occultism in his stern refusal to divulge the inner teachings of his cult to any save carefully prepared pupils who have been long on probation and found worthy; this was the view both of the late Lama Kazi Dawa-Samdup and of his late guru in Bhutan, TANTRICISM 219 TANTRICISM 219 passion of the complex consciousness. As though in an initiatory mystery-play, the actors for each day of the Bardo come on the mind-stage of the deceased, who is their sole spectator; and their director is Karma. The higher or more divine elements of the consciousness-principle of the deceased dawn first in the full glory of the primal Clear Light; and then, in ever diminishing glory, the visions grow less and less happy—the Peaceful Deities of the Heart-centre, and then of the Throat-centre, merge into the Wrathful Deities of the Brain-centre. Finally, as the purely human and brutish pro- pensities, personified, in the fiercest of the Wrathful Deitics,! as horror-producing and threatening spectral hallucinations, come into the field of mental vision, the percipient flees in dismay from them—his own thought-forms—to the refuge of the womb, thereby making himself to be the plaything of Maya and the slave of Ignorance. In other words, in a manner similar to that in which the earth-plane body grows to maturity and then withers and after its dcath disintegrates, the after-death body, called the mental-body, grows from the heavenly days of its Bardo childhood to the less idealist days of its Bardo maturity, then fades and dies in the Intermediate State, as the Knower, abandoning it, is reborn.
Some clue to the separable elements of consciousness as they manifest themselves in the Intermediate State is gained from the significance of the Tantric divisions into petals of the lotuses, or chakras. For example, the Heart-centre Lotus, or Anahata-chakra, is described as a red-coloured lotus of twelve petals, each petal representing one of the chief elements of personality (vrit¢2) as follows: (1) hope (ashd@); (2) care or anxiety (chin7a); (3) endeavour (cheshia); (4) feeling of mineness (amaia); (5) arrogance or hypocrisy (dambha); (6) languor (vikalata); (7) conceit (ahangkara); (8) discrimina- tion (viveka); (9) covetousness (lolata); (10) duplicity (Lapa- tata); (11) indecision (vztarka); (12) regret (anutapa).
The Throat-centre Lotus, or Vishuddha-chakra, also called 1 Of the Wrathful Deities there are two classes, the less wrathful (Tib. To’- wo) and the more wrathful (Tib. Drag-po). See Waddell, op. cit., pp. 332-3: 220 TIBETAN BOOK OF THE DEAD: ADDENDA Bharatisthana, consists of sixteen petals. The first seven symbolize the seven Sanskrit musical notes. The eighth symbolizes the ‘venom’ of mortality. The next seven re- present the seven seed mantras, and the sixteenth is the symbol for the nectar of immortality (amyrzta).
To each of the thousand petals of the Brain-centre Lotus variously coloured letters of the Sanskrit or Tibetan alphabet, and other symbols, are esoterically assigned; and this chakra is said to contain in potential state all that exists in the other chakras (of which it is the originator) or in the universe.
Each of the Dhyani Buddhas, likewise, as elsewhere ex- plained from a different view-point, symbolizes definite spiritual attributes of the cosmos. Thus, Vairochana is appealed to by the Tantrics of Northern Buddhism as the universal force producing or giving form to everything both physical and spiritual; Vajra-Sattva (as the reflex of Akshobhya) is the universal force invoked for neutralizing by merit evil karma; Ratna-Sambhava, for the reproduction of all things desired; Amitabha, for long life and wisdom; Amogha-Siddhi, for success in arts and crafts. In Vajra-Sattva, in his purely esoteric aspect, all the other Peaceful and Wrathful Deities of the Mandala of the Bardo Thédol are said to merge or be contained.
III. MANTRAS, OR WORDS OF POWER A clue to the power of mantras, as referred to throughout the Bardo Thodol, lies in the ancient Greek theory of music; namely, that, if the key-note of any particular body or substance be known, by its use the particular body or substance can be disintegrated. Scientifically, the whole problem may be under- stood through understanding the law of vibration. Each organism exhibits its own vibratory rate, and so does every inanimate object from the grain of sand to the mountain and even to each planet and sun. When this rate of vibration is known, the organism or form can, by occult use of it, be disintegrated.
For the adept in occultism, to know the mantra of any deity is to know how to set up psychic or gift-wave com- MANTRAS 221 munication similar to, but transcending, wireless or telepathic communication with that deity. For example, if the adept be of the left-hand path, that is to say, a black magician, he can, by mantras, call up and command elementals and inferior orders of spiritual beings, because to each belongs a particular rate of vibration, and this being known and formulated as sound in a mantra gives the magician power even to annihilate by dissolution the particular elemental or spirit to whom it belongs. As a highwayman at the point of a gun compels a traveller to give up money, so a black magician with a mantra compels a spirit to act as he wills.
