No Filters

I am continuing to read and enjoy Master Sheng Yen’s Complete Enlightenment, even though I don’t fully understand it, and there are times when it simply boggles the mind. Here is one example of a passage that struck me:

After enlightenment, the six consciousnesses become pure, unlimited, and unmoving. They are still. The mind does not run off in every direction after what it likes or away from what it dislikes. Naturally, when this happens all other things become pure, unlimited, and unmoving as well. It doesn’t mean that your nose will grow to an unlimited size. Rather, because you have given up your attachment to your nose and its function, it becomes limitless in its ability. (p.145)

What’s interesting about this passage is that the consciousnesses are already quite powerful, but because of the limited way that it’s used and restricted, we’re not able to see such powers. As Master Sheng Yen later remarks, in the sutra, “everything up to all the dharani doors fully pervades the dharmadhatu” (ibid). Only when the mind is not running after likes and dislikes that things can start to be seen in their fullness.

I am not sure if I fully relate to this passage, but I do feel that it has applications in daily life. Often, I approach things with a mindset of classifying things as beneficial, neutral or harmful. I run after the things which I feel are beneficial, avoid what doesn’t benefit me and often ignore what has neither effect. Somewhere in between (and often missing in the literature) are emotions of ambivalence; having a variety of mixed emotions over the same thing. In these kinds of situations, the mind doesn’t even know what to make of the situation: it moves toward then avoids the object.

What happens when we just relax the tendency to want to move toward or avoid the things around us based on how beneficial they are to the self? As Master Sheng Yen points out, the senses in those moments become unlimited in their abilities. I not only smell what is pleasant or unpleasant, but I am also capable of so much more of a nuanced connection with smells in general. In other sutras such as the Surangama Sutra, it even comes to a point where the nose can participate in all the other senses—seeing, hearing and so on. This is quite amazing and, again, mind boggling to behold. But they suggest the mind to be calm and ummoving when we approach objects: not wanting to seek or reject them in any way due to previous experiences or encounters with them.

Another thing I have noticed in my own life is that when my mind is less stirred up by good and bad news, I am able to appreciate the quieter moments when nothing in particular is happening. I think this is because feelings of thankfulness for what is can’t happen when the mind is emotionally troubled by things or judgments. Sometimes one might interpret this as “being comfortable with boredom”, but even boredom carries a subtle judgment with it. To give an example, when I listen to Christmas songs, I often feel a sense of aversion, because I do find them to be boring and artificial. But if I am able to temporarily suspend these habitual judgments, I can see that the music is a complex arrangements of notes that has no inherent meanings in and of themselves. By letting go of my habitual “filters” of judgment, I am not as tense in my relationship to them: it’s not “same old” because I am not comparing the present to the past anymore. When I let go of these judgments, there seems to be a space to enjoy the moments without necessarily enjoying the music itself.

Shengyen (1997). Complete Enlightenment: Translation and Commentary on the Sutra of Complete Enlightenment. Elmhurst, NY: Dharma Drum Publications.