“Observing phenomena, none is found. One sees mind.
Looking at mind, no mind is seen, it is empty in essence.
Through looking at both, one’s clinging to duality naturally dissolves.
May we realize mind’s nature, which is clear light.”
A verse of this kind produces highest bliss in every accomplisher. In its few words, Karmapa transmits a complete and enlightened view. Whoever understands this needs nothing else on his way. Yet, a great deal of focused work and confidence in mind are needed to go from his clear words to absolute certainty. Only fresh minds with a broad view and a happy disposition can manage such a process.
And what do these words of the 3rd Karmapa say? In all modesty, his words make everything outer and inner to be mind, and he states that mind is essentially space. They expose all duality as being ultimately false and, in just four lines, untangle the basic questions of countless philosophers over thousands of years. Karmapa manages to achieve this without having to prove or deny anything. He simply examines the absolute nature of things. A detailed examination of phenomena shows that they do not exist independently and that they have no lasting nature. This does not only relate to one’s own perception, which obviously arises, changes, and disappears again. But it is equally valid, although less easily noticed, for the outer world which one shares with others.
The experiences that we take to be so real are actually a never-ending stream. Buddha captured this in the memorable phrase: “Form is emptiness.” This is, however, only a partial insight. Every empty space, be it in one’s consciousness or in laboratories, tends to fill up on its own. Therefore, in the same breath, Buddha adds: “Emptiness is form.” Finally, with his third statement, “Form and emptiness are inseparable,” he ensures the freedom of his students, freeing them from dualities and from every mental burden. In this way, he allows them to enjoy the limitless expanse of mind.
Given that those who are highly educated and have important titles have argued over questions of being and non-being for thousands of years, it makes sense if we do not understand all these statements at first sight. Actually, someone’s realization of this wisdom is only perfect when he can turn himself into a rainbow at will! Since Karmapa’s simple but logical words completely contradict beings’ sense perceptions and day-to-day experiences—even upset whole worldviews about karma, which keep the unenlightened in their worlds—most people can use some help in his area beyond the purely conceptual explanation.
Only in a state of deep absorption, where all levels of mind have been activated, can such absolute statements be truly realized. It does not help to look further for something really present in mind. Mind is also not graspable, for it is “empty” of any characteristics. Although mind is the foundation for all experience and appearance, it is in no way tangible. To conquer such obstacles to non-dual and intuitive perception, students on the Diamond Way must jump ever further into space, with complete confidence. Whoever manages this ultimate fusion of subject, object, and action needs nothing more for happiness. Accomplishing the pure view and being at home in the clear light that experiences and rests timelessly inside, between and behind mental activity, means that one will be constantly and boundlessly rewarded.
Outer and inner events are mind’s abundance and potential; and if one examines them thoroughly, only the experiencer remains. Although one may habitually expect at least this to be a “something,” one is left with just space. Actually, this discovery is a boundless, joyful experience that contains and allows everything to happen. The separation between experiencer and the object experienced falls away. This experience is a quick and noticeable aid in the area of one’s own feelings, which can trap beings for a long time and only lose their power when the illusion of a separate “I” is fully dispelled. Until then, one considers the changing inner states to be more or less real and permits them to color one’s view and to influence one’s speech and action.
Everybody knows that, when pleasant impressions ripen from our store-consciousness and we feels good, then our world is experienced as pleasant and attractive; and we behave accordingly. But if something unpleasant happens, we see instead faults and hindrances everywhere and become frustrated. Both of these tendencies plant seeds for the future. In addition to this, the natural limits of our sensory organs, cultural background, former experiences, and style of education determine our field of awareness. Recent studies in psychology show that for non-meditators, only twenty percent of an experience is actually based on perception. Mind adds the remaining eighty percent from impressions that it has stored before.
The underlying reason that the big cultural and genetic differences between peoples yield this overwhelming difference of interpretation is the variation in people’s karmas. It explains why attempts at integration around the world generally do not succeed and why personal relationships among people with considerably different backgrounds often end with such distress. When children are born into these kinds of relationships, they are often at a disadvantage and cannot find a firm foundation between the cultures.
