An intensive with ShantiMayi

at

Sacha Mandala

Summer to Autumn / from fruit to seed

Projection to Insight / from expression to potential

 

This intensive was offered on September 22, 2000 

THE ZEN OF PERFECT INSIGHT

As it says in the verses praising perfect insight,
Perfect insight is truly objective, not distorted:
Thought, imagination, and envisioning gone,
Manners of verbal expression also vanish.

Infinite sins removed,
Pure clean mind always unified –
Such a fine respectable person
Is able to see insight.

Like space, without defilement,
Not a fantastic theory, not literal –
If you can see this way,
This is seeing Buddha.

If you truly see Buddha, insight, and nirvana,
These three are one – really they have no difference.
The buddhas and bodhisattvas can benefit everyone:
Insight is their mother, giving birth and nursing them.
Since Buddha is a father to all beings,
And insight gives birth to buddhas,
It is therefore the grandmother of all living beings.
Insight is one reality,
But Buddha speaks of it in various terms,
Using different words according to people's capacities.
If people see insight, they no longer want to dispute;
It is like the dew drying up all at once when the sun comes out.

The power of insight can move two kinds of people;
The ignorant are afraid, the knowing rejoice.

If people attain insight, they become insightful;
They are not obsessed even with insight,
Let alone other things!

Insight comes from nowhere, and also goes nowhere;
The intelligent may search everywhere
But cannot find it anywhere.

If they don't see insight, this is called being bound;
If people see insight, this too is called being bound.

If people see insight, this is attaining liberation;
If they don't see insight, they also attain liberation.

This fact is quite marvelous, extremely deep, and very significant.
It is like a magical object, which you see though it cannot be seen.

The buddhas and bodhisattvas,
The hearers and individual illuminates,
Liberation, nirvana, and the Way,
Are all realized through insight.

They speak in conventional terms for the world
Out of compassion for everyone,
Explaining things in provisional terms,
Not explaining even as they explain.

Perfect insight is like a bonfire,
Ungraspable from the four directions.

No grasping is not even grasped –
All grasping is relinquished.
This is called the ungraspable –
To grasp the ungraspable
Is called getting a grasp.

Insight has no destruction;
It is beyond all words and speech.
Wherever it goes, it does not abide –
Who can sing its merits?

 

Commentary
ShantiMayi offered this intensive in Denmark at the closing of Sacha Mandala (as an ashram) in late September.
Sacha Mandala still exists functioning without a leader or a direction.
There is more information on the situation at Sacha Mandala from ShantiMayi (click here).
This wonderful intensive gave an openness to the people in SM at a time of finalization.

 

Now, ShantiMayi will comment on the intensive document for the Un-Spun Web(site).

Part One

SM
Insight is that moment
when a lotus seed cracks in the mud and shoots up into the light of the sun.
Insight is indeed like a lotus flower, that once it is above the mud and in the light, the mud can no longer cling to it . Like water rolls off a duck's back, there is simply no residue that can cling once above the muddy water.
No residue, no filtered experience. Insight is in fact direct perceiving.
Insight delivers clarity, expelling the ignorance of duality, misunderstanding and egoity.
It is not possible to look for the source of insight, in the same way that it is not possible to look for the source of lightning in the sky. It is either there, or is not. Even when insight is inactive, the possibility for insight is always present. Insight is an automatic functioning that completely clears what was before unclear. In the worst situations, it is perfect insight that transforms negativity into favorable conditions and beyond as well.

The Zen of Insight is published by Shambhala Press, translated by Thomas Cleary is a very profound consideration.
For you who live in countries other than the USA, You can purchase it through Amazon Books on-line. This particular text is filled with delight and is challenging and of course awakening.

Let us begin with a commentary on this wonderful topic,
The Zen of Perfect Insight
part one.

As it says in the verses praising perfect insight,
Perfect insight is truly *unbiased, not distorted:
Thought, imagination, and envisioning gone,
Manners of verbal expression also vanish.

 

sm

Like in a moment of total awareness, nothing disturbs and all mental effort (and even effortlessness) ceases, in the same way that the sun dissolves and silences storms, leaving only clear and open space. When flying geese are perfectly reflected in still water, seeing purely life's unintentional movement and beauty, completely open, insight is the awakening factor. One can say nothing because no words can define, in the same way that it is impossible to drive a nail into the sky. No duality, no need to abolish duality. Perfect insight is not silence or activity and can not even be imagined. This great quality completely disregards knowledge and prejudice by penetrating past and shining through all limitations, completely. Every experiencing-being is moved along the way, is ripened and matured by perfect insight.
It is great to know that this faculty is as close to you as the sight in your eyes and the movement of your the breath.

Note* Thomas Cleary uses the word 'objective' here (above), but there are so many nuances and then meanings to the word 'objective' that I have changed it to 'unbiased'. Therefore if you wish to explore the facets of 'objective' , that is the term the translator has used.

 

Infinite sins removed,
Pure clean mind always unified-
Such a fine respectable person
Is able to see insight.

 

It is by insight that one gets past the confines of karma. It is very important to realize here that ('infinite sins removed') wisdom is brought about by insight, perfect insight
And it is not just good enough to say that your karma ceases because karma is an illusion.
There is in fact a profound insight that accompanies this realization. Just to hear the words and repeat them does nothing to ignite true understanding. There is an understanding, an understanding that removes selfishness completely replacing it with selflessness. No matter how many times you hear it, and no matter how true you wish it were, unless perfect insight has granted you passage into the deeper meaning, your understanding is weak. Such wisdom can only be upheld by a perfect insight. That's why insight is so important. It's surpasses and penetrates through your ideas and imaginations, shifting into the 'real and true' matter (so to speak).

All mind is pure and clean. * Intrinsically mind is empty, means pure and clean. But no matter how many times you say this, or how many times you hear it, it's only useless information without being awakened by the quality of insight. Insight means you understand it beyond your understanding, beyond words and logic.
Even knowing that true understanding (in the last analysis) is incomprehensible, right there; one abides in the wisdom of the 'truth'. One understands like they understand unconditional love while in the midst of the experience. It is understood that it is incomprehensible, but with true insightful wisdom.

Often times people hear pointers, which are pregnant with a profound meaning.
Like a parrot repeating words and not understanding what it's saying, people also hear and repeat but do not truly understand. The reason they do not understand is because they have no insight into the situation, into the matter. One who cannot see open mindedly without division, cannot understand how pure the essence of mind actually is. That is because the filters of duality, measure, prejudice and selfishness is the focus, then that is what is perceived.
The passage reads that one who has a pure clean mind and is always unified, such a one can see insight.
The passage calls that person "fine and respectable." It is because they have seen through their delusions by the grace of insight. Once insight has expression, that quality expands and grows, revealing what cannot be seen nor grasped. Revealing the pure clean mind and that total open-ended un-entangled activity of the sage, of yourself. That activity (in this passage) is without sin or shall we say misunderstanding or without blatant egoity .
'That activity' which is accompanied by true and perfect insight, casts no seeds of future necessity such as new karmas. It is through perfect insight that one comes to realize the deepest and most obvious secrets of life, the most open and unobstructed wisdom in the environment of an experiencing-being's life. Like a needle pierces a bubble bursts and merges space with space. Insight pierces delusion's bubble and bursts, opening the mind and heart to pure clear awakening, again and again.

This perfect insight is a never-ending beauty, always fragrant and freshly renewed.

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