Meditation

MEDITATION

Tathagata’s meditation: The Will and the Void

While the journey-man seeks an escape, Tathagata in a deep meditation gazes at the sentient world.. He watches His image that is reflected by the river by whose bank He meditates : What a wonderful image! The whole transitory world is moving in it. There are so many wonderful designs being drawn by the movements of the current dragging one part with another, that are twisting, turning, circling like eddies, releasing the knots of movements, and creating new eddies again. With them feelings are turning, twisting, releasing themselves from eddies and falling into eddies again. The whole Samsara seem to be like this river, where moments are fleeing creating such wonderful patterns of colourful thoughts, and confusion of feelings. It is Maya - the illusory veil- that is twisting and turning in the motionless river and creating the motion.

The will, is it not a river like this ? Is not this will make the river move ? Or the will is moving with matter that drag the motions of the river ? Or are will and matter moving as the same river ? Tathagata can not make any distinction. The mind seems to be inseparable from the no-mind, that is appearing as the currents, the eddies , the whirling , turning in the eyes, dissipating and condensing creating the flux of time. Is it carrying an emptiness through innumerable structures of thoughts, that are nothing but illusions of the mind, while there exist nothing but the formless void? Is it all void ? These rotations, these expansions, contractions, turbulence, tearing apart and taking part into another turbulence, outside and inside , are they only Maya, the transitory reflections of the will into the void or do there exist something concrete, outside the existence of the will, existing by itself?

How marvellous this image is ! It is devouring itself, breaking itself into parts, scattering itself in the ripples and waves , distributing itself in many forms and designs without ever vanishing from the sight, and always appearing to be the same. Tathagata is thinking of the image of the tree under which he meditates and watches this movement where his own image is submerged. The molecules of water are buffeting on the surrounding matter and evaporating into clouds in order to be absorbed by the tree from the depth of the earth with its roots as well as by the innumerable cells spread across the space as its branches and leaves. How inconstant is this image! Though how unchangeable is this vibrating illusion, that is dissipating without dissipating, falling apart without falling apart, tending to disappear without ever disappearing from the sight. How illusory is this becoming that is always eluding the mind with the vision of the impermanence though always remaining the same !

It is mirroring the void, reflecting the emptiness through which the mind and matter are flowing as two conjoint rivers, which exist to perceptions and feelings and appear to the consciousness only as a result of this unity. In separation they constitute the formless void. Here without the will matter seem to be disappearing and without the matter the will seem to be without its base of existence. Over this river , where the image of the tree is being reflected as an image of the permanent in the stream of impermanence, where wind and air are dragging the matter with it, a spiritual wind is constantly blowing, that is dragging the feelings with it creating turbulence and waves, trying to scatter the image into many small pieces of ideas and thoughts and disperse them in the stream of nothingness. In this nothingness, the world exist as projection of the stream of the psychic energy on the stream of the energy of matter, giving each other form and essence. Here the will is bringing the mind in form and form is bringing the will to its existence. One could not disjoin these two rivers, that is one. From the centre of the mandala they are streaming outside and inside - the world of matter and form as well as the domain of the mind, that create this marvellous image on the river.

Atoms, molecules, gas and clouds are condensing on it. Like this, in the stream flowing in the void clouds of gas are condensing into bigger and bigger units and forming stars, galaxies, cluster of galaxies etc., as burning masses of matter gradually transforming the less organised order into more organised state of solid matter. Energy is being consumed and released in this process, bringing dynamics to the world. Is it not the mind which is bringing an order ? Is not the forces attracting the mass into this process is a reflection of a greater mind, that contains the reason and purpose of the beings and becoming ? Do not these turning and moving eddies on the river carry the mind that creates the organic cells, vegetation, life and the being that he himself is ? Though the image seems to be splitting into pieces by acts of chance in the wind and air driven by the heat and cold , circulating in the currents into different patterns, is not the will impinging on each accident in order to hold the whole into an organised unity ? Does not an unity exist everywhere that transcends the blindness of the chance ? Without this can this marvellous image, that is always floating as indestructible projection of this self, be created out of chaos ?

