Balancing View and Attitude

During the talk on Sutra of Complete Enlightenment, Venerable Chang Hwa used a very interesting analogy when she was describing the proper attitude of detachment in daily life. She mentioned how, if someone rIeally doesn't like someone else and wants to avoid that person, she or he will be so vigilant and attached to wanting to avoid the person that they cannot let go of them. In fact, as Chang Hwa asserted, denial or avoidance are both forms of grasping and attachment which cause a lot of suffering. After all, if one does not feel any need to avoid a person or seek them, then there is no vexation in the mind: one simply faces what they need to face without attaching to the conditions. Venerable Chang Hwa asserted that if one feels vexation in avoiding someone, one makes the mistaken of thinking they are real, and thus all sorts of vexations and grasping arise in trying to avoid them.
    This is all very good, but what happens when a person takes the attitude: "well, since everyone and everything is a dream, and only a dream, then there is no use caring about anyone, since everyone is just a puff of smoke coming and going"? The problem is that this is still grasping the concept of detachment, as though it were an object that I am supposed to 'get' in order to put aside my vexations about 'others'. In other words, it still brings about vexation! So what's the proper attitude, and what mistake am I making in thinking this way?
   What I have observed in myself is that whenever I am thinking or practicing solipsistically, there is an underlying strong sense of the self as an uninvolved observer, or as a disengaged spectator who is yet beyond phenomena. When I practice in this way, two problems arise. The first is that I start to treat phenomena as obstructions to my sense of self which is 'observing' the phenomena, because I think there is a real "I" that's watching the illusory dream. Thus, it's not long before I become averse to the phenomena, believing that they take me away from a permanent sense of self. The second problem is that I lose a gentle and more even-minded approach to phenomena, thinking that by denying phenomena I will achieve something spiritually. This view is also wrong because it treats phenomena as separate from mind, not recognizing that it's the mind that generates the phenomena.
   Venerable Chang Hwa at one point showed us the video of a dancing image-- one which, when looked at in different ways, can be seen as moving clockwise, counterclockwise, or a combination of both. Her point was to suggest that most people are not aware that they construct what they see using a complex process of cognition and volition, rather than being passively moved by the conditions to judge a certain way. What we see or don't see is often influenced by our intentions. If I really insist on my view being correct, I will often make efforts not to see what others are seeing, or to argue that my way of seeing is the only way. This is because I don't want to acknowledge the impermanence and emptiness of all views, for fear that it will open me up to uncertainty and endless possibility. In the same way, any view can be held in such a way that it prevents me from seeing my own self-grasping and subjectivity. Even what appears to be a correct Buddhist teaching such as "all phenomena are illusory" can be adopted with the attitude of contempt and avoidance of phenomena, thinking that the phenomena are blocking the right view or are a hindrance to enlightenment. In reality, however, phenomena are just different expressions of the mind, much like steam and ice are 'expressions' of H2O.
    When I reflect on a concept in Buddhism, I need to ask myself: what's my intention, and how does this view or assertion reflect or affect the way I treat the phenomena? If my treatment of phenomena is dismissive, fearful, angry or resentful, then chances are I am not seeing phenomena's true source. Instead, I am taking the phenomena as subtly real, even when I vehemently assert they are unreal. This is a little bit like the person who says, "God doesn't exist, and anyway, God is not good." One's thinking says it's unreal but one's feeling is to try to protect oneself from it, which doesn't make sense. Sometimes, our assertions against something or someone are only forms of denial and avoidance, rather than fair and thorough insights into the true emptiness of those phenomena. To know emptiness is to see things with fairness and compassion, not fear or resentment. But this is the challenge of practice itself, which takes a while to cultivate.