World Devoid of Effort and Action

 All that is seen in the world is devoid of effort and action because all things in the world are like a dream, or like an image miraculously projected. From Lankavatara Sutra, tr. D.T. Suzuki, p.2

I have been enjoying an initial reading of Dwight Goddard's edited Lankavatara Sutra. (Disclaimer; when I read a text for the first time, I usually do so quickly to get a good overview of it). I would like to share some basic overview of what I hope to achieve from readings of the sutra. But first I want to start with this puzzle: if the world is devoid of effort and action, what would that appear? What's the opposite of this state of being devoid of effort and action? Sometimes exploring the opposite might shed some light on what the world devoid of effort and action might look like.

We often use the metaphor of "heavy" to describe something that is serious. For instance, when something bad has happened, we say "with heavy hearts", or we say "this guy is way too heavy for me", meaning too "deep" or serious. Heaviness entails a sense of responsibility or burden. A world that has a lot of effort and action may seem like a hurricane of events that are "bombarding" us all at once, have equal urgency, and put us into a frenzy. As a result, our thoughts become very scattered, and we even start to look for ways to relieve the stress in our minds.

Buddha seems to suggests a way out in the sense that the world may not be heavy (literally or metaphorically) than some may assume or imagine. There is not so much of a temporal sense of hustle and bustle when we start to slow down and realize that the world is not moving so much as our mind is, as we become caught up in the maelstrom of thoughts and even stir up our minds. Secondly, when we start to lose this notion of distinct agency, knowing that cause and conditions are always reforming every moment, then we stop thinking of someone who performs an action and something that is acted upon. In this way, we don't need to feel that there is a world outside that is acting on us or pushing down on us. The world and "me" are constructions of the mind.

But I believe that in order for this sutra to confirm these ideas or impressions, a deeper analysis is needed to understand this line. I will try to explore more in the coming weeks!