From: A Trackless Path II 6
Audioclip
Ken: Now there are experiences which arise. There you sit and the mind becomes still. "Mind" means the way we experience things, so let's get rid of the word mind for a few moments. The way that we experience things becomes very still and open, and in that stillness and openness there's no experience of something other. Does this mean that there is no I and no other? No. It is a way of experiencing. But that way of experiencing makes such a difference and is so profound and so impactful that people label it as the truth, when actually it's just another way of experiencing.
Not only do they label it as the truth, they celebrate it. And one of the most elaborate celebrations of it is the Avatamsaka Sutra, which is like a thousand pages celebrating impermanence as change and the joy of change, and suffering as opening into the intensity or bliss of experience and emptiness as the interdependence of everything, so that we're all connected. Just thousands of pages of celebration.
Student: What sutra Ava-tamsa?
Ken: Avatamsaka--it's been translated into English a couple of times I think, Flower Garland or the Flower Wreath Sutra, but there are many, many others. The Prajnaparamita: The Perfection of Wisdom in 100,000 Lines is a celebration of this, You can't say anything about anything! [Laughter] And it just goes on for a hundred thousand things because they're just blown away by this!
And then as the human mind does, somebody says, "This is how things are." Somebody else says, "That's the truth." And now the fixation comes, and that screws everything up, as we know, time and time again. And so you get Saraha coming along and saying, "Oh those that believe in reality are stupid, like cows, but those who believe in unreality, they're even stupider." [Laughter] And he's absolutely right because they've moved from this way of experiencing things to saying, "This is how things are."
