REACHING INTO THE SUPRA-MUNDANE

We have set forth the Vipassana Insight meditation upon the Two Truths, but that meditation can be carried further into the zone where the Key to Awakening is offered and the Gate presented.

Having attained the Discernments of Vipassana then we are presented with several cognitive thoughts.

      A first set of four questions is presented in Tiantai as:

• 1. If the thought arises dependent upon external conditions, how can this unobservable mind contain everything? 

  2. If the mind's contents are due to external conditions and if  undamentally the mind in and of itself has nothing to do with all external conditions,  how can the mind hold everything before its integration with the external conditions? Furthermore, how can it do so after the integration?

  3. We can further ask, if the mind is void, how can it hold anything at all?

  4. It is pointless to declare that "the mind contains everything" spontaneously without any cause at all, for what is devoid of cause is the same as being void?

          The answer appears to be given by the Madhyamika Shastra. It delares: 

"Everything does not exist by itself, nor by other causes, 

nor jointly with the causes, 

nor without cause. 

                     Thus it is known to be non-existent."

But that is a difficult concept to hold, realizing that it is the mind which must hold this, which is, in and of itself, non-existent. It seems like a Pandora revelation.

The four come down to one important question: How can a mind that is void have any relatonship whatsoever with the unknown (apparently external) world?

The answer then is, "what is external does not exist." Perhaps that simplifies the question and provides a potential answer.

                    Let us then proceed to a second set of four possibilites now provided by Tiantai theory. 

                                   Is everything that appears conscious created and annihilated by thought?

                                               Is there really no creation or annihilation by thought?

                                                            Is it that both things are occuring?

                                   Is what is conscious neither created nor not created by thought?

                                       We can dismiss these and declare, "who cares, let it be."

On the other hand, this mind we are dicussing functions with a basic operational system which is both curious and creative. Thus there is an homeostatic impulse to want to know that is not Identity-based, but survival-oriented.

We may conclude that if the mind is pure, still and void, it will be free and completely detached, and then every thought will also be pure and void.

                     Let us provisionally accept this and say that this may be solved by:

                      Meditation of the Inconceivable Void on the Phenomena of the Void. 

Further, while all may be void, the observing is by no means static and there appears to be a full attention to particular phenomena when clear comprehension responds to apparent external irritations.

                        Let us provisionally accept this and say that this may be solved by:

         Meditation of the Inconceivable Unreal on the Phenomena of the Unreal

Since we accept that all may be illusion, as long as consciousness perceives names and forms they are NEITHER VOID NOR UNREAL and on the other hand paradoxically they are VOID and UNREAL.

                          Let us provisionally accept this and say that this may be solved by:

              Meditation of the Inconceivable Mean on the Phenomena of the Mean.

The three integrated  Meditations can be all realized as one advanced Contemplation.

                             This is called the Inconceivable Profound Contemplation.

          This may be realized through the Supramundane Contemplation of Vipassana or by the Chan Contemplation upon the Emptiness of Emptiness.

For those who have not read thouroughly this web page, briefly the Supra-mundane Contemplation of Buddha was obtained from the Vipassana Platform, after a complete comprehension by way of the Jhanas of  "The Base of Infinite Space"; "The Base of Infinite Consciousness" (which is not to be confused with Oneness); "The Base of No-thingness" (which is not to be confused with EMPTINESS); and "The Base of Neither Perception nor Non-perception."

Since all these Jhanas had been experienced cognitively beyond words and concepts, the last became the direct Cognitive Experience used as the Last Conceptualization.

What is the Cognitive Experience related to that "Base of Neither Perception nor Non-perception"? It is the Cognitive Experience of Emptiness.

One only then has to generate the Last Conceptualization upon the Emptiness of Neither Perception nor Non-Pereption to pass into the unconscious stream, the key to Awakening.