On account of this supreme power of sound, when formulated in mantras corresponding to the particular rate of vibration of spiritual beings and of spiritual and physical forces, the mantras are jealously guarded. And, for the purpose of main- taining this guardianship, lines of gurus (i.e. religious teachers) are established in whose keeping the words of power are placed. Candidates for initiation into this Brotherhood of Guardians of the Mysteries must necessarily be well tested before the Treasures can be entrusted to them, and they them- selves, in turn, be made Guardians.
Unto the shishya, after he has been well tested, the mantra which confers power over the sleeping Goddess Kundalini is transmitted; and when he utters it the Goddess awakens and comes to him to be commanded. Then is the need of the guru great; for the awakened Goddess can destroy as well as save—according as the mantra is wisely or unwisely used.
As the outer air vibrates to gross sounds, the inner vital- airs (prama-vdyu) are set in motion and utilized by the use of the sounds of mantras: the Goddess first catches up the subtle occult sound, and, in tones of divine music, she causes it to ascend from her throne in the Root-Support Psychic-Centre to one after another of the Centres above, until its music fills the Lotus of a Thousand Petals and is there heard and re- sponded to by the Supreme Guru.
The visualization of a deity, as frequently directed in our text, is often but another way of thinking of the essential characteristics of that deity. A like yogic effect comes from 222 TIBETAN BOOK OF THE DEAD: ADDENDA visualizing or else audibly pronouncing the mantra correspond- ing to that deity; for, by speaking forth as sound the mantra of any deity, that deity is made to appear.
Unless the mantras are properly intoned they are without effect; and when printed and seen by the eye of the unini- tiated they appear utterly meaningless—and so they are without the guidance of the human guru.
Furthermore, the correct pronunciation of the szantra of a deity depends upon bodily purity as well as upon knowledge of its proper intonation, Therefore it is necessary for the devotee first to purify, by purificatory mantras, the mouth, the tongue, and then the mantra itself, by a process called giving life to or awakening the sleeping power of the mantra.
The occult ability to employ a mantra properly confers supernormal powers called Szddhz,) and these can be used, according to the character of the adept, either as white magic for good ends or as black magic for evil ends: the right- and left-hand paths being the same up to this point of practical application of the fruits obtained through psychic development. One path leads upward to Emancipation, the other downward to Enslavement.
IV. THE GURU AND SHISHYA (OR CHELA) AND INITIATIONS Very frequently the Bardo Thodol directs the dying or the deceased to concentrate mentally upon, or to visualize, his tutelary deity or else his spiritual guru, and, at other times, to recollect the teachings conveyed to him by his human gurz, more especially at the time of the mystic initiation. YVogzs and Tantrics ordinarily comment upon such ritualistic directions by saying that there exist three lines of gurus to whom reverence and worship are to be paid. The first and highest is purely superhuman, called in Sanskrit dévyaugha, meaning ‘heavenly (or “divine”) line’; the second is of the most highly developed human beings, possessed of supernormal 1 Siddhi here means ‘ Powers’ arrived at through yogic practices. Literally, Siddhz is the attainment of any aim.
INITIATIONS 223 or stddhic powers, and hence called siddhaugha; the third is of ordinary religious teachers and hence called manavaugha, ‘human line’?
Women as well as men, if qualified, may be gurus. The shishya is, as a rule, put on probation for one year before receiving the first initiation. If at the end of that time he proves to be an unworthy receptacle for the higher teachings, he is rejected. Otherwise, he is taken in hand by the guru and carefully prepared for psychical development. A shishya when on probation is merely commanded to perform such and such exercises as are deemed suitable to his or her particular needs. Then, when the probation ends, the shishya is told by the guru the why of the exercises, and the final results which are certain to come from the exercises when successfully carried out. Ordinarily, once a guru is chosen, the skishya has no right to disobey the surz, or to take another guru until it is proven that the first gar can guide the skishya no further. If the skzshya develops rapidly, be- cause of good karma, and arrives at a stage of development equal to that of the guru, the guru, if unable to guide the shishya further, will probably himself direct the skzshya to a more advanced guru.
For initiating a skzshya, the guru must first prepare himself, usually during a course of special ritual exercises occupying several days, whereby the guru, by invoking the gift-waves of the divine line of gurus, sets up direct communication with the spiritual plane on which the divine gurus exist. If the human guru be possessed of szddhic powers, this communion is believed to be as real as wireless or telepathic communica- tion between two human beings on the earth-plane.
