Awareness
This piece is taken from my reflections on the third week of the first part of the Foundation Course, which is the first week on the figure of the Buddha. Sangharaksita begins with his first question 'What is Enlightenment' and then looks at it in terms of three aspects: awareness, love and energy. This piece arose out of Sangharaksita's description of the first aspect of the Enlightenment experience. I followed Sangharaksita's description of Enlightenment as radiant awareness and then I went on to link his description with the Buddha's instruction to Bahia in the Udana.
Enlightenment can be described as a state of pure, clear and radiant awareness. It's a single pure awareness extending in all the directions. But how do you arrive at it? The radiance of the clarity of Enlightenment was expressed to Bahia as 'in the seen, only the seen' and the famous sequence that followed.
Enlightenment has been expressed as awareness of reality and a state of knowledge. But it's not knowledge of objects, not even of 'reality' in the sense as some rarified object - it is knowledge of how things are, knowledge of things as together arising, as empty. Arising together suggests a loom and some kind of weaving, the reactive mind weaves one kind of way and the reactive mind weaves another. What's the difference between them? How to change the pattern at this primal level?
It's as though the reactive mind and the creative mind are two ways of weaving things together. Or maybe the weave is simply the way things are, but there's a reactive and a creative way of experiencing the weave.
So is this the way to understand what it is to see clarity? Is it see the pattern of things - its weave, its texture, its flow.
In the Pali scriptures there is a traditional metaphor for the way that the sense organs engage with their respective object in terms of the craft of weaving. It occurs in the Anguttara Nikaya for example (III.400). The cloth that comes off that loom is the respective sense consciousness. And who is the weaver in this case? It is said to be craving. It weaves and it weaves and it weaves it all together. That's where the 'texture' seems to come from. It's been woven. Craving as a seamstress operates like the spider and makes a web that things stick to and get captured in. Proliferation is a spider's web, the profane counter-image to the mandala.
And yet we like to talk about the 'interconnectedness' of things. We take that as positive. So some kinds of weaving are good. Or is the problem with how we treat it? The weaving is innocent but we turn it into samsara by the way we tug at it. So what might be a cloth done by the opposite of craving? Say it came from Penelope's loom rather than Arachne's.
The weaving of awareness is the kind of net that is open and expresses interconnectedness. At the same time nothing is captured, trapped or potted in a hole. It is a weaving together of empty spaces without crowding. And somehow the result of it all is the texture of light. There is the weaving of the texture of reality and at the same time nothing is woven. It's sunya. That's what the strands are made of when you reach the fibre of the heartwood.
The instruction runs like this:
When in the seen will be only the seen, in the heard only the heard, in the sensed only what is sensed, in the known only what is known, you will not be by that (tena); when you are not by that, you will not be therein (tattha): when you are not therein, you will be neither here, nor there, nor in between. This is the end of dukkha. (Udana 8)
Below I take the instruction to Bahia and try to present it as a poem.
The Instruction to Bahia
when
in the seen
only what is
seen
in the heard
only what is
heard
in the sensed
only what is
sensed
in the known
only what is
known
then
you'll not be
by that
you'll not be
boxed up
you'll be
neither here
nor there
nor in
the between
this
is the end
of dukkha.
The ending of dukkha is Enlightenment and Enlightenment is radiance. So what is the radiance? That there is no tensed parting between subject and object, one that leads to 'extreme views' as a premature resolution of the unbearable tension. Appropriation of phenomena ceases. Prapanca gives space space to breathe.
'Not being therein' or 'not being in that place' (tattha - a locative adverb) - this according to commentary means to be without the subjective participation that follows from 'being by that' or tena. According to commentary, 'here' refers to the sense organs perceiving the sense objects and 'there' refers to the sense objects perceived. Finally 'in between' refers to the conditioned arising of consciousness. In terms of a traditional metaphor what is being called 'the in-between' is imagined as being sown together by a seamstress - a personification of craving.
I imagine the instruction to Bahia being paraphrased as saying - If there is just experience and no proliferation then you will not be driven by it and if you are no longer influenced by it, you are not bound to it. Tena being an instrumental form of 'this' I picture the situation to be avoided as somebody picking up a loom to make use of it for a narrow purpose. But the narrowness of the purpose takes its revenge on the user and constricts him. The cloth reflects the weaver just as the pot in the nidana reflects the potter, who was samskara.
Tattha being a locative form of 'there', I picture this as having taken hold of something, what you get hold of now takes hold of you. You grasped it for a purpose but now your grasping gets hold of you and you're the one who is grasped. It's like the sorcerer's apprentice, the apprentice wants to be master of the broom but in the end finds the broom becomes master of him because the process he has initiated grows beyond his control and now he's caught up in it. So awareness is about completely bypassing the temptation 'to make use of something' and by that means you step over the trap laid for us in tattha, being 'by that', holding to that, like the primitive grasping at something represented by upadana. This is where you went somewhere for refuge, but instead of protection you get locked down in it.
This instruction given to Bahia is not about ordinary knowledge which fits within the framework of subject and object. It refers to a state of direct, vision without delusion. Nothing is there that interferes with directness of vision. There is no mental conditioning or prejudice. The mind is a clean cloth and can take the dye without stain.
Real insight cannot fit into any framework that involves tena ('by means of') and tattha ('locked in that'). No tena so no tattha - Could that be the secret of love? Maybe here is where the heartwood is found.
The metaphor of seeing merges with a metaphor of doing. Seeing things a certain way makes things a certain way. Grasping is a physical gesture, but it is also a kind of seeing. Not-grasping is seeing clearly. Awareness illuminates by making a different world. Awareness is a different world.
