Zen in Ten: “The Imaginary Is Without Self by Definition"
The Freedom of Being No One
This is third and final post based on Ben Connolly’s most excellent book Inside Vasubandhu’s Yogacara. The first post is Piercing the Veil of Manas and the second is The Realm of No Thought. From the book’s introduction: “The ‘Thirty Verses’ reveals a fourfold model of how to offer our effort: being aware of the tremendous power of our cognitive and emotional habits, practicing mindfulness of our body and emotional states, being aware of the interdependence of all things, and practicing meditation with no object.”
“The other-dependent nature is a conceptualization arising from conditions; The complete, realized nature is the other-dependent nature’s always being devoid of the imaginary.”
“Thus it is neither the same nor different from the other-dependent; Like impermanence, etc., when one isn’t seen, the other also is not seen.”
“With the threefold nature is a threefold absence of self-nature, So it has been taught that all things have no self.”
“The imaginary is without self by definition. The other-dependent does not exist by itself. The third is no-self nature—that is . . .”
“The complete, realize nature of all phenomena, which is thusness—Since it is always already thus, projection only.”
“As long as consciousness does not rest in projection only, The tendencies of grasping and other will not cease.”
“By conceiving what you put before you to be projection only, You do not rest in just this.”
“When consciousness does not perceive any object, then it rests in projection only; When there is nothing to grasp, there is no grasping.”
“Without thought, without conception, this is the supramundane awareness: The overturning of the root, the ending of the two barriers.”
“It is the inconceivable, wholesome, unstained constant realm, The blissful body of liberation, the Dharma body of the great sage.”