The actual initiation, which follows, consists of giving to the shishya the secret mantra, or Word of Power, whereby at-one-ment is brought about between the s/zskya, as the new member of the secret brotherhood, and the Supreme Guru 1 The three lines of gurus are so called not because of any difference in their respective powers, but because of their different places of abode. In the Tantra- raja (ch. I) it is said that the Gurus of the Divya Order always abide in Shiva’s Heaven, those of the Siddha Order both in the Human-World and in the Heaven- Worlds, and those of the Manava Order on Earth only.
224 TIBETAN BOOK OF THE DEAD: ADDENDA who stands to all gurus and shishyas under him as the Divine Father. The vital-force, or vital-airs (praua-vayu), serve as a psycho-physical link uniting the human with the divine; and the vital-force, having been centred in the Seventh Psychic-Centre, or Thousand-petalled Lotus, by exercise of the awakened Serpent-Power, through that Centre, as through a wireless receiving station, are received the spiritual gift-waves of the Supreme Guru. Thus is the divine grace received into the human organism and made to glow, as electricity is made to glow when conducted to the vacuum of an electric bulb; and the true initiation is thereby conferred and the shzshya Illuminated.
In the occult language of the Indian and Tibetan Mysteries, the Supreme Guru sits enthroned in the pericarp of the Thousand-petalled Lotus. Thither, by the power of the Serpent Power of the awakened Goddess Kundalini, the skzshya, guided by the human guru, is led, and bows down at the feet of the Divine Father, and receives the blessing and the bene- diction. The Veil of Aaya has been lifted, and the Clear Light shines into the heart of the skzskya unobstructedly. As one Lamp is lit by the Flame of another Lamp, so the Divine Power is communicated from the Divine Father, the Supreme Guru, to the newly-born one, the human shishya.
The secret mantra conferred at the initiation, like the Egyptian Word of Power, is the Password necessary for a conscious passing from the embodied state into the disem- bodied state. If the initiate is sufficiently developed spiritually before the time comes for the giving up of the gross physical body at death, and can at the moment of quitting the earth- plane remember the mystic santra, or Word of Power, the change will take place without loss of consciousness; nor will the shishya of full development suffer any break in the con- tinuity of consciousness from incarnation to incarnation.
V. gREALDI Y, In denying the soul hypothesis, Buddhism of all Schools maintains that personal immortality is impossible, because all personal existence is but a mere flux of instability and continual REALITY 2.25 change karuzically dependent upon the false concept that phenomena, or phenomenal appearances, or phenomenal states and beings, are real. In other words, Buddhism holds that individualized mind or consciousness cannot realize Reality.
The essence of the Bardo Thidol teachings is, likewise, that so long as the mind is human, so long as it is individualized, so long as it regards itself as separate and apart from all other minds, it is but the plaything of Ward, of Ignorance, which causes it to look upon the hallucinatory panorama of existences within the Sanugsara as real, and thence leads it to lose itself in the Quagmire of Phenomena.
Followers of the Semitic Faiths are hereditarily so completely dominated by the theory of soul and of personal immortality after death, in a phenomenal paradise or hell, that in their view there can be no alternative; and to them the Buddhist denial of the theory erroneously appears to imply a doctrine of the absolute negation of being.
The realization of Reality, according to the Bardo Thodol, is wholly dependent upon expurgating from the mind all error, all false belief, and arriving at a state in which Mara no longer controls. Once the mind becomes freed from all karmic obscurations, from the supreme heresy that phenomenal appearances—in heavens, hells, or worlds—are real, then there dawns Right Knowledge; all forms merge into that which is non-form, all phenomena into that which is beyond phenomena, all Ignorance is dissipated by the Light of Truth, personality ceases, individualized being and sorrow are at an end, mind and matter are known to be identical, the mundane conscious- ness becomes the supramundane, and, one with the Darma- Kaya, the pilgrim reaches the Goal.
The great Patriarch Ashvaghosha, who set down in writing during the first century A.D.! the essential teachings of Mahayana Buddhism as at first handed down orally by 1 The exact date of Ashvaghosha (or A¢vaghosha) is uncertain. According to Suzuki, who has investigated the question with great care, Ashvaghosha ‘lived at the time extending from the latter half of the first century before Christ to about 50 or 80 a.p...At the very most, his time cannot be placed later than the first century of the Christian era’ (T. Suzuki, The Awakening of Faith, Chicago, 1900, p. 17).
