The Bifurcated Mind

 

Self-consciousness depends on and arises from the bifurcation function of consciousness. Without an "other" we can't have a "self" awareness. In Buddhism, this function is called the Seventh Consciousness, i.e. in Sanskrit "manas," the basic subconscious differentiation function that is at the crux of the "I, me, mine" fantasy created in the face of an environment of sensory data. This function is the polarizing function that makes every thought, sensation, intuition, and imagination have a polarity (a spin that creates the "north-south" poles of every thought moment). Manas, the 7th Consciousness, is often confused with mind, "citta," in the way that sometimes we use the word "mind" to mean our whole awareness of being, i.e., the totality of the psyche both conscious and unconscious, and at other times we use it for the limited thought function or perceptions on the surface of consciousness.

 

However, the polarizing function becomes the problem when it is literalized and fixated in a magnetic matrix of polarized bifurcations at all dimensions. This is the meaning of "dualism," the "ism" reflects the literal belief in the duality. Aristotle cemented this polarization in Western collective consciousness with his notion of the "dilemma" where a thing or statement about a thing is either true or false. The bifurcated so-called "opposites" become magnetized or polarized with each other across the categories, so that in the end we develop a world-mental-map that gives false moral positions such as joining the light-dark polarity with the good-bad polarity and we believe the delusion that the light is good and the dark is bad. Thus we push everything we don't want to acknowledge about ourselves into the area of the unconscious we call 'the shadow."And because the shadow is darkness we think it is bad or evil. To think of "darkness" as "bad" is a clear symptom of the problem. Healing, the ripening of seeds, and many other good things necessarily occur in the darkness.

 

Zen Buddhism--and every sincere practice of spiritual human development--points to the moon which is in the dark of night, not to the sun in the daylight. When we pass into and through the dark, then the Sun can burst through the ceiling of our knowing and burn us up completely to travel through the Dharmakaya's Crystal Palace to be reborn with the recognition that all the "opposites" are our own nature and mind making consciousness possible. Thus bifurcation is no longer fixated or polarized into magnetized matrix structures that we mistake for reality.

 

Or as Zen Master Huineng taught at the beginning of the 8th century: 

“First, [you] must raise the three sections of the Gate of the Dharma, [next] take up the functions of the 36 paired opposites arising and sinking, then leave both extremes.  In explaining everything, do not leave your own nature."

“If one can be free and use this Dharma of the 36 paired-opposites, then it is the Way that threads though the Dharma of every sutra, and entering and leaving are then free from both extremes.  In the active functioning of your own nature and in conversations with people, while outwardly in appearances, be free from appearances; while inwardly in emptiness, be free from emptiness.  If you wholly attach to appearances (i.e., the view of materialism), then your perverted views broaden. If you wholly grasp emptiness (i.e., the view of nihilism), then your ignorance broadens."

“If there is a person asking you about a meaning, and asks about existence, go to the paired opposite of nonexistence; if asking about nonexistence, go to the paired opposite of existence.  If one asks about the worldly, use the paired opposite of the saintly (the sage); if asking about the saintly (the sage) use the paired opposite of the worldly.  The mutual causation of the Way of dualities, gives birth to the meaning of the Middle Way.  So, for a single question, a single pair of opposites, and for other questions the single (pair) that accords with this fashion, then you do not lose the principle.  “Suppose there is a person who asks, ‘What is taken for and called darkness?’ Reply and say, ‘Light is the proximate cause and darkness is the contributory cause. When light is ended, then there is darkness.  By the means of light, darkness manifests; by the means of darkness, light manifests.  (Their) coming and going are mutually proximate causes and become the meaning of the Middle Way.’  Other questions are without exception like this.  You who are ranked among the descendants transmitting the Dharma, by relying on this teaching of turning around the characteristics you do not lose the taste of the lineage.” 

That is, the Zen/Chan lineage.

Dead Differences and Living Distinctions

~
From, Nothing is Hidden: The Psychology of Zen Koans by Barry Magid:

Difference and boundary are not words that we normally value in Buddhism; they tend to stand in for everything we imagine we are supposed to overcome in the name of oneness and non separation.  But how we handle difference will be one of the hallmarks of our mature practice.  We can't eliminate difference and we can't blend opposites into a conflict free synthesis--or mush.

(Book review here.)

Fascinating. The valuation of words is a topic in itself. Generally, in the Zen lineage of the Buddha Dharma, words are distinguished between being living words and dead words.  So, are the terms "living" and "dead" themselves words of difference or words of distinction? Is there a difference or a distinction between the words "difference" and "distinction"?

I would say that when we see "distinction as a difference" then that is distinct and different from seeing "difference as a distinction."

This is what the Sixth Ancestor Huineng was teaching in Chapter 10 of the Platform Sutra when talking about the opposites.  We usually look at polarities and bifurcations as opposites that are different and separate.  But Huineng teaches us that seeing the opposites as a unity whose mutual distinctions are not indicative of actual or fundamental separation is the Dharma view.

