Multitudinous Nature of Objects

 “Mahamati, since the ignorant and simple-minded, not knowing that the world is only something seen of the mind itself, cling to the multitudinous-ness of external objects, cling to the notions of beings and non-being, oneness and otherness, both-ness and non-both-ness, existence and non-existence eternity and non-eternity, and think that they have a self-nature of their own, and all of which rises from the discriminations of the mind and is perpetuated by habit-energy, and from which they are given over to false imagination."

Gautama, Buddha. THE LANKAVATARA SUTRA (p. 5). Independent. Kindle Edition. 

It's worthwhile to pause and reflect on these sentences for a while. "Not knowing that the world is only something seen of the mind itself" is quite interesting in that it makes me realize that "all is me", and there is nothing that I can say is separate. If I take something to be scary or bad, I am really taking part of me and calling it scary and bad. It's like when we are conditioned to think of things as messy or disorganized, because many people frowned upon it and it came to be known as something negative. If we accept the way that even these people and voices are created by the mind, then we can find relief in this unfolding movie we are observing.

 This doesn't mean that we are beyond praise or blame. Rather, not thinking that these thoughts relate to external realties, we have more freedom within to reframe our situations in various ways. It's a little bit like acting on a stage. Every new situation has brand new variables, and by not buying into the identity game of thinking I am only this body or "this character" that is fixed, then I can interact more freely. In fact, it isn't really my body that is interacting with other bodies at all. 

This brings me to the first point which is, "cling to the multitudinous-ness of external objects". We take all these objects to be things that are outside of the mind, and then discriminate the ones we like and dislike. We classify them and label them, not realizing that all of these so-called things has the essence of appearances rather than graspable entities. Then we try to hoard them, only to find we have no space for them anymore (I am looking at my bookshelf now!).

 Multitudinous things brings to mind the way that we get confused in a candy store. We hardly realize that all those colorful confections are really only sugar in different forms and flavors. The essence is the same. Even down to the molecular level and atomic level, there is not much to these energy forms. Yet we spend so much time investing in the tastier ones, and even become addicted to them when they are all fundamentally just syrup and other simple compounds. Life itself is just different form configurations. But the basis of these configurations is more or less similar laws and properties coming together, so there is no need to prefer one to the other.

That means we can be less worried. Everything is just a new challenge, and we can enjoy these configurations of the mind. But not get so attached to them.