If this river did not exist, would anything exist ? Will not He Himself vanish with the disappearance of the river while His own image will disappear ? Tathagata looks at the marvellous image of the tree to which He seems to have turned into a part. His limbs are dancing in the stream mingling with the branches and leaves- one going over the other with the dancing movement of the rippling waves. His mind is waving the wind that is shuffling through the leaves of thoughts and trying to become one with the wind that is shuffling the bits of images of the tree from its root to the crest. There is a beautiful vibration inside and outside. The eyes receiving the images are transforming the sensations into musical vibration in the conscious world. They are changing into notes and sounds as chanting hymn from a greater depth of the mind . The ears, that are collecting the restless reverberations scattered by the excited wind, the flashes of light are breaking on small ripples and waves, seem to be trying to release themselves from the bondage of the sounds and waves. Behind the visible rays and the audible waves there exist strange light and sound , that are moving as the will flowing through the material domain . These strange light and sound are flashing in all corners of the mind while natural light and sound are vibrating on the dancing waves. They are flashing from poles to poles , branches to branches, leaves to leaves, and the marvellous image is growing in his mind to occupy all streams flowing through the void!

How marvellous ! There seem to exist no boundary between the interior and the exterior ! The physical stimuli, the desire, passion, feelings, pain, sufferings, melancholy, thoughts, ideas, conscious reflections and awareness and unconscious exaltations of emotions all have merged with a marvellous beauty ! This beauty is emanating from the centre of the mandala, which lies within himself where the tree also exist as an inseparable part of the whole to which mind and matter are one.

How green! How bubbling! How infinitely strange is this beauty ! It is sinking, upsurging, rolling with gusts of wind, trilling , spewing, spiting , wheeling, whirling as the part of the mind itself. It is moving away , then returning to vision that is near; it is flowing forward and then twirling backward; it is moving upward, and then pouring downwards. In all these motions what is this, that He is looking at ? Is it not that He is only staring at Himself, and watching the process of living, dying and returning again and again in this stream of life and death ? The void that is hanging over His head, is it not too a part of the stream where He exists ? Is it not also the part of the void through which this stream is moving carrying Him as a being who comes and goes with the perpetual turning of the wheel? And moreover, how can He know that He really exists ? Is not his existence an illusion itself ? Who is He ? Is He matter, will, the impulses, the feelings, the ideas, the knowledge with which as a human being He is gazing upon Himself ? Is He the aggregate of those senses and the reason that are revealed as ideas through the mediation of the conscious mind ? Is He ascertainable to comprehension in the world of will and matter, that is constantly in motion and has no meaning except relative to something that only exist in reference to a part ? Are not all parts negating His true identity ? And what this true identity may be when all knowing are relative to a part and ascertainable in a world of constant material and psychic flux where the knower and the object know have no absolute meaning as such ? Is He those feelings of love, pain, suffering and joy, that are twisting and turning and revamping the world as objects of thought? Is not those feelings conditioned such that the feelings, with which He forms the concept of the world in images , negates the true nature of Himself ? Is He not knowable except as negation of all that defines the perceptions, creates logic and the foundations of feeling and emotions ? Can He be reduced and reduced by logic without ever being truly reduced but to nothing ? Or can He be known as a sum total of these negative descriptions of His being ?

Tathagata sinks deeper and deeper in His mind and sees the existence of Buddha as the ultimate beauty submerged in the void. While He sinks in a greater and greater depth of the mind, the flickers of rays fly as transitory thoughts describing the impermanence and nothingness behind the veil of Maya pervading all. He wishes not to exist in this illusory world and wants to turn into a block of stone and remain by this river by touching this marvellous stream that burns in the mind's incandescent glow. Hearing the words in His mind the river utters : " Sabbe sankhara anicca" : All that are constructed and effected by the interaction of the matter and mind are impermanent;" Sabbe dhamma anatta" : All conditioned quality is insubstantial; and "Sabbe Sankhara dukkha": All that are constructed and effected by the interaction of matter and mind are the sources of anguish suffering and pain, and shows the image of the suffering man in the beauty that flows through the stream . With this Tathagata feels a surge of love that has pervaded the world and spreads his hands forward towards the sentient being moving in the stream and touches the journey-man with the glow in His palms.

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