Monday, May 23, 2016

(2) The Contemplation of the Objects of Mind in the Objects of Mind

Watch the following Thay's video on "The Contemplation of the Objects of Mind in the Objects of Mind" from 1:32:37 to 1:39:15.


The followings are excerpts.

Quote:
And in Buddhism, we speak of "sahabhu" ('bhu: 有' means 'to be, to arrive', 'saha: 倶' means 'together'). Subject and object, they lean on each other in order to manifest at the same time. And if you believe that the subject can exist separately as consciousness, and the nature, the object of your consciousness can exist separately from your consciousness, you are caught in what Buddhism calls the "double grasping". And that is the greatest obstacle for understanding the world. 

We know that this sheet of paper, we can distinguish the left and the right. And in our discrimination, discriminative mind, we think that the left is the opposite of the right, may be the enemy of the right. But let us try like this. I ask one brother to take the left and to go to Buffalo. And I will take the right to go to Betherland (?). It's impossible. They are entangled. They are in each other. You can not be independent from each others. So, the same thing is true with the object and subject of consciousness. If you imagine that consciousness can exist outside of the object, that is the basic mistake, that is very hard. And we have to train ourselves in order to overcome that kind of obstacle, the basic obstacle. 

And if our mind is caught in dualism, we have no chance to touch the ultimate. And there are many pairs of opposites that we are caught into. Like when we ask the question, "how consciousness emerge from matter?", we suppose that there is the world of matter, inanimate matter. We believe that there is the world called the "dead matter". And we believe that there is consciousness that can emerge from the world of dead matter. And that is discrimination. That is the double grasping also. The distinction, the discrimination between matter and mind is also a basic mistake. But the quantum mechanics now has begun to see that. We no longer believe that the electron, the photon is something inanimate. There is a lot of intelligence in them.

When we look into a plant, we see that the plant knows how to grow, how to make beautiful leaves, flowers and fruit. If there is no intelligence, consciousness, how the plant can do like that? So, you can not qualify the world of plants as a matter. There is an intelligence. There is a consciousness there. When you look at a seashell, you see that that little living being knows how to fabricate the wonderful house for himself or herself. And the mother earth knows how to produce such a thing. Do you think that the mother earth is a dead matter? We should not think of the mother earth only as the environment. Mother earth is not matter. Because our discrimination between matter and mind, that kind of dualistic view should be transcended. 

And quantum mechanics is about to touch that kind of non-dualism between matter and mind. And many scientists have already recognized that there is intelligence in the elementary particle. They know. Even they know many things we don't know. And they don't need that kind of means of communication that we have. They can communicate better without our instruments. So, one of the things I suggest is that scientists try to overcome that kind of dualism between matter and mind.
:Unquote

(My commentary)
The relation between subject and object can be liken to the relation between light and darkness. Light and darkness are interdependent-co arising. In other words, they are two sides of the same coin. If light is there, darkness must be there at the same time. If darkness is there, the light must be there at the same time. If light is removed, the darkness is also removed. If darkness is removed, the light is also removed. Thay explained this relationship as "interbeing" (emptiness, interdependence). If we fully understand this ultimate truth in the phenomenal world, we can transcend the duality and attain non-duality. And if we go further and touch this ultimate truth in the phenomenal world more deeply, we will attain insight that all notions are wrong, and will throw away all notions and understand the ultimate truth (wholeness) in the noumenal world. Then we will attain the extinction of all notions, or nirvana. That is the full enlightenment.

(Cf.) http://www.slideshare.net/compassion5151/subject-and-object
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B014NYEP04
http://compassion5151.blogspot.jp/2016/04/16-exercises-on-mindful-breathing-whole.html

Yin_yang

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