Andre Halaw - No-Mind: Realizing Your True Nature

No-Mind:

Realizing Your True Nature

Andre Halaw

Copyright Andre Halaw 2015

This book is dedicated to the loving memory

of Sarah LeBlanc (1/20/1978 - 6/4/2008).

Your heart and spirit will never

fade or be forgotten.

Special thanks to Jonson Miller for

his help proofreading. Thank you, my friend.

Buddha by nature is not a tree,

The mirror is inherently formless.

There is originally nothing,

On what, then, can the dust settle?

Huineng

Carefully observe, but see no dharmas (phenomena),

see no body, and see no mind.

For the mind is nameless,

the body is empty, and the dharmas are a dream.

Sheng Yen

Without defect, without dharmas,

No arising, no mind.

Seng Tsan, Faith in Mind

Introduction

Despite what the title might suggest, this is not a Zen book, at least not exclusively. It is about realizing the Absolute reality that transcends cultures and spiritual traditions. I borrow the term No-Mind from Chan (early Zen) Buddhism because it perfectly expresses the awakened mind. The teachings herein are not the property of any single spiritual tradition. I draw from a variety of sources, primarily Taoism, Chan, and Advaita Vedanta , though some of the practices are my own creation.

The Absolute has been realized by sages throughout history and across all contemplative cultures. It is known by many names, depending upon the culture where it is found. Hindus call it Atman or Brahman; to Buddhists, it is Nirvana, Buddha Nature, Dharmakaya, Rigpa, or Dharmata; to Christian mystics, it might be called Christ Consciousness, Noumenon, or God. In Taoism it is known as the Tao.

Throughout this book, I will refer to it as No-Mind, the Absolute, the Void, Nothingness, Not-knowing, Non-awareness, and Non-being.

All of these names point to the same fundamental reality. Though the way that awakened people understand and express their experience depends upon the culture in which it is realized, the truth remains the same.

The most important thing to remember always is that, regardless of what we choose to call it, the Absolute is utterly non-conceptual. All ideas about it must be demolished, destroyed, annihilated, tar-and-feathered, and ultimately transcended. I cannot stress this enough. If you want to realize the Absolute, you must be willing to abandon all conceptions of the Absolute, including those found in this book . Just as pole vaulters let go of the pole after they vault, use whatever techniques from this book you find helpful, then let them go.

Especially the concepts. If you have any ideas or opinions about Nothingness, you must abandon them because they will only become obstacles between you and the Absolute.

The non-conceptual Absolute gives birth to, sustains, and embraces all of existence. It precedes existence altogether and acts as the very basis of all somethings. It is the needle head upon which all of existence dances.

Most significantly, it is available right here, right now, as your and all beings true nature.

You are a manifestation of the Absolute, as is the entire universe. The Absolute is the only true reality. Everything depends upon it, is an expression of it, and thus can never be separate from it. Another, perhaps more useful, way of understanding the relationship is that the universe is what Absolute Nothingness does. We are the function of Non-being.

When we realize the Absolute present in the world around us, as us , doing us (so to speak), we awaken to No-Mind, our true nature.

In addition to laying the necessary philosophical groundwork, this book will provide you with concrete practices to realize No-Mind for yourself. Yet it does not develop in a strict, linear fashion. Its more of a bombardment on the senses, like a boxers assault, than a systematic progression from Chapter 1 to Chapter 2, and so on.

I hope that you find the book helpful. May it benefit all beings.

In Chan Buddhism, No-Mind means realizing our true nature, which is Buddha, Nirvana, Mind, or enlightenment. Derived from the Chinese characters wu shin , No-Mind is the practice of penetrating to our deepest self, the fundamental ground of realitythe Absolute.

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The Absolute

The Absolute is the root of all existence. Existence, in its broadest sense, refers to everything that is . Anything that we can hear, see, smell, taste touch, emotebasically anything that can be sensed or perceivedexists. The totality of all that exists composes existence or being. This includes us and the world in which we live. Not just the material dimension, but all that is in the full existential sense of the term.

Yet, existence is not everything. There is more to reality than just what exists.

Enter the Absolute.

The Absolute is not the opposite of being; it is the very basis of it. Everythingfrom the moon and stars to a lump of coalhas the Absolute as it true nature. As Paul Brunton, student of the revered Hindu sage Ramana Maharshi, writes, Every conceivable kind of form comes out of the seeming Void into time and space.

Yet the Absolute itself has no features whatsoever; it has no form, taste, texture, sound, or smell. It cannot be perceived by the body or conceived by the mind. This explains why Brunton calls it the Void.

The Absolute does not exist in any way, shape or form, for it transcends existence altogether. As the very basis of existence, the Absolute cannot be relegated to the realm of existence.

Things exist; the Absolute does not.

But neither does it not exist , at least not in the same way that a unicorn fails to exist. The Absolute is the vast, impenetrable Groundless Ground that precedes and predicates existence itself. It transcends all dualities, including existence and nonexistence. For this reason, I call it Absolute Non-being .

To quote Brunton again, [t]his indescribable Void out of which the universes appear, this utter Nothing between and behind them, this unknown Power between and behind the atoms themselves, is God.

Absolute Non-being does not have any form, for if it did, it would exist, and then by definition it would cease to be the Absolute. Form has limitations; Non-being does not. Yet form is none other than a manifestation of unmanifest Non-being.

To understand this trulyto realize that ones own true nature and all of existence is the Absoluteis No-Mind.

In common parlance, this is Enlightenment.

No-Mind is the act of seeing past our false sense of a limited self, rooted in conditioned existence or being, and realizing that our and all beings true nature is the limitless and deathless Absolute.

This does detract from being; it places it in its proper context. The wind cannot exist without the sky. This does not devalue it; it merely delineates the winds true nature, which is dependent upon the sky for its own existence.

If there were no sky, there could be no wind.

Yet, in a very real sense, the wind is a manifestation and function of the sky, just as being is an incarnation and function of Nothingness.

Being appears upon the sky of Non-being, and therefore has no reality whatsoever independent of its source. When we realize this, the world around ascends to the highest level of meaning and value, for we understand that our lives, just as they are, are actually the total manifestation of the magnificent Absolute.

In fact, there is nowhere that we can realize the Absolute but right here, on this earth, in this very life.

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The Earth is the Ground

In the most iconic representation of the Buddha, entitled the Earth Witness Mudra, moments after reaching Enlightenment, the Buddha touches the earth for it to bear witness to his awakening. Traditionally, this gesture represents the ultimate testimony to his Buddhahood, as the very earth acknowledges his insight.