“… All dharmas … do not appear nor disappear, are not tainted nor pure, do not increase nor decrease…”
For our ordinary mind it is impossible to allow this kind of expression. This kind of understanding is not recognized in our everyday life, in our everyday experience. Our understanding is phenomenal, like from birth to death, appearing to disappearing, or disappearing to appearing. It is like the pendulum on a clock, from good to bad, extreme happiness to extreme unhappiness, from the feeling of being pure to the feeling of being polluted. From heavy to light, gain to loss, the mind works in different realms and with different feelings. If someone says, “River is not river, birth is not birth, death is not death, light is not light, you are not you,” this brings a destructive feeling. You feel it when someone approaches you with, “You may think you exist, but what you understand about yourself may only be partly true. You don’t know yourself at all.” If someone says this to you, how shall you deal with this? It is like when a strong believer in some religion comes to the door and says to you, “You have never heard this; you have never thought this, so you must come to church. I’ll preach to you a lot of things and classify where you are, so you must come to church. Here is the schedule. Come!”
“… all dharmas do not appear nor disappear.” The English translation is a little softer than the original: In Sanskrit, Nutpanna means “arising” or “being born” so anutpanna is “not-appearing” or “not-being-born.” Niruddha means “disappear.” When smoke develops in the air and disappears from your sight, that state is called niruddha, scattering away, or penetrating away, like incense penetrates into the air, and disappears. When we are existences, like particles of smoke or incense, we cannot believe that we appear and disappear, but we feel that since we appeared, we will also go away, so there is a limitation. And in between this appearing and disappearing is a big occasion. We are filled by stuff which is the contents of all existence. It goes on until we get tired and disappear. So when we say, “…dharma doesn’t appear, doesn’t disappear,” it sounds like, “No man is to be born, and he never dies.” You are saying something is going on which doesn’t relate with your idea, feeling, or senses.
Psychologically, if we are told a thing doesn’t appear and doesn’t disappear, we cannot find such a thing, so we say there is nothing, “no thing.” So then you say, “I am no thing; I do not exist. Emptiness means I don’t exist so I cannot be known by anybody.” In ordinary understanding, to exist is to be known by somebody else. With a deeper way of understanding, we ask: “How can I know ‘I’ exist? Does an idea exist?” I know ‘I’ was born, ‘I’ may die some day. How can it be said, “This ‘I’ exists.”? If I exist merely as something which you understand to be a man, you look at me and see something which looks like a man, and yet this kind of knowing is the same as seeing footprints in the dust when you walk on the street. Seeing that things exist is like looking at a star in the sky. By this kind of seeing, you cannot understand what God is, or what emptiness is. But if I say, “I see you’re not a woman,” you may say, “What! I am a woman! My whole body and mind is working as a woman, different from a man!” When I say, “I do not see you as a mere woman,” then you may begin to feel, “He is saying something.” Understanding your existence as a woman, I’m also talking about this existence as something a little more fundamental.
The important point is that one understanding is like a white moon, a completely white, silver moon, and in another understanding all these experiences come in, so maybe a black moon. When a silver moon and black moon merge, maybe a grey moon, maybe just a bright moon appears. That is how you appear. This thing, this Dharma which doesn’t appear and at the same time has never disappeared, the Dharma which has never been tainted nor purified, the Dharma which has never increased nor decreased, actually, what it is, is pointing to you. You exist in that way, in our understanding, in the world as a being, as all these experiences appearing and disappearing, increasing and decreasing; and from small to large, you grow up.
Our mind, in all of the senses, is so important a factor in our existence that we sometimes misunderstand and think that the mind is ourself, “my mind is me.” This is why it happens: When I am happy, I exist as the happy one, and when I’m not happy, I feel I’m a very bad existence. Actually, this phenomenal being is expressing happiness and unhappiness, depending on how it is existing. Someone will feel great happiness from a small thing, someone else will never feel happiness from the same thing. Sunshine, brightness is different depending on each person. Seen just as a physical reflection the moon may appear in the same way to every person, but, depending on the personal situation of each person, there can be a black moon, or black sun. For some people thunder will be the roar of a hell-dweller, but for some the same thunder is joy of the gods.
Absolute existence and complete perfect existence are constantly merging, and make it possible for a thing to exist. Our understanding can begin from this point, not end at this point. We don’t know, and we cannot tell, the reason of life. Why does water, why does a sip of tea, become alive? It is just water. Why does this water turn to my element and actually carry my life? If it is just physical existence, material existence, it cannot become my word, it cannot become some feeling, shine of eyes. Maybe water, itself, is a part of a river which penetrates everywhere, and I am communicating with part of the river which is called water, and this river’s basic nature is penetrating into everything, penetrating, not with wetness, but like light, which goes into everything. When it goes into a man’s mouth, it becomes man, when it goes into a cow, maybe part of it becomes milk!
The water in this sense is a very important thing for the spiritual world, as a metaphor showing both sides, the material and the spiritual. It maybe shows matter and no-matter in itself. So when the penetration of the water disappears, a whole existence collapses like ashes. Like when a man’s mind is very dry…when you pour water in from the top or from the bottom, naturally this man gets life. A very symbolic way to express awareness of this life is through water.
“Are not tainted nor pure,…” Whether existence can be “tainted” or “purified,” is a very important point, too. Can such a thing as purification exist? Because there was no impurity, no purification is possible to express. You have never been tainted, but you may have thought up to now you have been tainted! Sin and salvation are the same concept. If you are originally a sinner, there will never be an opportunity to be saved, because sin can never become an element of the Kingdom. Being a sinner and being saved cannot coexist. This means the real world is beyond that, and the real world is always with you.
“…increase nor decrease.” Maybe symbolically I can express what it is: Like a wallet, with much money it expands, with little money it contracts, but this is a very limited view. Actually, money doesn’t increase or decrease by your acts. When you buy something, you feel good. When you spend money feeling, “This is a very little part of a big thing,” then you feel good. If the feeling is “This is all the money I have,” you feel you are decreasing. If this happens again and again you can never be freed from your attachment to life. But if you give up completely, you can be freed from life attachment. It doesn’t mean you have to give up everything. You can still put clothes on your body, and be freed from life.
The poorest person is the richest person, because the poorest has nothing, not even his life, so he becomes a very rich person. No one can be compared with him. “Form is emptiness” has this logic. A sesame seed and the universe have almost the same weight, if you see in this way. On one side of the scale you put a sesame seed, on the other side you put the whole universe, and also another sesame seed. The scale remains level. This is “form is emptiness.”
I’m talking about yourself. The Self is the universe, including yourself as understood in the ordinary way. People say, “He is Kobun. She is Mary.” This way we exist, permitting and knowing that others exist. You dwell in something which makes you understand others. “Understand,” in this sense, means to make others free in your world. It is impossible to have two freedoms in one moment. If there are two men, both free from something, they always fight, because with each in complete freedom they never say, “You are free in me.” Until the last one, this fighting of freedoms goes on and on. If this happens when humans have faith in an absolute being, the two believers never come together. They come together only with the Absolute, never with each other.
If I go down the street and yell at people, “I am the same as the universe!” people will ask, “Is he crazy?”. But what we have to know is, what I actually believe is different from what I am saying. I know that this little body is different from the universe. I am different from the teacup and paper, but when I say, “I am the same as the teacup and paper,” I am saying something which is felt within me, not in the usual way. Another way to say this is, “If you move your hand and touch the floor, you are actually feeling yourself, and yet, you are also feeling everything.”