So those are some details about the experiencer. What is experienced is equally exciting. The collective dream that condenses from out of one’s store-consciousness and the karma of beings from out of space—this is nothing but mind and is itself space.
Up to this point this verse goes to the foundation of things and explains the emptiness of everything inner and outer and shows every dualistic experience to be an illusion. How does this newly created free space express itself? As clear light and highest joy! We do not need to die to inhabit a pure land or go somewhere else to meet buddhas. What we need is a readiness to see the way things are, in order to remove from mind the veils of disturbing emotions and uncertainty. Then the realization dawns that everything has ultimate meaning simply because it happens or doesn’t happen and that every thought is wisdom simply because it can appear. We realize that every particle vibrates with happiness and is kept together by love.
For enlightened beings, the world is not the result of disturbing feelings but the expression of five wisdoms. They uninterruptedly perceive pure realms everywhere. They see the powerfields of radiant buddhas in each atom. Everything is meaningful, true, and exciting in itself. Instead of anger, enlightened beings experience a radiant wisdom, which reflects everything like a mirror. Instead of feeling superior with the kind of pride that turns others into miserable company, they see richness and variety everywhere. Attachment becomes discriminating wisdom, understanding phenomena both singly and in their wider context. And by transforming jealousy, enlightened beings can now cut through situations clearly. They recognize the sequence of events in past, present, and future as a river—and insights come together naturally. Finally, worn down by the growth of the four earlier wisdoms, the main enemy, ignorance, becomes all-pervading wisdom.
From the level of liberation, where one’s belief in a real and existent “I” disappears, one experiences the suffering of the world as dream-like and no longer binding. With further development, the extent to which one experiences pure realms of consciousness increases. Thus liberated, one has a growing awareness that all beings are buddhas who have not yet recognized it. Whatever happens on these levels expresses the peace-giving, increasing, fascinating, and protective buddha activities, where everything is rich and self-liberating. Although no separate seer can be established, much is seen. Getting the seer to see himself is Buddha’s enlightening gift.
“Through looking at both, one’s clinging to duality naturally dissolves.”
It is understandable that even many highly intelligent people can draw little actual joy or practical benefit from this highest view. Without an unshakeable connection to a strong teacher who embodies such experiences, they simply do not dare to trust space. Instead, many people invent patronizing, creating gods or allege some “subtle material”—however they may imagine that to be—as the cause of appearances. Although at first sight such explanations match the general world of experience more than Buddha’s explanation on the ultimate emptiness of everything, such apparent solutions cause constant difficulties for their adherents. If one follows their logic, their personal gods must be conditioned and mind must be a thing. Because gods are not everywhere and one with everything, creator gods are separate from the whole and would have to be put together, created, born, or come from somewhere. This means that, because of their conditioned nature, they must also one day fall apart, die, or disappear—and the personal “soul” who experiences them would be limited in time and space. The insight necessary for true fearlessness, on the other hand, is that mind is nothing substantial that will fall apart, but is timeless space. This is why mind is indestructible. That which experiences things is itself timeless and connected to everything, whether it is perceived or not. In essence all beings are buddhas surrounded by emanating spontaneous power-fields of highest bliss.
An old Chinese man who ran away from the Communists, who in 1970 invited us to his retreat house in the Himalayas, expressed it as follows: “No mind, no worry.” In other words: “If mind cannot be found, nobody needs to fear that it could disappear or die.”
Holding the highest view, no matter how far it may be from the relative world of experience, does not make beings spacey or bring about misguided actions. As ever-deeper wisdom permeates body and speech, every action becomes effortless and is in tune with each situation. Even when heavy karmas still surface, such a disposition wards off many unpleasant experiences and transforms them for the benefit of others. In this greatest of blessing-fields, everything arises at the right moment. Neither too early nor too late, the conditions for maximum growth will appear. Experienced from this secure level, events then become an expression of basic richness and are free and playful in themselves. Instead of freezing in an unexpected situation like a bull who returns to find the barn door closed, one now sees the potential in the situation. One can imagine doors in the back or above or on the sides of the barn—or even flattening the barn—and work from this freedom.
