Manjusri asked, "World-Honored One, what is the state of the unconditioned?"
The Buddha said, "The absence of thought is the state of the unconditioned."
DQ: What the Buddha is saying here is aligned with what he said above. "It is the state of no-thought, because all thoughts are equal."
The Buddha obviously isn't referring to complete thoughtlessness here, in the sense that an enlightened person ceases thinking altogether. That would be stupid. No, he is referring instead to the profound truth that, along with everything else in the Universe, thoughts lack inherent existence as well. Thoughts have always been fundamentally non-existent since the very beginning.
K: Oh, so when the Buddha said: "The absence of thought is the state of the unconditioned.", he really didn't mean what he was saying! He must have been using one of those 'turn of phrases' that Dan mentioned.
He meant it in the same way that he meant all the other things he said. If you recall, he said:
It is the state of emptiness, because all views are equal. It is the state of signlessness, because all signs are equal. It is the state of wishlessness, because the three realms are equal. It is the state of nonaction, because all actions are equal. It is the state of the unconditioned, because all conditioned things are equal.
Note that he didn't say, "it is a state of non-action because no actions take place". He meant something else entirely, something far more subtle and profound.
DQ: What do you spend your days doing, kowtaaia? Do you try and block out all thought from the mind and make it as blank as possible?
K: Is this another one of those "turn of phrases" that Dan mentioned? Do you understand how ignorant the question is?
Well, why don't you tell us how you go about your day.
K: The problem for you, David, is that even though you intellectually grasp that "ultimate reality" cannot be an experience; you want to be there with awareness exploding out of your head into infinity. Thusly, this ridiculousness: "I am a highly logical thinker who spends his days immersing himself in the Infinite."
DQ: Immersing oneself in the Infinite simply means no longer being spellbound by finite forms.
K: The original 'turn of phrase'!
I was directly pointing!
K: You are caught in the Dzogchen trap and you don't even know it. There are just too many quotes of the Buddha that dismiss your type of nonsense, to even bother posting them.
DQ: I make a distinction between enlightenment (the realization of emptiness) and ignorance, which places me directly at odds with Dzogchen's view that everyone is already enlightened.
K: A distinction? Hui Neng would have been so disappointed in you.
I rather doubt it, since he also made the distinction between enlightenment and ignorance. That is why he accepted the seal of enlightenment from his own teacher, and why he sent the rest of his life trying to enlighten others.
The fact that non-duality does not begin or end anywhere doesn't mean that there is no distinction between enlightenment and ignorance. Understanding non-duality is enlightenment; misunderstanding it is ignorance.
My one reads:By the way, your translation of Hui Neng's poetry, stinks.
From memory:
There never was a Bodhi Tree,
Nor bright mirror standing.
Fundamentally, not one thing exists,
So where is there dust to cling?
Do you understand why the above translation points directly to truth and why the one that you posted, does not?
There is no Bodhi-tree,
Nor stand of a mirror bright.
Since all is Empty,
Where can the dust alight?
You're chasing shadows. They both point to the same fundamental truth of emptiness. The reason why all is empty is because, fundamentally, not one thing exists.
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