3069 G¢g 226 TIBETAN BOOK OF THE DEAD: ADDENDA initiates direct from the time of the Buddha, has other- wise stated the doctrines touching Reality as follows, in his remarkable treatise called The Awakening of Faith:* Of Ignorance: ‘The True Reality is originally only one, but the degrees of ignorance are infinite; therefore the natures of men differ in character accordingly. There are unruly thoughts more numerous than the sands of the Ganges, some arising from ignorant conceptions and others arising from ignorance of senses and desires. Thus all kinds of wild thoughts arisc from ignorance and have first and last infinite differences which Ju Lai [i.e. the Tathagata] alone knows.’?
‘As from the True Reality man knows that there is no objective world, then the various means of following and obeying this True Reality arise spontaneously [i.e. without thought and without action], and, when influenced by this power for a long time, ignorance disappears. As ignorance disappears, then false ideas cease to arise. As these false ideas do not arise, the former objective world also ends. As the forces cease to exist, then the false powers of the finite mind cease to exist, and this is called Mirvaua, when the natural forces of the True Reality alone work.’ ® 1 There are two English translations of The Awakening of Iaith, from the Chinese, one by a Christian missionary to China, the late Rev. Timothy Richard, made in 1894 and published, in Shanghai, in 1907, the other by the learned Japanese Buddhist Mr. Teitaro Suzuki, published in rgoo, in Chicago. We give herein, in parallel, extracts from both. There are, likewise, two Chinese versions, each based upon the original Sanskrit version, which is now lost: one made in a,D. 554, by Paramartha (otherwise called Kulanatha), an Indian Buddhist missionary, who reached China in a. p. 546 and died in a. p. 569, at the age of 71 years; the other was begun in a. D. 7oo by Cikshananda, also an Indian Buddhist missionary, who died in China, in a.p. 710, at the age of 59. Richard’s translation is from Paramartha’s version, and Suzuki’s from Cik- shananda’s.
* Richard’s trans. (p. 18), Cf. Suzuki’s trans, (p. 89): ‘Though all beings are uniformly in possession of suchness, the intensity [of the influence] of ignorance, the principle of individuation, that works from all eternity, varies in such manifold grades as to outnumber the sands of the Ganges. And it is even so with such entangling prejudices (Aleca or a¢rava) as the ego-conception, intellectual and affectional prejudices, &c. [whose perfuming efficiency varics according to the karma previously accumulated by each individual],—all these things being comprehended only by the Tathagata. Hence such immeasurable degrees of difference as regards belief, &c.’
8 Richard’s trans. (p. 17). Cf. Suzuki’s trans. (pp. 86-7): ‘On account of this perfuming influence [i.e, through suchness perfuming ignorance] we are REALITY 207 Of Phenomena: ‘ All phenomena are originally in the mind and have really no outward form; therefore, as there is no form, it is an error to think that anything is there. All phenomena merely arise from false notions in the mind. If the mind is independent of these false ideas, then all phenomena disappear...’} ‘Therefore the phenomena of the three worlds [of desire, of form, and of non-form] are mind-made. Without mind, then, there is practically no objective existence. Thus all existence arises from imperfect notions in our mind. All differences are differences of the mind. But the mind cannot see itself, for it has no form. We should know that all phenomena are created by the imperfect notions in the finite mind; therefore all existence is like a reflection in a mirror, without substance, only a phantom of the mind. When the finite mind acts, then all kinds of things arise; when the finite mind ceases to act, then all kinds of things cease.’?
enabled to believe that we are in possession within ourselves of suchness whose essential nature is pure and immaculate; and we also recognize that all pheno- mena in the world are nothing but the illusory manifestation of the mind (alaya- vuyzidna) and have no reality of their own. Since we thus rightly understand the truth, we can practise the means of liberation, can perform those actions which are in accordance (with the Dharma]. Neither do we particularize, nor cling to. By virtue of this discipline and habituation during the lapse of innumerable asamkhyeyakalpas (lit. countless ages], we have ignorance anni- hilated. As ignorance is thus annihilated, the mind [i.e. dlaya-vytdana] is no more disturbed so as to be subject to individuation. As the mind is no more disturbed, the particularization of the surrounding world is annihilated. When in this wise the principle and the condition of defilement, their products, and the mental disturbances are all annihilated, it is said that we attain to Nirva@na and that various spontaneous displays of activity are accomplished.’
1 Richard’s trans. (p. 26), Cf. Suzuki’s trans. (p. 107): ‘In a word, all modes of relative existence, our phenomenal world as a whole, are created simply by the particularization of the confused mind. If we become dissociated from the latteé, then all modes of relative existence vanish away by themselves.’