Speaking about a difference between two things (dharmas) that concludes fundamental or primary separation is giving voice to dead words. Speaking about distinctions without concluding a separation at the root is giving voice to living words. To paraphrase Huineng, if one is turned around by differences, then that is delusion. If one turns around the differences, then that is the Way.

The root is the one that is equal to zero. The twigs and leaves are distinguished.

As Layman Pang said about the snowflakes in Case 42 of the Blue Cliff Record:

Layman Pang bid adieu to Yaoshan.  Shan ordered ten people who were Zen travelers to go together to the main gate to see him off.  The Layman pointed to the snow in the middle of the sky and said, "The excellent snow; flake by flake it does not fall at another spot."              

At that time there was Zen traveler Quan who asked, "At what spot does it fall?"           

The gentleman hit once with a slap.

Quan said, "A Layman too cannot get careless."

The gentleman said, "Like this you call yourself a Zen traveler. Lao-tzu has not liberated your dependence."    

Quan said, "Layman how do you make it alive?"

The gentleman again hit once with a slap and said,  "The eye sees like a blind person; the mouth speaks like a mute." 

Xuedou separately said, "At the first questioning point, yet grab a snowball then hit."

To discourse about it, the old wind-bag Huineng said (from Chapter 10 of The Platform Sutra):

“You who are ranked [as Dharma heirs], if you awaken in accord with this explanation; in accord with this functioning; in accord with this practice; and in accord with these doings; then you do not lose the root of the lineage. 

“If there is a person asking you about a meaning, and asks about existence, go to the paired opposite of nonexistence; if asking about nonexistence, go to the paired opposite of existence.  If one asks about the worldly, use the paired opposite of the saintly (the sage); if asking about the sage, use the paired opposite of the worldly.  The mutual causation of the Way of dualities, gives birth to the meaning of the Middle Way.  So, for a single question, a single pair of opposites, and for other questions the single (pair) that accords with this fashion, then you do not lose the principle.

“Suppose there is a person who asks, ‘What is taken for and called darkness?’ Reply and say, ‘Light is the proximate cause and darkness is the contributory cause. When light is ended, then there is darkness.  By the means of light, darkness manifests; by the means of darkness, light manifests.  (Their) coming and going are mutually proximate causes and become the meaning of the Middle Way.’  Other questions are without exception like this.  You who are ranked among the descendants transmitting the Dharma, by relying on this teaching of turning around the characteristics you do not lose the taste of the lineage.”

For this reason too, Zen Master Dongshan set up the Five Positions as another way to deal with this question of the appearance of differences within unity.

To Liberate the Beings of Our Own Mind

 

Looking at the events in Ukraine, Syria, Egypt, Venezuela, and the USA’s meddling in them, I have these observations:  When we are free from literalizing “good and evil” by “taking sides” based on who is the “good guy” and who is the “bad guy,” then we are free to see human conflicts with the same equanimity as the weather events like hurricanes and “super storms.”  Hurricanes are formed when the opposing characteristics of warm and cold air, moist and dry air, and high and low pressure become extreme and polarized leading to the cascading events of a rotating system we call a tropical cyclone.  Lightening storms are caused when the upper atmosphere and the ground become supercharged and polarized with “opposite poles” of positive and negative energy.  A hurricane doesn’t make the high pressure “good” and the low pressure “bad,” and lightening doesn’t make the positive (+) energy “good” and the negative (-) energy “bad.”

  

Likewise, when the warm and cold air or plus and minus energy of the collective consciousness becomes extremely supercharged and polarized it necessitates an emotional storm that manifests in what we call  “violent conflicts” or the super storm called “war.”  If we want to have any influence on the outbreak of conflict and war across the planet, then we must individually do our best to depolarize our collective consciousness, so that the polarities of “us and them” do not become so supercharged that we see ourselves as the “good guys” who must obliterate those “evil bad guys.” 

 

As a Buddhist, we proclaim the Four Broad Vows, and beginning with the vow that no matter how innumerable the many beings are, we will carry them across to liberation.  As Zen master Huineng reminds us in the Platform Sutra of the Sixth Ancestor, these Four Broad Vows are called broad because they are all inclusive in the wisdom that there is nothing that is not the manifestation of our own mind.  So Huineng presented his version of the Four Broad Vows that emphasized this truth of mind:

 

We vow to carry across the unlimited multitude of beings of our own mind,

We vow to cut off the inexhaustible afflictions of our own mind,

We vow to investigate the uncountable Dharma gates of our own mind,

We vow to consummate the unsurpassed Buddha Way of our own mind.

 

 

This means that we have to free the beings of our own mind trapped in the Auschwitz' and Guantanamo's of our own mind and who are polarized in the roles of guards and prisoners in our own mind, before we can liberate the beings in the world from the storms of war.