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Echoes - II


How can a shadow eliminate itself?

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There are no 'things' (objects) apart from the cognising of them: there is no cognising apart from the 'thing' cognised, because there is no cogniser.

That is the naked truth, and it is why phenomena and noumenon are not two, nor Samsara and Nirvana, object and subject, etc., etc. ad infinitum - and full understanding proceeds therefrom.

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There is no such 'thing' to aim at, seek or look for, as what one is. On ceasing to seek or to look - one is present.

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'Being' is 'becoming', since it comports duration. Every sentient being - being nothing but mind itself, can find mind itself, mind his, her, or our self, just by ceasing to search, for the act of searching is precisely that which, by externalising itself turns itself away from this which it is.

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This which is free is not an entity,
That which is bound is not what you are,
This which is unconditioned is void,
That which is conditioned is not you.

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Any apparent advance in which your self is of the party is only going round in a circle.
Why? Are you anything but a rumour?

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Of every direct perception, however luminous it may be, we should know that to the majority of the readers of its expression it will appear nonsensical, to a minority a mystery, and to a very few a faint reflection of a luminosity that glimmers within themselves.
For it is the nature of such expression to appear impenetrable to the deductions of the objectivising mind.

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All things considered,
Bondage is wholly the notion of 'I',
And liberation is liberation from the idea of liberation.
Is there any one to be bound, any one to be free?
So what?

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An 'I' of which one is conscious is an object.

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Whatever you may be, you are being 'lived'. You are not travelling, as you think: you are being 'travelled'.

Remember: you are in a train. Stop trying to carry your baggage yourself! It will come along with you anyhow.

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'Pure Thought' is seeing things as they appear - without arguing (thinking) about them, just 'seeing, seeing, seeing', as Rumi said. Above all, without inference.

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All Said and Done


Everything is I, and I am no thing.

All phenomena are subjective manifestations (objectivisation of subjectivity). What I am objectively is the totality of phenomenal manifestation. What I am subjectively is all that all phenomena are.

Nothing personal about it anywhere or at any stage. The personal notion is not inherent and is the whole trouble.



(© HKU Press, 1965)
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