2 Richard’s trans. (p. 12). Cf. Suzuki's trans. (pp. 77-8): ‘Therefore the, three domains {or viloka, i.e. domain of feeling (Aamaloka), domain of bodily existence (rapaloka), domain of incorporeality (avi#paloka)] are nothing but the self-manifestation of the mind [i. e. dlaya-vij#ana, which is practically identical with suchness, bhitatathata@|. Separated from the mind, there would be no such things as the six objects of sense. Why? Since all things, owing the principle of their existence to the mind (dlaya-vijiidna), are produced by subjectivity (siti), all the modes of particularization are the self-particulariza- tion of the mind, The mind in itself being, however, free from all attributes, is 228 TIBETAN BOOK OF THE DEAD: ADDENDA Of Space: ‘Men are to understand that space is nothing. It has no existence and is not a reality. It is a term in opposition to reality. We only say this or that is visible in order that we might distinguish between things.’?
Of Mind and Matter: ‘Mind and matter are eternally the same. As the essence of matter is wisdom, the essence of matter is without form and is called the embodiment of wisdom. As the manifested essence of wisdom is matter, it is called the all-pervading embodiment of wisdom. The unmanifested matter is without magnitude; according to the will it can show itself throughout all the universe as the immeasurable Pusas [i.e. intelligent devout men, or Bodhisattvas], im- measurable inspired spirits, immeasurable glories, all different without magnitude and without interference with one another. This is what ordinary senses cannot comprehend, as it is the work of Absolute Reality...’?
‘According to the Absolute Reality there is no distinction between mind and matter; it is on account of the defilement not differentiated. Therefore, we come to the conclusion that all things and conditions in the phenomenal world, hypostatized and established only through ignorance (avidya) and subjectivity (swrt/) on the part of all beings, have no more reality than the images in a mirror. They evolve simply from the ideality of a particularizing mind. When the mind is disturbed, the multiplicity of things is produced; but when the mind is quieted, the multiplicity of things disappcars.’
1 Richard’s trans. (pp. 25-6). Cf. Suzuki’s trans. (p. 107): ‘ Beit clearly under- stood that space is nothing but a mode of particularization and that it has no real existence of its own. Where there is a perception of space, there is side by side a perception of a variety of things, in contradistinction to which space is spoken of as if existing independently. Space therefore exists only in relation to our particularizing consciousness.’
* Richard’s trans. (pp. 24-5). Cf. Suzuki’s trans. (pp. 103-4): ‘ Matter (rapa) and mind (ci#/a) from the very beginning are nota duality. So we speak of [the universe as] a system of rationality (prajfakdya), seeing that the real nature of matter just constitutes the norm of mind. Again we speak of [the universe as] a system of materiality (dharmakaya), seeing that the true nature of mind just constitutes the norm of matter. Now depending on the Dharmakdya, all Tathagatas manifest themselves in bodily forms and are incessantly present at all points of space. And Bodhisattvas in the ten quarters, according to their capabilitics and wishes, are able to manifest infinite Bodics of Bliss and infinite lands of ornamentation, each one of which, though stamped with the marks of individuality, does not hinder the others from being fused into it, and this {mutual fusion] has no interruption. But the manifestation of the Dharmakaya in [infinite] bodily forms is not comprchensible to the thought and understanding of common people; because it is the free and subtlest activity of suchness,’ Ned ve bel Me 229 of the finite in the round of life and death that these dis- tinctions appear...’1 ‘As to the defilements of the world, they are all false; they have no reality behind them...’?
‘Finally, to leave false concepts, one should know that purity and defilement are both relative terms, and have no independent existence. Although all things from eternity are neither mind nor matter, neither infinite wisdom nor finite knowledge, neither existing nor non-existing, but are after all inexpressible, we nevertheless use words, yet should know that the Buddha’s skilful use of words to lead men aright lay in this—to get men to cease conjecturing and to return to the Absolute Reality, for the best human thought of all things is only temporary and is not Truth Absolute.* Of the Nature of the Primordial Mind: ‘The mind from the beginning is of a pure nature, but since there is the finite aspect of it which is sullied by finite views, there is the sullied aspect of it. Although there is this defilement, yet the original pure nature is eternally unchanged. This mystery the En- lightened One alone understands.’ 4 1 Richard’s trans, (p. 26). Cf. Suzuki’s trans. (pp. 108-9): ‘Be it clearly understood that suchness (bhitatathala@) has nothing to do with any form of distinction produced by defilement, and that even in case we speak of its possessing innumerable meritorious characteristics they are free from the traces of defilement.’