This piece is taken from my reflections on the third week of the first part of the Foundation Course, which is the first week on the figure of the Buddha. Sangharaksita begins with his first question 'What is Enlightenment' and then looks at it in terms of three aspects: awareness, love and energy. This piece arose out of Sangharaksita's description of the first aspect of the Enlightenment experience. I followed Sangharaksita's description of Enlightenment as radiant awareness and then I went on to link his description with the Buddha's instruction to Bahia in the Udana.
Enlightenment can be described as a state of pure, clear and radiant awareness. It's a single pure awareness extending in all the directions. But how do you arrive at it? The radiance of the clarity of Enlightenment was expressed to Bahia as 'in the seen, only the seen' and the famous sequence that followed.
Enlightenment has been expressed as awareness of reality and a state of knowledge. But it's not knowledge of objects, not even of 'reality' in the sense as some rarified object - it is knowledge of how things are, knowledge of things as together arising, as empty. Arising together suggests a loom and some kind of weaving, the reactive mind weaves one kind of way and the reactive mind weaves another. What's the difference between them? How to change the pattern at this primal level?
It's as though the reactive mind and the creative mind are two ways of weaving things together. Or maybe the weave is simply the way things are, but there's a reactive and a creative way of experiencing the weave.
So is this the way to understand what it is to see clarity? Is it see the pattern of things - its weave, its texture, its flow.
In the Pali scriptures there is a traditional metaphor for the way that the sense organs engage with their respective object in terms of the craft of weaving. It occurs in the Anguttara Nikaya for example (III.400). The cloth that comes off that loom is the respective sense consciousness. And who is the weaver in this case? It is said to be craving. It weaves and it weaves and it weaves it all together. That's where the 'texture' seems to come from. It's been woven. Craving as a seamstress operates like the spider and makes a web that things stick to and get captured in. Proliferation is a spider's web, the profane counter-image to the mandala.
And yet we like to talk about the 'interconnectedness' of things. We take that as positive. So some kinds of weaving are good. Or is the problem with how we treat it? The weaving is innocent but we turn it into samsara by the way we tug at it. So what might be a cloth done by the opposite of craving? Say it came from Penelope's loom rather than Arachne's.
The weaving of awareness is the kind of net that is open and expresses interconnectedness. At the same time nothing is captured, trapped or potted in a hole. It is a weaving together of empty spaces without crowding. And somehow the result of it all is the texture of light. There is the weaving of the texture of reality and at the same time nothing is woven. It's sunya. That's what the strands are made of when you reach the fibre of the heartwood.
The instruction runs like this:
When in the seen will be only the seen, in the heard only the heard, in the sensed only what is sensed, in the known only what is known, you will not be by that (tena); when you are not by that, you will not be therein (tattha): when you are not therein, you will be neither here, nor there, nor in between. This is the end of dukkha. (Udana 8)
Below I take the instruction to Bahia and try to present it as a poem.
The Instruction to Bahia
when
in the seen
only what is
seen
in the heard
only what is
heard
in the sensed
only what is
sensed
in the known
only what is
known
then
you'll not be
by that
you'll not be
boxed up
you'll be
neither here
nor there
nor in
the between
this
is the end
of dukkha.
The ending of dukkha is Enlightenment and Enlightenment is radiance. So what is the radiance? That there is no tensed parting between subject and object, one that leads to 'extreme views' as a premature resolution of the unbearable tension. Appropriation of phenomena ceases. Prapanca gives space space to breathe.
'Not being therein' or 'not being in that place' (tattha - a locative adverb) - this according to commentary means to be without the subjective participation that follows from 'being by that' or tena. According to commentary, 'here' refers to the sense organs perceiving the sense objects and 'there' refers to the sense objects perceived. Finally 'in between' refers to the conditioned arising of consciousness. In terms of a traditional metaphor what is being called 'the in-between' is imagined as being sown together by a seamstress - a personification of craving.
I imagine the instruction to Bahia being paraphrased as saying - If there is just experience and no proliferation then you will not be driven by it and if you are no longer influenced by it, you are not bound to it. Tena being an instrumental form of 'this' I picture the situation to be avoided as somebody picking up a loom to make use of it for a narrow purpose. But the narrowness of the purpose takes its revenge on the user and constricts him. The cloth reflects the weaver just as the pot in the nidana reflects the potter, who was samskara.
Tattha being a locative form of 'there', I picture this as having taken hold of something, what you get hold of now takes hold of you. You grasped it for a purpose but now your grasping gets hold of you and you're the one who is grasped. It's like the sorcerer's apprentice, the apprentice wants to be master of the broom but in the end finds the broom becomes master of him because the process he has initiated grows beyond his control and now he's caught up in it. So awareness is about completely bypassing the temptation 'to make use of something' and by that means you step over the trap laid for us in tattha, being 'by that', holding to that, like the primitive grasping at something represented by upadana. This is where you went somewhere for refuge, but instead of protection you get locked down in it.
This instruction given to Bahia is not about ordinary knowledge which fits within the framework of subject and object. It refers to a state of direct, vision without delusion. Nothing is there that interferes with directness of vision. There is no mental conditioning or prejudice. The mind is a clean cloth and can take the dye without stain.
Real insight cannot fit into any framework that involves tena ('by means of') and tattha ('locked in that'). No tena so no tattha - Could that be the secret of love? Maybe here is where the heartwood is found.
The metaphor of seeing merges with a metaphor of doing. Seeing things a certain way makes things a certain way. Grasping is a physical gesture, but it is also a kind of seeing. Not-grasping is seeing clearly. Awareness illuminates by making a different world. Awareness is a different world.