(© HKU Press, 1964)Since we are obliged to use dualistic language in order to communicate understanding we should be well-advised to use words in a manner which is verifiable, that is in a way which is etymologically correct.
To per-ceive means 'thoroughly to take hold of', but metaphysically there is no one to take hold of anything and nothing to take hold of. Therefore perception is the first stage of the conceptualisation process, and the two elements - perception and conception - form one whole, and that one whole is the mechanism whereby we create samsara.
What we are required to do is the contrary, to lay everything down, to be nothing, to know that we are nothing, and thereby leave behind the whole process of conceptualisation. So-doing we cease to be that which we never were, are not, and never could be. That, no doubt, is nirvana, and, since nothing is being conceived, nothing is being perceived, and nothing is being 'projected' via the psycho-somatic apparatus which itself is a conceptualised percept.
At that moment the phenomenal universe no longer exists as far as we are concerned. We are 'sitting in a bodhimandala', in a state of perfect availability. So placed - and automatically - we should re-become integrally that which we always were, are, and forever must be. And that - because it is THIS - can never be thought or spoken, for this, being purely non-objective, is in a different 'direction of measurement' from any conceptual dimension, being the source of all dimensionality and phenomenality.
This is the sun itself, shining through the dualism of negative and positive, whose rays (which are Itself) appear to split into that negative (nirvana) and that positive (samsara) from which arise all phenomena, the perceptual-conceptual universe, including that which we have known as ourselves.
'I am that I am', said Jahweh - which no doubt means 'this which I am'. We, too are 'this which we are', for THIS is everything that ever was, is, or could be.
