Note: the meaning of "gnosis" here means: our original face of
awareness where phenomena appear up-front like empty reflections on
the surface of a mirror. Things seem to be there; but actually they
are not.
http://www.keithdowman.net/dzogchen/old_man_basking_in_the_sun.htm
The First Vajra
Theme: Absence
'All things material and their qualities are absent'
I.1. The Disclosure of Absence
4. The Absence of All Concrete Reality
First let me tell you about 'absence',
the absence that is essentially emptiness:
in the super-matrix of pure mind that is like space
whatever appears is absent in reality.
Gnosis itself and everything appearing in its scope is
utterly empty, lacking any identity, so with all proliferating
projection and elaborating concepts undermined nothing ever comes
into existence.
In the nirvana of indeterminate gnosis,
there is no proliferation, no substance or attribute.
Despite appearances, form is emptiness and
emptiness is form and there is no center inside nor any point of
focus outside. The gnostic state is unoriginated and there is no
dualistic mind that proliferates ideas and creates an objective
universe full of specific things.
The super-matrix of pure mind is the
spaciousness of absence, likened to elemental space, in which
material phenomena appear as intangible images of
light:
5. A Definitive Simile for Absence
In the universal womb that is boundless space
all forms of matter and energy occur as flux of the four
elements,
but all are empty forms, absent in reality:
all phenomena, arising in pure mind, are like
that.
Though all phenomena of all worlds seem to come into existence and
perish in the sphere of elemental space, their appearance has no
basis and thus, insubstantial, they are said to be absent.
The four elements (earth, water, fire and air) that comprise
whatever appears, because they are not composed of discrete
particles, never actually come into being and, therefore, never
cease to exist. Neither the supported phenomena therefore, nor the
space that underlies them are actually established as existent.
Likewise, both gnosis and all experience appearing within its scope
are absent in reality.
Just as all worlds, inner and outer,
all forms of matter and energy,
the animate and inanimate,
all contained in space, are absent,
so is the vast field, the super-matrix of pure mind,
with its buddhas and sentient beings,
its crucible and contents, environment and life-forms:
in immaculate reality everything is nondual,
free of inflating or deflating conceptual
projection.
The hologram is a salient simile for our worlds and
galaxies projected into cosmic space. Atoms, elemental components
of matter, construed as 'supports' of materiality are said to be
'absent' insofar as their indivisibility precludes their
application as building blocks of more complex structures. Once the
fundament is discovered to be absent, 'supported' material
structures—planets, continents, animate and inanimate, flora and
fauna—must also be absent. The absence of the material realm is
employed as a simile for the status of all phenomena in the moment.
The fundament, 'the support', is the pure space of gnosis, while
the 'supported' is all experience appearing in its scope. The
ontological status of absent phenomena is nondual, free of all
evaluation in terms of existence or nonexistence. This existential
indeterminacy is termed 'absence' or 'ineffability'.
Rather than referring to the utter nonexistence of all and
everything, absence implies the lack of any exterior or interior
identity:
6. Appearances in the Nature of Mind are Inherently Absent
Magical illusion, whatever its form,
lacks substance, empty in nature;
likewise, all experience of the world, arisen in the moment,
unstirring from pure mind, is insubstantial evanescence.
All experience of the world and our outer environment
and the beings that partake of its energy, the crucible and its
contents, no matter what the form, all is as empty of
inherent existence as an hallucination of a world with illusory
inhabitants—nothing can
move outside the space of pure gnosis.
No experience of the world, inner or outer, no matter or
energy,
no event in samsara or nirvana, ever leaves pure mind.
Pure gnosis is our original
face of awareness where phenomena appear up-front like empty
reflections on the surface of a mirror. Things seem to be there;
but actually they are not. Everything is a
momentary illusion in the nature of mind; nothing whatsoever stirs
from or differs from the nature of mind.
Pure mind is the all-inclusive space-time of the
dream—of both samsara and nirvana:
8. The External World is Neither Mind Nor Anything But
Mind.
Experience may arise in the mind
but it is neither mind nor anything but mind;
it is a vivid display of absence, like magical illusion,
in the very moment unutterable.
All experience arising in the mind,
at its inception, know it as absence!