This is also the way to understand Karmapa’s statement: “Through looking at both, one’s clinging to duality naturally dissolves.” It shows that whoever explores both the outer world and one’s own mind will recognize the essence of both to be neither a thing nor just empty space. One will thus stop separating experiencer, object experienced, and the act of experiencing. Any true insight gained into mind and the world unites the seer, what is seen, and the process of seeing itself. The way all phenomena are mutually dependent and in a state of flux, they are also empty of any lasting characteristics. Except for space, nothing has permanence, either inside or out. Instead, beings’ general tendencies condense into the collectively experienced outer world, while their personal karma colors their place in and perception of it. Both unfold in space, are recognized through its clarity, and return to its boundlessness. Whoever searches for either the experiencer or the experience will find only space. This realization changes everything. Here separations between oneself and others, between the inner and outer worlds, and between being and non-being become the play of a totality. In this realization one’s own mind is seen to be the indestructible player and observer of it all. The realization that nothing can go awry, because “experiencing space,” its clarity that is experienced, and its limitlessness that makes everything possible are in the end one—this releases the constantly fresh power of mind.
Unfortunately, almost every culture has bottlenecks that hinder the realization of freedom and happiness for its members. In the case of the modern Westerner, the disturbances continue to a large extent to arise from uncertainty about the interaction of brain and mind.
If, as a materialistic world today presupposes, the brain would actually produce mind, if mind were therefore the result of the brain and equally impermanent, then the creation of a better world for future generations would still have some meaning, but the work on oneself would hardly make sense. If this work were for one life only, then for many the effort would appear to be too much. They would instead settle for simply enjoying whatever is possible, here and now, which is what most people generally do anyway. This view of the world and its life forms may at first glance seem quite simple, but it is surely not satisfying. This can be seen from the empty expression in the eyes of so many people who are materially well off. If consciousness would disappear with the destruction of one’s brain, everyone could simply hang out in the bar, since in fewer than a hundred years it would all be over. Nothing would continue or give timeless or any lasting meaning to life. At exactly the point when contemporary science was trying to prove this view and to flatten the world, there appeared fortunately—already in the 1960s through consciousness-altering substances—those vast chemical cracks in the fortress of materialistic thinking, which since then research in subatomic particles and the universe have confirmed.
The insight that is more and more manifesting as true and ousts the view of the big, senseless machine, Buddha taught already 2550 years ago. What concerns mind could be said as follows: The brain does not produce the mind, but transforms it. It is not the sender but the receiver of mind. Even super-sensible abilities can be simply explained, as follows: Consciousness dwells in space as steam in the air. Like the currents in the ocean, the passing experiences are held together by habits and the inertness of the senses. On the basis of the inability of mind to see the experiencer, the experienced, and the experience as sides of mind’s wholeness, the unenlightened person experiences himself as an own and separate I.
Whoever does not recognize mind’s timeless aspect will experience the flow of changing moments and lives as real. This beginningless play, which carries suffering with it, keeps going, until one recognizes the timeless, clear light of mind and experiences its joy. By dissolving fixed concepts, like those of being and non-being, and accompanied by the growing understanding that the experienced duality of a “you” and a “me” is illusory, everything forced falls away by itself. This leads to the full flowering of wisdom, joy, and the anticipatory, historically conscious compassion.
With this verse, Karmapa freed the mole of habitual mind from its tunnels. He exchanged the narrow view of either-or with the vast, beyond-dualistic both-and of Buddhism. With contact lenses in its eyes, wings tied to its paws, and feathers on its tail, Karmapa sets mind free to soar into the sky like an eagle.
Photo credit: Ginger Neumann
