The Great Secret of Mind

taught by Shakyamuni Buddha as definitive meaning. Whatever form we see,
whatever sound we hear, whatever aroma we smell, whatever taste we savor,
whatever touch we encounter, whatever we are conscious of in the five sense
fields—about these things we feel a certainty, a confidence in our knowledge.
Consider the eyes, however; they cannot see more than their own capacity allows,
and if the light is too bright, no matter how beautiful the object, we cannot look at
it. If we try to look at such brightness directly, our eyes will be damaged. Likewise,
the eardrum is very small and delicate and can hear only what is within its range
of frequencies, and if we are too close to a sound that can be heard a thousand
miles away, instantly we will go deaf, just as some people go deaf from the loud
noise of thunder. So is it wise to trust in such feeble faculties? All ordinary persons
insist that what exists should be proven through seeing, hearing, and mental
perception. Whatever cannot be seen, heard, or perceived by mind is regarded as
substantially nonexistent, as delusion. Incredulous critics call those fortunate
persons who believe in the inexpressible and inconceivable exalted teaching
superstitious fools with blind faith.
For those critics I would like to relate this anecdote. One day a man happened to
stumble into the kingdom of monkeys. The monkeys caught and examined him.
“This is a monkey,” said an elder of the tribe, “but it is a monkey without a tail.”
And the tribe of monkeys sat around and laughed at the man because he had no
tail.
Again, once during the time of Shakyamuni Buddha, the disciple Sariputra, who
was the most excellent in primal awareness, and Brahmajata, from the pure-land
of the Buddha Ashoka, debated the qualities of the realm of the fourth universal
guide, Shakyamuni. Sariputra argued that the realm of Shakyamuni, the fourth
buddha, is an impure realm strewn with rocks and stones and covered in thorn
bushes and that Shakyamuni Buddha and his retinue had shorter bodies than
buddhas residing in other realms. Bodhisattva Brahmajata, who had reached the
eighth level of the bodhisattva path, rejected Sariputra’s claim about the inferiority
of Shakyamuni’s realm. He maintained that the realm of Shakyamuni, the fourth
universal guide, has the same purity as the realm of the Buddha Vairochana
(Gangchan Tso), the highest buddha-field and source of all buddha-fields. They
could not agree upon this issue and decided to approach Shakyamuni Buddha
himself for the answer. Buddha transformed the world and its beings into a pure
realm with his miraculous power in order to dispel the notion of inferior and
superior. “My realm is always like this,” he said. Sariputra was amazed.
Shakyamuni asked Sariputra, “Is it the fault of the sun or the inadequacy of the
eye that a blind man cannot see things?” “It is the fault of the eye,” Sariputra
replied. “My realm will always be like the one perceived by Brahmajata,” the
Buddha told him. “The fault of not being able to see it is yours.”
If the subjective “knower” is pure, then the objective field is experienced as
pure. For example, people suffering from jaundice see a white conch as yellow. On
recovery, however, they see it as white. Similarly, the clarity of one’s faculties
determines the beauty and the fineness of perception. Devils in hell see ordinary
water as molten iron that tortures them. Hungry ghosts see the same water as pus