2. THE PATH OF PURIFICATION. THE PATH OF FREEDOM. THE PATH OF ELOQUENT UNDERSTANDING

净化.自由.善辩体会

Three Paths

It is infrequent that I write in the first person directly for those who enter this webpage, but what I have to say is so important that I want all who enter to take seriously what is mentioned.

Too often in these times few really listen to any sort of wisdom and dive like Stukas (a dive bomber) upon their mental targets without a deep understanding of what Dharma is all about. Everyone believes that the answer lies with meditation. All are in error.

Like bees around a jar of melted sugar they sit in various positions and follow what masters or pseudo-masters declare and write in texts with inviting titles and present with impressive lineages. They expect to reach Valhalla where all suffering ceases, all worldly problems are resolved, there is the peace and truth of Nirvana and the future is assuredly bountiful. I am afraid they will be sitting for eons, as Buddha declared, running up and down in their minds upon the stained banks of Samsara.

Without having trodden with serenity, patience, determination and perseverance upon the "Path of Purification" one cannot even set a foot securely upon the Path of Freedom, and if the Path of Freedom has never been trodden with bare feet with diligence, then the Path of Eloquent Understanding is light-years away from anyone.

At the Seminary I teach the Path of Eloquent Understanding, which we know as the Path of No-Mind, the path of Dao and Chan. But my students must really come to grips with the fact that the other two paths are important. When in Dao Contemplations one links the Masculine and Feminine Principles, just as in the Vajrayogini Practices one links Vajrayogini with Heruka, the prerequisite for purification at a cognitive level and a prelude to a higher consciousness is attained.

But it all starts with the Dharma of Purification and the practice of Concentration. Then one can proceed to the Dharma of Liberation from the Mundane Self, an appreciation of Vacuity, the Unity of all things, Impermance, Clear Comprehension and can touch cognitively the Life Force. This can only be achieved with correct Meditative Absorption.

One need advance no further, for if this is achieved one is Free from Mental Impediments.

However, the Path of Eloquent Understanding is then available for those with favorable circumstances and the Will to proceed to the greater contemplation of the truths of Function, Essence and Formlessness.

It will be easy at this point to declare that this appears too difficult, too intellectual, far from what drives you personally and perhaps too distant from what you believe Buddhism and Buddha Dharma is all about. What you desire is in fact what your stained self desires.

But if your mind is at least a little open and flexible, then I advise you to continue until you have read and inwardly digested what I have to say here. It is exceedingly important for all who are sincerely upon any valid Dharma Search.

The Path of Purification

Now to simplify this so that you can begin to understand, when I speak of Purification it really entails two simple ideas:

1.  Knowing with introspection the way in which your life is stained (and here we are not concerned with commandments or social ideas, nor the idea of sins, recriminations and atonement) and how your life is dominated by impulses which are not in your own apparent natural and correct best interest or that of all other sentient creatures.

2. Refraining from all those attitudes, intentions and actions.

The meditation, known as CONCENTRATION, is simply a means by which to support these two objectives. Meditation in and of itself without the introspection and the restraint will accomplish little more than bring a temporary relief and the erroneous idea that you are on the correct path.

The Path of Liberation

Here the task is to liberate the mind. By the "mind" I mean here Memory, remembering (Names and Forms) and retrieval within Cognition and the Consciousness where applicable. Hwrene does not work with the external world of Samsara, but with the memory traces laid down previously and now stored in memory. The task here is threefold.

1. To understand fully what is to occur within the unconscious during the Absorption Meditation, which we call Vipassana Jivitindriya. This has been set down clearly by Buddha in the important sutras.

2. To preprepare the ABSORPTION by imagining the perfect application of the meditation.

3. To enter into the state which we call the "Becoming of Consciousness".

The principal idea is to clean memory by decreasing the valence of inappropriate traces and incrementing the valence of appropriate traces through the deep understanding that all arises, continues and falls away as a function of the perceptual traces and memory (namely, the illusory mind).

It should be clear to anyone moderately intelligent that through identification of errors as result of the introspection upon the Path of Purification the task is faciitated and is made more difficult if there is no conscious ideas of inappropriate attitudes, intentions, and actions.

The Path of Eloquent Understanding

Here we really are speaking of even higher states of consciousness, which include the Contemplations of Chan, Dao and the more advanced Tibetan contemplations.

The Dao and Tibetan paths generate, when they are practiced correctly, a link between the Feminine Principle which contains the basic human programs for natural survival -which includes Compassion, Benevolet Affect and Gladness- and the Maculine Principle of the Natural Expression of these programs.

The Chan meditations pass to a different level with contemplations which awaken the right hmisphere within the natural operations of Function, Essence and Undifferentiated form.