I just bought a book The Sun My Heart by world renowned Zen
Master Thich Nhat Hanh, and find it very good. I sent some parts to
Thusness and he liked it as well. Highly recommended. It is mostly
about Awareness, Non-Duality and Dependent Origination. While
discussing certain deeper Buddhist concepts, it is at the same time
highly practical and experiential. It teaches about maintaining
moment to moment mindful awareness in all our activities.
Here's an excerpt from part of his first chapter:
Sunshine and Green
Leaves
Beginning meditators usually think they must suppress all thoughts
and feelings (often called "false mind") in order to create
conditions favorable to concentration and understanding (called
"true mind"). They use methods such as focusing their attention on
an object or counting their breathes to try to block out thoughts
and feelings. Concentrating on an object and counting the breath
are excellent methods, but they should not be used for suppression
or repression. We know that as soon as there is repression, there
is rebellion -- repression entails rebellion. True mind and false
mind are one. Denying one is denying the other. Suppressing one is
suppressing the other. Our mind is our self. We cannot suppress it.
We must treat it with respect, with gentleness, and absolutely
without violence. Since we do not even know what our "self" is, how
can we know if it is true or false, and whether or not what to
suppress? The only thing we can do is to let the sunlight of
awareness shine on our "self" and en-lighten it, so we can look at
it directly.
Just as flowers and leaves are only part of a plant, and just as
waves are only part of the ocean, perceptions, feelings, and
thoughts are only part of the self. Blossoms and leaves are a
natural manifestation of plants, and waves are a natural expression
of oceans. It is useless to try to repress or stifle them. It is
impossible. We can only observe them. Because they exist, we can
find their source, which is exactly the same as our own.
The sun of awareness originates in the heart of the self. It
enables the self to illuminate the self. It lights not only all
thoughts and feelings present. It lights itself as well.
Let us return to the apple juice, quietly "resting." The river of
our perceptions continue to flow, but now, in the sunlight of
awareness, it flows peacefully, and we are serene. The relation
between the river of perceptions and the sun of awareness is not
the same as that of an actual river and the actual sun. Whether it
is midnight or noon, whether the sun is absent or its penetrating
rays are beaming down, the waters of the Mississippi River continue
to flow, more or less the same. But when the sun of awareness
shines on the river of our perceptions, the mind is transformed.
Both river and sun are of the same nature.
Let us consider the relationship between the color of leaves and
sunlight, which also have the same nature. At midnight, the
starlight and moonlight reveal only the form of the trees and
leaves. But if the sun were suddenly to shine, the green color of
the leaves would immediately appear. The tender green of the leaves
in April exists because the sunlight exists. One day, while sitting
in a forest, mimicking the Prajna
Paramita Heart Sutra, I wrote:
Sunshine is green leaves
Green leaves are sunshine
Sunshine is not different from green leaves
Green leaves are not different from sunshine
The same is true of all forms and colors.
As soon as the sun of awareness shines, at that very moment a great
change takes place. Meditators lets the sun of awareness rise
easily, so we can see more clearly. When we meditate, we seem to
have two selves. One is the flowing river of thoughts and feelings,
and the other is the sun of awareness that shines on them. Which is
our own self? Which is true? Which false? Which is good? Which bad?
Please calm down, my friend. Lay down your sharp sword of
conceptual thinking. Don't be in such a hurry to cut your "self" in
two. Both are self. Neither is true. Neither is false. They are
both true and both false.
We know that light and color are not separate phenomena. In the
same way, the sun of self and the river of self are not different.
Sit with me, let a smile form on your lips, let your sun shine,
close your eyes, if need be, to see your self more clearly. Your
sun of awareness is only part of your river of self, isn't it? It
follows the same laws as all psychological phenomena: it arises and
vanishes away. To examine something with a microscope, a scientist
must shine light on the object being observed. To observe the self,
you must shine light on it too, the light of awareness.
I just told you to put down your sword of conceptualization and not
cut your self into sections. Actually, you couldn't, even if you
wanted to. Do you think you can separate the sunshine from the
green color of the leaves? You can no more separate the observing
self from the self observed. When the sun of awareness shines, the
nature of thoughts and feelings is transformed. It is one with the
observing mind, but they remain different, like the green of the
leaves and the sunshine. Don't rush from the concept of "two" to
the concept of "one." This ever-present sun of awareness is at the
same time its own object. When a lamp is turned on, the lamp itself
is also brought to light. "I know that I know." "I am conscious of
being conscious." When you think, "The sun of awareness has gone
out in me," at that moment it re-lights itself, faster than the
speed of light.
some other quotations which Thusness liked --
"When we say I know the wind is blowing, we don't think that
there is something blowing something else. "Wind' goes with
'blowing'. If there is no blowing, there is no wind. It is the same
with knowing. Mind is the knower; the knower is mind. We are
talking about knowing in relation to the wind. 'To know' is to know
something. Knowing is inseparable from the wind. Wind and knowing
are one. We can say, 'Wind,' and that is enough. The presence of
wind indicates the presence of knowing, and the presence of the
action of blowing'."
"..The most universal verb is the verb 'to be'': I am, you are,
the mountain is, a river is. The verb 'to be' does not express the
dynamic living state of the universe. To express that we must say
'become.' These two verbs can also be used as nouns: 'being",
"becoming". But being what? Becoming what? 'Becoming' means
'evolving ceaselessly', and is as universal as the verb "to be." It
is not possible to express the "being" of a phenomenon and its
"becoming" as if the two were independent. In the case of wind,
blowing is the being and the becoming...."
"In any phenomena, whether psychological, physiological, or
physical, there is dynamic movement, life. We can say that this
movement, this life, is the universal manifestation, the most
commonly recognized action of knowing. We must not regard 'knowing'
as something from the outside which comes to breathe life into the
universe. It is the life of the universe itself. The dance and the
dancer are one."